Delia's Heart (26 page)

“And there were just as many people at the cemetery. Of course, everyone was asking about you. My mother should have let you come. It looks worse because you didn’t come.

“What a waste. He was like a movie star. Are you going back to Mexico right after your graduation?” she followed almost in the same breath.

“I don’t know.”

“You should. That’s where you belong. You’re never going to meet or find someone like Adan again. What can you do but become someone’s maid or watch someone else’s kids? You’ll get fat and ugly like most of them and marry some toothless gardener.

“God,” she said, shaking her head as she looked at me. “Remember when you were so damn high and
mighty, threatening me with Fani’s pictures and everything?”

I looked at my book.

“You can pretend you don’t care, Delia, but you don’t fool me.” She laughed. “Forget about that idea of becoming a nurse, too.”

I looked up sharply. How did she know that? She saw the surprise in my face and laughed.

“You told the guidance counselor at the public school, and he mentioned it to my mother. You know what she said? She said with your luck, every patient you touch will drop dead. This room really smells,” she concluded. “I think the sewer is backing up or something. Ugh.”

She turned and left.

I waited until I heard the outside door close behind her, and then I stood up and screamed in silence, the sound echoing inside me and traveling down into the very bottom of my soul.

And then everything went black, and I seemed to take hours crumbling and sinking, my body folding cell by cell, until I poured onto the cold cement floor and drifted through a dark tunnel in which memories flashed on walls, faces, places, laughter, and screams.

I had no idea how long I was unconscious, but that was the way Inez found me. Señora Rosario came quickly, and the two of them got me into my bed. Señora Rosario hurried back to tell
mi tía
Isabela. She came to see me, but I remember when I opened my eyes, she looked as if she was standing very far away, and everything and everyone else was quite out of focus. I could barely hear them speaking, too. Their muffled voices ran into each other.

I closed my eyes again and turned away.

Apparently,
mi tía
Isabela’s first reaction was to leave me alone.

“It’s just a hysterical, self-serving cry for pity. Let her sleep it off. She’ll get up and come out when she’s hungry enough, believe me,” she told them.

Everyone was ordered to leave me alone.

Later, I was told that for nearly twelve hours, I didn’t move, didn’t turn, didn’t open my eyes. Tía Isabela was brought back to look at me. What convinced her to do something else was the sight of my having messed myself.

“Ridiculous!” she cried, and left.

She called her personal physician, Dr. Bayer, who, after examining me, told her I was in what he believed was a hysterical coma, especially after he reviewed the past events.

“Well, can’t you give her a shot or something?”

“We’ll give her a mild tranquilizer,” he told her, “but this is more of a psychological problem.”

“It’s just an attempt to get people to feel sorry for her,”
mi tía
Isabela insisted, but her doctor shook his head.

“No, Isabela, she’s not faking it.”

Apparently disgusted, but unable to ignore me now, she agreed to have me taken to the psychological ward at the hospital. She even agreed to an ambulance. I was unaware of any of it, but later, I learned it all from Inez, who found time to visit me and describe the scene.

Actually,
mi tía
Isabela found this all to be quite convenient. With her money and power, she had me transferred to a nearby clinic for continued treatment
and psychological counseling. I became responsive a day after I was placed in the clinic, and out of shame, she came to see me. She acted concerned, especially when she spoke with the doctors and nurses.

When we were finally alone, the motherly demeanor left her, and the Tía Isabela I knew so well instantly returned.

“Well,” she said, “you outdid us all when it comes to drama. Even Sophia couldn’t achieve such a performance.”

I said nothing. She looked around my room.

“You have a nice private room here, Delia. I’ll see to it that you are kept comfortable. It’s the ideal place for you right now. No one can get to you, and you can think about your future in Mexico, because that’s where you should go now. Go back to the pathetic village. I’ll stake you to some money, and you’ll return like a heroine.”

I didn’t reply, but I could see that for her, her so-called guardianship would be ended, and her conscience, if she had any left, would be soothed.

“Sometimes solutions find themselves,” she continued. “You obviously have no future here. If anything, you should be grateful and thank me for all this.” She lifted her arms to indicate the clinic. “All I ask is that you keep up your performance so no one badgers me about taking you home.
Comprende
, Delia Yebarra?”

I looked away.

I heard her laugh before she rose. She stood there for a few moments to see if I would respond, and then I heard the whispering sound of her skirt as she left my room. For a long moment, I just stared at the wall. When I saw that she was truly gone, I closed my eyes again and fell asleep.

Days went by very slowly. I did have a very nice psychiatrist, Dr. Jensen, who happened to be fluent in Spanish. He was in his mid-fifties and very kind and caring. He kept me on some mild medications. He told me it wasn’t a bad thing for my aunt to be able to afford to keep me in his care.

“We have to address this deep-seated guilt you feel, Delia,” he said. “You have taken on far too much blame and responsibility for people and events you really could not control. You did not hurt anyone deliberately. In time, I hope you will realize this.

“As for this evil eye you speak of,” he added, smiling, “it’s really more like an excuse, a way to blame something else for your misfortune, rather than coincidence or events caused by someone else.” He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to attempt to wash away centuries of superstitions. I’m not that arrogant.”

I really did like him, and he helped me to feel better about myself much faster than I thought possible.

I did some reading and some arts and crafts, watched a little television, gradually developed more and more of an appetite, and started to do exercise.

It was well into my third week before Inez came to visit me and describe what had occurred. She told me things were quite back to normal, which meant Sophia was her usual obnoxious self and Tía Isabela was once again absorbed with her social life.

“No one is permitted to speak about you,” she said. “Señora Dallas didn’t come right out and say it, but it’s very clear.”

“And Edward?”

“He hasn’t been home. I don’t know, but I don’t think he calls much.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come here, Inez,” I said. “It’s liable to get back to my aunt.”

“I’m not afraid.” She leaned closer. “I have another employment opportunity which will pay as much. I just have to wait another two weeks.” She sat back, smiling.

“That’s good. Señora Rosario will be upset, I’m sure.”

“She’s talking more and more about retirement. It won’t be much longer for her, either.”

“Who would think looking at
la hacienda de mi tía
that it was a place where people would not want to work?”

Inez laughed. “We would!” she cried.

We hugged before she left, and we promised not to forget each other.

Two more weeks flew by, because I was doing more and keeping myself quite busy. I really did think I was recuperating and getting stronger, until I woke up one morning sick to my stomach. At first, I, and my nurse, thought the medication might be responsible. Then she looked at me askance and asked me about my period. I wasn’t that overdue, but her next question and my answer raised her eyebrows.

“Are your breasts tender?”

I had felt that and nodded.

“Do you notice yourself urinating more, Delia?”

Again, I nodded.

She stepped back, as if I had slapped her across her face. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

When she returned, she had Dr. Jensen with her. He looked at her, and she left us alone.

“Delia,” he asked me directly, “could you be pregnant?”

For a long moment, I wondered why such a realization would come as a complete surprise to me as well as to him.

And then I thought about how all of the events of the immediate past were like some chain of dreams, distant, vague, and deliberately repressed. There was so much I didn’t want to remember. It was more comfortable to think of it as all in my imagination, part of some childlike pretending. I was more comfortable now living only in the present. I didn’t want to think of the past or the future, only the very moment I was in.

But Dr. Jensen’s question revived my wonderful lovemaking with Adan on the boat. The images came up like bubbles in water, bursting around me.

My answer came in the tears streaming down my cheeks.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll speak with your aunt, and—”

“No!” I screamed.

He lifted his hand away as if my shoulder had turned into the top of a hot stove.

“Please!” I moaned.

“Okay, Delia. Calm down. What is it you want?” he asked.

I shook my head.

I only knew that I didn’t want
mi tía
Isabela involved with any other decision or event in my life.

“She will make me have an abortion,” I told him.

“You want to have a baby?”

I didn’t answer, but I could see the same future he saw—another young, unmarried woman, a Mexican woman, returning to a life inches above poverty, to a world where she would not have respect or any man
eager to take her as his wife and be a father to her child.

But I would do it, I thought, perhaps with foolish determination. I would cross that border again.

Dr. Jensen shook his head. “Okay, let’s just stay calm,” he repeated. “Everything will be fine.”

He left me sitting there, stunned.

The tears that had started and stopped started again.

I felt them moving down my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them away.

They dropped onto the backs of my hands like drops of salty rain, like drops of the sea upon which Adan and I had conceived the child forming inside me.

What was the greater sin?

Letting a baby come into this world under these circumstances?

Or sending the baby back to the peacefulness of the third death, forgotten before he or she could be remembered?

I sat there waiting for the answer.

“N
ow you’ve gone and done it, you absolute fool!”
mi tía
Isabela practically spat at me the moment she entered my room. She hadn’t been back since that first day. “Why did you have unprotected sex? Sophia told me she gave you protection the night before you went on the boat. Have you no brains at all? Are all you Mexican girls just stupid?”

“You’re a Mexican girl,” I said defiantly.

Ironically, one of the consequences of her putting me here was to give me a sense of security. She couldn’t reach me, torment me. She had given up her control.

“That is an honor I’m glad to refuse,” she said, and flopped into the chair. For a long moment, we simply stared at each other. Then she smiled. “I am not going to arrange for an abortion for you, Delia. As they say, you’ve made your bed. Now you sleep in it. The harder
your life becomes, the more you’ll appreciate what I offered you. You could have had a life like mine.”

“No,
gracias
, Tía Isabela. Your life is an empty promise. If you didn’t love yourself, you’d have no one to love you.”

Her eyes nearly exploded. “You insolent…this is too much. You don’t need any more psychiatric treatment. Stupidity is not a mental illness. I’m going to end your stay here. You can go right back to Mexico now instead of later. Arrangements will be made immediately. And you’ll leave with exactly what you came with and no more.”

“No,” I said.

“No?”

“I can’t leave with what I came with, Tía Isabela. I came with hope and love, with prayer that somehow we would be a family.”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t expect you to accept any blame for any of this. Not that I care, but I’m sure you’ll go back telling anyone who will listen that it was all my fault.”

“No. I don’t think I’ll mention your name,” I said.

Again, her face tightened, and her lips stretched so that two pale white spots of rage formed in the corners. “I can tell you now, don’t bother ever to write to me to ask for any help.”

“And you,
mi tía
, don’t write to me to ask for any help, either.”

This brought a smile and a laugh to her face. “You are a little crazy after all,” she said. “Now I don’t feel so bad about sending you here.”

She stood up and pulled up her shoulders to give herself even more stature.

She really does think she is a queen, I thought.

“I’ll make arrangements immediately. Get yourself prepared. Go back to speaking Spanish.”

She turned to leave.

“The truth in any language is still the truth, and the truth is that you are the one who suffers, Tía Isabela. You have no family. You will suffer all three deaths the same day your body dies, but don’t worry, I’ll light a candle for you.”

She glared back at me and walked out.

It didn’t make me feel any better to say these things to Tía Isabela. Whether I was able to pierce her armor and reach into her heart or not no longer mattered. I certainly didn’t feel as though I had accomplished anything or got the better of her. Events in our lives had seriously wounded us both, perhaps fatally. The truth was, she and I had more in common than she would ever admit or realize.

I was anticipating someone coming for me as quickly as she had promised, but no one came to tell me to get ready to leave all afternoon. Finally, right before dinner, Dr. Jensen stopped in to see how I was and told me that
mi tía
Isabela had seen the chief administrator, and I would be leaving the clinic sometime late in the morning.

“You’re off all of the medication, Delia. There’s no need for any drugs. You’ll be fine, I’m sure,” he said. “Are there any questions I can answer, anything else I can do for you?”

“No, Dr. Jensen. I am grateful for what you have done already.
Gracias
.”

“You can still make a very good life for yourself, Delia,” he said, and patted me on the back of my hand.

“Not only for myself now,” I reminded him.

He smiled and then thought about another patient and left. I sat staring out the window until I was told to go to the cafeteria for some dinner. I went and ate, thinking that now I should try to take better care of myself. I could see from the way the staff looked at me that news of my pregnancy had spread quickly.

After dinner, I tried to distract myself by watching some television, but I found I was too jittery. I had so much to think and to worry about very soon. Exactly what arrangements would Tía Isabela be making for me? Would she give me any money when she sent me packing off to Mexico? Would I be simply dropped over the border? I had to think about who might take me in and what I might do to keep myself from starving.

I wondered if Tía Isabela would tell Edward about my pregnancy. If Sophia knew, which I suspected, she would surely enjoy calling him to tell him. Would it make him angry, or would he feel sorry for me?

Every time I heard footsteps in the hallway outside my room, I anticipated seeing Edward in the doorway, but he did not appear. It grew later and later, and finally, I was too tired to stay awake and went to bed.

I dressed quickly in the morning, anticipating a long day of travel. It was overcast outside and quite a gray morning. Lights were still on in the hallway. No one came before breakfast, but just afterward, I heard male voices in the corridor and thought about Edward again. I smiled in anticipation of seeing him, but the figure who appeared in the doorway, shrouded for a moment in shadows, was older and broader in his shoulders.
The shape of his head was familiar. For a moment, I thought I was about to confront a ghost, and then he stepped into the light, and I gasped.

It was Señor Bovio.

He stood there looking in at me and then took off his hat.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

“No,
señor
.”

“
Gracias
,” he said, and sat across from me. He gazed around the room and nodded. “Your aunt put you in a very fine clinic, and a very expensive one, I might add.”

I didn’t want to say anything bad about Tía Isabela, so I just nodded.

“I know your doctor. I saw him before I came to your room. He says you’re doing well.”

“He’s been very kind,” I said.

He nodded and tapped his hat on his knee. “You know I stopped campaigning after Adan’s death.”

“I am sorry,
señor
. Maybe you would still win.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t doing that well before Adan’s death. As hard as it might be for you to believe, I’ve been outspent. Television advertisements, campaign committees, all of it goes into the millions and millions. My opponent is up to thirty-two million.”

My jaw dropped, and he laughed.

“The best government money can buy.” He stopped smiling and stared at me for a long moment, a moment so long, in fact, that I became a little uncomfortable and fidgeted. I had to look down.

“You are pregnant with my son’s child,” he finally said. It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. Of
course, I wondered if Dr. Jensen or
mi tía
had told him.

He saw the look of surprise on my face.

“I’ve been interested in your treatment and progress ever since you were brought here. I couldn’t help but keep track of how you were doing. I was sure it was something Adan would have wanted me to do.”

“
Gracias, señor
.”

“I understand that you are leaving the clinic today?”

“
Sí
.”

“And you are intending to return to Mexico?”

“I am going home, yes,” I said.

“To what?” he asked, sounding angry. “Do you have family back in this village?”

“No, not in the village.”

“And your family
casa
?”

“It was sold soon after my grandmother’s death.”

“What will you do, sleep in the street?”

I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t stop the tears from filling my eyes. “There are friends of my grandmother…I’m sure…”

“This is foolish,” he snapped. “And I won’t permit it!”

I looked up at him. “But
señor
…”

“Why your aunt is turning you out is not my business, but my grandchild will not end up in some hovel in some Mexican village lucky to have running water. You are going to leave here today, but you are going to come live in my home. When my grandchild is born, if you want to leave, you can leave, but not with my grandchild.
Comprende
?”

I looked at him firmly. “I will not go from one prison to another,
señor
.”

His face softened, but his eyes seemed to get sharper, cooler. “You still have your Latin pride. That’s very good,” he said, nodding, and then changed his expression to a softer one. “No one says you’ll be living in a prison, Delia.”

“And my child is my child first and your grandchild second. I would never leave my child.”

He smiled skeptically. “I should only have a dollar for every woman who has left her own child to go chase some thrill.”

“I am not every woman,
señor
.”

“We’ll see.”

“Why should I do this, go live in your home?”

“It was Adan’s home, too,” he countered.

I looked away, the tears now defiant enough to leave my eyes. “I meant only to help him.”

“I know. I know,” he said. “I was overwrought with grief. I don’t blame you.”

I looked at him sharply. “You don’t know yourself if you do or you don’t. Besides, you would say that now to get me to go to your home.”

He sighed deeply. “I can see why he defied me and returned to you. Look, you will have your own wing of the house, servants at your beck and call, your own car, an expense budget for any clothing, anything you want or need. You can see whomever you want whenever you want. I ask only that you do healthy and prudent things until you give birth, and I will make sure you have the best possible medical attention.”

“
Sí, señor
, I’ll have everything I want and need except the most important thing.”

“And what is that, Delia?”

“Family,” I said.

“You want me to get your aunt to take you back?”

“No. There is no family there for me. My cousin Edward is the only kind one and he is out of the house. That’s not the family I mean.”

He shook his head. “I can’t promise you I will be the father-in-law I would have been or could have been. I’ll do my best. You don’t have family back in Mexico!” he added, frustrated at my silence. “You have only graves to visit.”

“And I want and need to visit them.”

“And I will personally take you to them.”

“When?”

“Soon. We’ll fly to Mexico City, and I’ll hire a helicopter to take us to your village and land right in the cemetery.”

I had to laugh at the image of that. “You’d scare the whole village.”

“I’ll make it look like a piñata.”

I laughed again.

Then I thought about
mi tía
Isabela.

“This will not please
mi tía
Isabela,” I warned him.

“At the moment, you are the only woman I care to please,” he replied.

He could have said nothing better.

“Today?”

“The car is waiting for us. Your aunt’s already signed you out.”

“Will you first tell her you intend to do this?”

“She’ll hear about it soon enough,” he said.

I couldn’t help but smile at the image of her hearing about it this morning.

“I know you will want to get your high school diploma. I will arrange for a tutor to help you finish up and take the exams. I can do all of these things for you,” he continued. “You have only one thing to do for me.”

“Which is?”

“Give me a healthy grandchild.”

He stood up.

“I am afraid,
señor
,” I said.

“If you’re afraid about going home to live in my house, imagine what you would fear being tossed over a border.”

“All of our lives we cross borders, Señor Bovio. Going to your home is just another crossing.”

“
Sí
, Delia, but I’m reaching out for you,” he said, extending his hand, “to make it easier and safer.”

I stared at his hand a moment and then reached for it. I truly felt like someone drowning who had been rescued. He pulled me gently toward him.

This is Adan’s gift
, I thought. It was he who was reaching for me, reaching from beyond the grave.

His father tightened his grip on my hand to lead me out.

What was I really giving him in return for this rescue?

A grandchild.

And what did a grandchild really mean to a man who had lost his son?

For the answer, I was thrown back in time to the day
mi abuela
Anabela and I buried my parents. When we walked away, she was holding my hand as tightly as Señor Bovio was holding it now.

And she was smiling through her grief and her tears.

“Why are you smiling, Abuela?” I asked.
How can she smile?
I wondered.

“Because I have you,” she said, “and because of you, they will never die.”

Señor Bovio wore
mi abuela
Anabela’s smile all the way home.