by Michel Stone
“Not really. I received him from an old man who drives the trash truck. The driver, his name is Francisco, found the little fellow sitting in the mud beside his dead mother, a prostitute the trash man recognized from his years working the dump.”
The child wore only a dingy T-shirt, a size too small, and nothing more. His feet, legs, and bottom were caked in dried mud, and several of his many sores and scrapes appeared infected. He rubbed his eyes with dirty fists, and Karolina suspected him to be at least two and a half years old, though he looked much younger.
Perhaps one day such sights would breeze by Karolina without affecting her, but she could not imagine that day. She reached for the child, and the officer passed him to her. A patch of hair was missing from behind his right ear, and the hair that remained was sparse and brittle.
“The old trash man said he’d seen the child’s mama around the dump for the past few years. He suspected she was about seventeen. He thought she had at least one other child, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t confusing her with another whore out there,” the officer said.
The child weighed about what a healthy one-year-old should weigh. Though Karolina was just twenty-six, she felt she’d seen more than a lifetime’s share of abandonment, starvation, homelessness, and extreme poverty among helpless children.
“He can’t walk,” the officer said. “Nothing visibly wrong with his legs, but he isn’t capable of walking.”
Karolina shook her head and brushed the child’s hair from his eyes. “He’s likely lame from lack of maternal nutrition during the pregnancy. And, of course, this little guy’s own poor nutrition his whole miserable life.” She stared into the child’s dark eyes as she held him, his eyelids heavy and rimmed in dust. She gently swayed, losing herself in her imaginings of his difficult, almost impossible existence.
“Well,” she said. “I need to put down a name. What did you say was the driver’s name who discovered him?”
“Francisco,” he said. “But I don’t know his last name.”
“That doesn’t matter. Francisco is what I’ll put down for this child’s name. You are little Francisco, no?” she said, tickling the child’s exposed and swollen belly. He did not respond with a giggle or even a grin, but stared at her blankly, perhaps wondering where his mama had gone.
The officer turned to go.
“Hey, let me ask you something,” Karolina said. “Any chance you remember a car accident a few years ago involving a baby girl?”
He scratched his chin. “You have any more information than that? I’ve been around a lot of crashes, you know? And unfortunately plenty with children involved.”
Yes, of course he had, Karolina thought. “This crash involved a couple, both killed, and the baby, the little girl who was the lone survivor, had false papers. The papers claimed her name was Ernesto. Maybe you remember something about that?” Karolina said, gently rubbing the listless boy’s back as she spoke.
“No,” the officer said, shaking his head as he turned again to go. “I don’t recall anything like that. I can’t help you. Wish I could.”
Karolina nodded and mumbled a thank-you, then took Francisco to the nurse to clean him, feed him, and perform a physical exam.
When she’d left him there, she washed her hands and fixed herself a cup of coffee before completing paperwork on the boy. She thought about the phone call she’d received from the village priest down in Oaxaca; she’d been so busy she’d not had time to investigate the possibility that the child he sought resided here. How could she even begin to find an answer for him? So many children had passed through the doors here, and the majority of them with little or no documentation accompanying them upon their arrival. She could pore over files, looking for a story that matched the one the priest had relayed to her, or she could study files dated in the time frame the priest thought the child had arrived, or she could ask the staff who’d been here that long if anyone recalled admitting the infant girl child who’d arrived with fake papers bearing a boy’s name.
She looked up when the buzzer at the front door sounded, and through the glass she saw a thin, bleary-eyed young woman holding two matching babies. Twins. Karolina’s efforts on behalf of the priest in Oaxaca would have to wait. She went to the door, praying the small, tired woman at the threshold had come simply asking directions to another place, but even as Karolina’s fingers gripped the worn knob she knew better. At this rate she’d soon be turning babies away.
Chapter 21
Lilia
Lilia lay flat on her back with a thick, hard pillow under her hips, as if elevating her bottom would keep the baby inside. Rosa had helped her change her skirt and underwear and fetched her a glass of water. Rosa’s solution to most of life’s troubles involved water: drinking it, bathing in it, listening to it, swimming in it, soaking a rag in it infused with mint and lavender leaves and draping it across one’s neck or brow, or across one’s wrists.
“You’re fortunate to live in modern times, Lilia,” Rosa said, laying a soft blanket across Lilia’s legs. Lilia knew Rosa intended her words to comfort and soothe her like the blanket, to envelop her in a feeling of well-being and relief, but the sweat beading along the dark hairs above Rosa’s lips betrayed her, and Lilia sensed Rosa’s concern.
“When I was a girl,” Rosa continued, “my older sister labored in childbirth for four days. The ancient medicine woman in our village had birthed hundreds of babies, I’m sure. She’d helped deliver my mama, my siblings, and me, but she couldn’t help my sister. Caesarean deliveries existed far away in big-city hospitals, but here in Puerto Isadore such possibilities were unknown. You think this surgery is rare now? In the days of my youth no one knew these procedures existed.”
“She died in childbirth?” Lilia said, taking a small sip of lukewarm water and thinking of her own dead mother.
“Oh, no, though sometimes I know she wished she had,” Rosa said, her brow creased in memory of a distant and hard time. A half-grown chicken strutting through Lilia’s house flapped up onto the table beside the bed, and Rosa swatted it away with the back of her hand.
“The baby arrived stillborn. We had no way to get to a clinic as you were able to do in Oaxaca City when Fernando decided to enter this world upside down.” Rosa smiled a weary smile, no doubt recalling a private sense of pride for diagnosing Fernando’s breech position, which probably saved Lilia’s life.
“In those days the village medicine woman was all a young mother had, you see,” Rosa said. “Not so different from today, but today we can get to a bus route. Today we can travel to a clinic if we must.”
Lilia nodded, gently rubbing her belly with the pads of her fingers, as if willing this child to live and not do as Rosa’s sister’s child had done.
“My sister labored too long. I remember hearing her cries and feeling afraid. Our mother made me stay outside where I slept on a mat with my younger brother. Even so, we heard our sister’s wailing day and night, day and night, and day again, and yet, the baby would not come.
“This would have been my first niece or nephew, my first close experience with human birth. I’d witnessed the births of goats, dogs, piglets, calves, but my sister seemed to be struggling far more and far longer than any animal I’d ever seen give life, and I knew then I’d never have a baby.” Rosa smiled and shrugged. “Ah, but we see how that vow worked out.”
Lilia thought of Rosa’s five children who, as far as Lilia knew, had entered the world with no great difficulty.
“Her head—the baby was a girl—was wedged hard against my sister’s pelvis, cutting off the blood supply that eventually killed the baby but also the tissue there. My sister’s birth canal and urinary tract were destroyed. Everything down there,” Rosa said, shaking her head. “She lost her dignity that day along with her first and only child.”
Lilia studied her friend’s face, but Rosa’s mind had drifted far from this moment, far from Lilia, and she no longer gave the pretense of nonchalance at Lilia’s predicament
with her own unborn baby.
“Even after the bleeding stopped and the normal time for healing had passed, my poor sister could never control her water.”
As if reading Lilia’s mind, Rosa turned to her. “And I don’t mean the way you sneeze and lightly wet your underpants, Lilia. All mothers know that experience. No. My sister’s bladder and rectum were worn through and incapable of maintaining their functions.
“No one could stand the smell of my sister, though of course we loved her and did our best. She bathed in rose and lavender water each night and each morning for the rest of her life, and she carried chips of fragrant soap in her pockets in an effort to mask the stench of urine and feces she could not contain. My mother stitched little pouches into the waistbands of her skirts where she’d tuck orange peels, flower blossoms, anything to hide the odor of her incontinence.”
“That would be a miserable existence,” Lilia said softly, hoping she’d not face a similar fate.
“Yes, miserable.” Rosa nodded. “She was never the same gentle person she’d always been. Of course, she was bitter from losing her first child, and in such a physically difficult way, but then her husband left her. The seed of bitterness swelled and ripened into the nastiest of fruits. She grew ashamed, though, of course, what could she do? I don’t recall my sister ever smiling again, such trauma to her body and spirit. She lived out her days an outcast.”
If Rosa’s story was meant to cheer Lilia about her good fortune of living in such modern times, the effort fell short. Her sister’s sad tale tapped into a vein of hot tears that flowed from some place deep and unexpected in Lilia.
She anticipated Rosa scolding her for crying and telling her she would not suffer a similar fate as had Rosa’s sister, but instead Rosa said, “Don’t get up. I’ll be back shortly,” then she headed out the door.
Lilia grew heavy eyed and floated to sleep listening to the gentle cooing of a dove somewhere beyond her window. She awoke to Rosa standing over her with a basket in her arms.
“Are you bleeding much?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. I did as you said. I haven’t gotten up.”
“Are you in pain? Feeling any cramps?” Rosa asked, setting the basket on the floor beside Lilia.
“No. I feel tired but otherwise not bad,” Lilia said.
“This is good, Lilia. In order to keep this baby inside you must do as I say. No cocoa for you, no chocolate. Nothing that will stimulate you or the baby. We will keep your water pitcher filled, and you must drink all day and during the night. You should feel you are going to float away on the sea of water you’re drinking.”
“Yes, okay,” Lilia said, noting the change in Rosa. No longer reminiscing about the past, Rosa’s demeanor was businesslike and authoritative.
“You’ll have three small cups of mescal a day, one in the morning, one with lunch, and one before bed. The alcohol will prevent contractions and relax your uterus. We must keep you from going into labor, keep your cervix from dilating. Each day we prevent these things, that baby will stay inside and grow. Her lungs will strengthen, and she’ll have a better chance of thriving when she decides to enter this world.”
These instructions did not surprise Lilia; alcohol and water were staples of Rosa’s treatments.
“Here, drink this,” Rosa said, passing Lilia a cup of some peculiar-smelling elixir.
Lilia brought the cup to her nose. “What’s in this?”
“You’d rather not know,” Rosa said, pouring herself a hefty cup of mescal and leaning back in the chair she’d pulled beside Lilia’s bed.
“It smells horrible, like a dead fish,” Lilia said, taking the tiniest sip.
Rosa nodded and licked her lips. “Yes,” she said, “I suppose it does.” She tipped back the cup of mescal until she’d drained it, then placed the cup beside the bottle on the table.
“Dear Mother Mary of Jesus,” Lilia said, trying to swallow the cup’s contents in one big gulp. “I can’t do this.”
Rosa laughed, poured herself another cup of mescal, and looked into Lilia’s cup. “Halfway there, girl,” she said, sitting back in her chair.
Lilia eyed her, resigning herself to the reality that Rosa always won. She finished off the fishy liquid in a final, desperate gulp, then brought the back of her hand to her mouth to suppress the vomit she felt surfacing.
“Keep it down,” Rosa barked, all softness gone from her voice.
Lilia squeezed her eyes shut tight and willed the nauseating liquid to settle into her stomach.
After a full minute, Rosa said, “That’s it. Good. Very good.”
“Well?” Lilia said, when she could speak, her gut churning.
“Well, what?”
“What was that?” Lilia said.
“Fish oil, wild yam root, and orange juice,” Rosa said, her eyes sparkling.
“I need some mint,” Lilia said, closing her eyes and reclining onto her pillow. “That was the foulest concoction.”
“That foul drink will save your baby. The fish and the yam offer something magical, medicinal, that lowers inflammation and will keep contractions at bay, and the citrus juice is packed with important vitamins that help with swelling and general well-being.
“I’m not finished with you yet, girl. Pull up your skirt,” Rosa said, reaching down for something beside the bed, which Lilia couldn’t see. When the hem of her skirt was just beneath her swollen breasts, Rosa laid a warm, damp cloth across Lilia’s lower belly.
“How’s that?” Rosa asked, though Lilia knew Rosa cared nothing for an answer.
The warmth did feel comforting, calming, and Lilia again closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the pleasure instead of the fish slime lingering in the back of her throat.
“I soaked the cloth in a tincture made of herbs, roots, and berries from my garden. They relieve cramps, though you say you’re having none yet, and that is a good sign. The solution will relax your muscles and calm your female parts. How do you feel?”
Aside from the horrible but slowly fading taste in her mouth, Lilia had begun to loosen up, and the tension she hadn’t realized she was carrying had subsided. “Relaxed,” she said.
Fernando toddled into the room holding the rascally hen that had been pecking through the house. “Look!” he squealed. “I got it. I got the chicken, Mama!”
“Come here, my boy,” Lilia said, reaching for Fernando’s unavailable hand that gripped the squirming, fluttering hen a bit too tightly. “Let that silly chicken go, and give your fat mama a kiss.”
The boy would not release the pullet, but leaned into Lilia and gave her a wet kiss on the cheek.
“So,” Rosa said, standing with a soft grunt that hinted at her aging bones and joints. “Every day, you know what you must do. If you’re not hardheaded as is your tendency, and you do as I instruct, this baby will stay put and grow as she must grow. Come, Fernando.”
The sweet child, still clutching the agitated hen, kissed Lilia’s cheek once more then gingerly extended the fowl to Lilia’s face. “Chicken kiss you, too, Mama.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you, señorita,” Lilia said to the chicken, then added, “Run along, now, with Tía Rosa, Fernando.”
Rosa left the room, and Lilia listened to her and Fernando talking beyond the window in the yard behind the house, though she could not make out their words.
She thought of Héctor. If he called her on the priest’s phone, Lilia would likely not be able to take the call, now that Rosa had forced her to bed. Perhaps Héctor and Alejandra would return home soon, and perhaps this baby would remain in Lilia’s womb long enough to survive and live a normal life, and Lilia and Héctor would live out their days with their three children and maybe more, despite the problems with this pregnancy.
Those thoughts comforted her and gave her buoyancy when she felt herself sinking in her despair. When bad thoughts entered her mind, she willed them away through prayer and by conjuring pleasant images like snapshots from the happier, more carefree past
.
Yet for every hopeful thought she could muster, a dark possibility would creep into her head. Then she’d consider the very real likelihood that Alejandra had long been dead, her thin, white bones resting someplace Lilia would never see; and that Héctor could die in Acapulco or other parts north in his efforts to find Alejandra, and Lilia would never see Héctor again; and that this baby growing inside her would arrive too early, with a brain not fully formed and the bones of a cripple so that Lilia would live out her own days tending a sick, malformed invalid whom she’d have to carry everywhere and feed mashed mango and melon long after the child’s teeth had grown in.
She imagined spiders crawling across the arms and legs of her frail offspring, who, because of deficiencies, could not scrape the toxic, biting bugs from its own limbs. Lilia would try to brush them off the feeble child, but the spiders would advance and creep across Lilia’s face as well, and she could do nothing to stop them.
Lilia hadn’t realized she’d almost fallen asleep, that her wakeful musings had drifted toward nightmarish imaginings, that Fernando stood beside her bed and tickled her cheek with a fresh, green sprig and whispered, “Here, Mama. You sleeping, Mama? Rosa said for me to bring you mint.”
Chapter 22
Ana María
Emanuel and Diego the Magnificent sat on stools looking more drunk than sober, though sometimes gauging those two proved difficult, especially Diego. Ana María had been working the back of the restaurant, not the bar where the men sat, but she’d seen them drinking beer and a couple of times throwing back shots of some liquor, though she couldn’t tell what kind. A rerun from yesterday’s World Cup match between Mexico and France played on the small television above the bar, but the sound was off. Everyone knew Mexico had won, 2–0, but still, no one could get enough of futbol, especially during the World Cup.
“Ana María,” Diego shouted, when she stepped behind the bar to wash her hands and remove her apron. The earlier crowd had thinned to a lone couple who’d paid but lingered over drinks in the back.
