Delia's Gift

  “I’m sure she’s right.”

  “Have you seen your baby?”

  “No, not yet. He’s in the NICU. I’m trying to go now, but everyone’s too busy. I can’t walk that well yet since my crash C-section.”

  “Crash C-section? Aren’t you the little doctor? Okay, what is that NICU thing?” she asked, taking a stick of gum out of her purse.

  I explained it as well as I could. I had forgotten all of the machinery and technology the nurses had rattled off when I had asked about it myself.

  “I don’t know much about babies, period, much less premature ones,” Fani said.

  “He weighed less than four pounds when he was born.”

  “Less than four? I think this purse weighs five pounds,” she said, bouncing it in her hands. “So, how long are you staying in the hospital?”

  “Two more days. Will you help me go to the NICU?”

  “Me?” She looked at the doorway. “How?”

  “Help me into that wheelchair,” I said, nodding at it, “and then wheel me there. It’s just up one floor.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Please, Fani. If you are really my friend, you will.”

  “Let’s just call a nurse,” she said, and backed up to the door. “Where are the nurses?”

  “I told you. They are busy with other patients. It’s nothing hard to do, Fani,” I said, getting up and going to the wheelchair. “Just push.”

  She looked at me and then went behind the wheelchair. “I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for doing this.”

  “That shouldn’t frighten you. It has never frightened you before,” I told her, and she laughed.

  “Where are we going again?”

  “One floor up,” I said, and we went to the elevator.

  None of the nurses noticed us. They really were busy tending to patients. We went into the elevator and up. Signs directed us to the NICU. When we arrived, an elderly lady in a pink outfit was sitting behind the reception desk. She looked up, smiling.

  “I’m here to see my baby,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, dear. What’s his name?”

  “Adan, Adan Yebarra.”

  She nodded, looked at a paper, and then looked up. “There’s no Adan Yebarra, dear. We do have an Adan Bovio.”

  “That’s him,” Fani said quickly.

  “Oh.” The elderly lady looked at me. “You are his mother?”

  “Doesn’t she look like someone who gave birth recently?” Fani replied sharply.

  “Let me call in to the nurse,” she said. Her hand shook as she lifted the receiver. “Mrs. Cohen, I have Adan Bovio’s mother here. Yes, I will.” She hung up. “Just to the right of the doors, you will find an automatic sink. There’s a soap dispenser. You have to wash for two minutes. The green light above the sink will go off after two minutes. Both of you.”

  “I’m not touching the baby,” Fani said.

  “You have to wash anyway,” she replied.

  “Whatever,” Fani said. “It’s easier to break into Fort Knox,” she whispered in my ear.

  I was too nervous and excited to care. The woman could have told me to put my hands in fire first, and I would have done it. Fani wheeled me in and turned me to the sinks. We then proceeded to do what we had been told.

  “Hi,” we heard Nurse Cohen say, and we turned. “I’m with Adan right now, Mrs. Bovio. You can come along. We’re all very pleased with how he’s doing. Don’t be frightened by all the paraphernalia hooked to him.”

  I started to say I wasn’t Mrs. Bovio, but Fani nudged me hard, and I stopped.

  As the nurse led us past other pods and nurses attending to other premature babies, we heard bells and buzzers. She stopped at Adan’s incubator and said, “Here he is.”

  “Wow, he is small!” Fani exclaimed.

  I was unable to speak. The wires attached to him and then to monitors, the bandages around his tiny wrists, and the lines in his umbilicus all made him look unreal. I thought his color was good. His hair looked closer to my color than to Adan’s, although I was positive it would change as he got older. He moved suddenly, but he didn’t open his eyes.

  “He probably thinks he’s still inside you,” Fani remarked.

  I looked up at her. “Sí. Maybe.”

  Nurse Cohen shrugged. “That could be,” she said. “Where he is and what is happening is about as close to being in the womb as we can get. On the other hand, he needs to feel your touch, too.”

  She showed me how to put my hands in to stroke his tiny hand and arm gently. He moved a little again, and then he looked as if he smiled.

  “That’s just gas or something, right?” Fani asked.

  Nurse Cohen shrugged again. “Who am I to say?” she replied, and smiled.

  “How much longer will he be in there?” Fani asked.

  I was too occupied with studying every little part of him, his tiny fingers and fingernails, his feet and knees, and the features of his face, which were still in the process of forming. Even so, I was sure I could see Adan in him.

  “It could be anywhere from four to six weeks. We can’t release him until he’s breathing well on his own and has gained enough weight. We have to keep monitoring him very closely to prevent infections, but I must say, he’s off to a good start. Of course, you can see him every day,” she added, looking at me.

  I nodded.

  “But you also have your own recuperation to get through,” she continued. “Premature babies need a lot more care after they are sent home. You want to be strong and healthy for him.”

  “She’s going to have lots of help,” Fani said.

  “That’s fine, but a mother’s care is always special,” she told Fani.

  I remained until I was feeling tired and uncomfortable, and then Fani wheeled me out and to the elevator. She could see my discomfort. I was due for a pain pill.

  “I guess it will be a while before you go dancing, Delia,” she said.

  “There you are,” my nurse cried when Fani wheeled me out of the elevator. “You have to tell me if you’re leaving the floor.”

  “We couldn’t find you,” Fani said.

  The nurse looked at her askance and indicated that she should wheel me into my room. I got back into bed and took my pills.

  “Even though he’s tiny, he’s a beautiful baby, isn’t he, Fani?”

  She laughed. “Sí, Delia. Although I have dolls so much bigger that it’s hard to think of him as a real baby.”

  “Oh, he’s real, all right.”

  “Okay, you call me if you want anything. Oh,” she said, returning from the door. “You probably don’t know. Edward and your aunt had one helluva fight, apparently. He left college.”

  “What? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Jesse doesn’t know, either. One day, he just upped and walked out. You come from one crazy family. Your cousin Sophia has already been asked to leave the College of the Desert. I heard she was caught stoned in one of her classes. Best thing that happened to you was your moving in with my cousin. Don’t get him upset. He’s your meal ticket as well as every other ticket.”

  I said nothing.

  She smiled and fixed my blanket. “See you later, alligator,” she told me, laughed, and left.

  I stared up at the ceiling. I wanted to think more about all she had told me. I was very worried about Edward, especially, but I felt so exhausted, and the pill was starting to kick in. I fell asleep quickly and didn’t wake up again until it was dinnertime. The nurse’s aide brought up the back of my bed, and I was given my tray. Just as I started to eat, Señor Bovio entered my room. I held my breath in anticipation of hearing him express his anger. For a long moment, he simply stared at me.

  “Hola, Señor Bovio.”

  “I didn’t want to see you until you were strong enough to talk,” he said, unsmiling. “How could you do such a thing, Delia?”

  “What do you mean, Señor Bovio? This isn’t my fault.”

  He sh
ook his head and walked to the window.

  “Señor?”

  “I did everything in my power to make things easier for you, didn’t I? I stood up for you against your aunt. I provided you with the best possible care.” He spun around. “I put you in my wife’s suite, my wife’s bed!”

  I started to cry. “Señor Bovio, the doctor—”

  “Is as disappointed in you as I am,” he quickly said, and returned to my bedside.

  I looked down rather than up at him. His eyes were blazing with so much anger I thought they would burn my face.

  “Why, señor?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Why? Why? Dr. Denardo is a good doctor. I told you he was one of the best. He was so surprised at your condition that he had to get to the bottom of it, Delia. He insisted that the lab do the work, and I’m surprised you were so foolish as to think he wouldn’t.”

  I looked up. “What are you saying, Señor Bovio? I don’t know what you mean, and you are frightening me.”

  “You should be frightened. Your blood had evidence of what you teenagers,” he said, making the word “teenagers” sound like profanity, “call Ecstasy.”

  “No, señor. No, no.”

  “There wasn’t much, I’ll admit, but enough to show you had used it. Did you use it every night, every other night?”

  “Never, señor. This is not true.”

  “You can’t argue with scientific results, Delia. Were you not worried about our baby?”

  I shook my head, my tears literally flying off every which way.

  “Was this how you avoided being bored? You complained a great deal about it to Mrs. Newell. She told me she was ready to quit us, that you were so disobedient she couldn’t deal with you anymore.”

  “That’s not fair, not true. None of this is true, Señor Bovio.”

  “I should take no pity on you, Delia. You nearly killed my Adan twice,” he said.

  I felt all of the blood in my face rush out when he said that. My head felt ten times as heavy. The room started to spin. I struggled to remain conscious. I couldn’t keep myself in a sitting position and fell back against my pillow, shaking my head.

  “No, señor. It’s not so. No…”

  He leaned down to whisper in my ear. “You can come back to the hacienda to recuperate. I will do all I promised. I will get you what you need to go to a school, and you will go and live your own life, the life your fate decides for you. I don’t want you returning to the hospital to see Adan while he is here struggling to live. Mrs. Newell will take care of you and see that you grow strong and healthy again. If you disobey her this time, I’ll send you packing.”

  “These are all lies, Señor Bovio.”

  “Don’t try my patience anymore, Delia. There’s no point in your continuing to deny what you’ve done. Besides the laboratory results, I have Fani’s confession.”

  “What? Fani? What confession?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “She admits it’s possible you took some of that drug when you were at her house for your secret meeting with Edward. Edward is not very stable these days. She says she couldn’t deny that you brought drugs back to my hacienda.”

  I felt my lungs harden, my mouth get too dry for my tongue to move and form words. “I don’t believe she said such a thing.”

  “You can continue to be friends with her. I don’t care what you do with yourself now.”

  “Friends with her? She is lying if she said that.”

  “Yes, everyone is lying but you, Delia. The doctor and the laboratory are lying. I’m afraid your aunt Isabela was right about you, right about what I should and shouldn’t have done. Maybe you should seriously consider returning to Mexico. It would be easier to keep your deceptions unknown, and you could start again. But not with my Adan.”

  “Nooooo.”

  “Whatever you decide is fine with me. As I said, I am an honorable man. I will live up to my part of this bargain we made, even though you have not been honest with me. I do it for my son, who saw something good in you. I do it for his memory. However, once you are gone, you are gone,” he said. He stood up straighter and shook his head at me. “You make me ashamed of myself, of how I shared my innermost feelings about my wife and my son with you.”

  “Please, señor,” I begged. “Do not think these terrible things about me.”

  “I won’t think of them, Delia. It’s my hope and prayer that eventually I will forget them and you altogether. But for now, we’ll do as I said. The doctor tells me you can be released tomorrow, since Mrs. Newell will be attending to you, anyway. It’s an unnecessary expense to keep you here. Stevens will come by when you are discharged and take you back. I am having Teresa move you out of my wife’s suite, of course, to another bedroom in the hacienda. What clothes of my wife’s and things of hers, except the jewelry, of course, that you have used will be moved out with you so you can have something of a wardrobe. I have also asked her to take your own things, the things you came with to the hacienda, to your new room. Your aunt says she has some things to send over as well. She doesn’t want them even in the help’s quarters. Stevens will take you for your doctor visits.”

  I felt as if I were sinking into the bed, disappearing. Another urgent thought rose to the surface, however. I reached for Señor Bovio’s hand.

  “Ignacio,” I said.

  He pulled his hand away. “You have betrayed him as well, Delia. I can do nothing for him now.”

  He turned and started for the door. I tried to call him back, but he was gone before I had even pronounced his name. My crying brought back my pain. The nurse came in, ordered my tray taken away, and then, confused about why I was so upset, decided to give me some more pain medication. She thought it would be better for me if I slept. I thought it might be better if I slept forever.

  Whatever she gave me wore off by the middle of the night. I woke with a start and looked around my room, dimly illuminated by the light that came from the hallway. Had I dreamed all that had happened? Was Señor Bovio really here, or was it a hallucination caused by the pain medication? How I wished that were true, but his words echoed too loudly in my brain.

  I sat up to think. It was possible he had fabricated all of this, I thought. He had wanted me to go off and live an independent life without Adan Jr., hadn’t he? Wasn’t he always talking about it, suggesting it, telling me how he would make it all possible? He was going to buy me a car, pay for college, set me up with money. He knew I did not want to leave my baby behind. I had told him it would be too soon, and I had recently told him I would be better off out of the area. Surely, he was afraid that I would carry through with my plans.

  The doctor and Fani were his allies and would say anything he wanted, as Mrs. Newell certainly would. The premature birth of Adan Jr. triggered this vicious new plan. How could I fight him? What could I do? Mi tía Isabela would even be on his side. She would see her revenge. What had happened to Edward, and what would happen to Ignacio and the Davila family? Look at me, I thought. I could barely get myself to the bathroom, much less do anything to help anyone else.

  The thought of my having to leave and never seeing my baby again sent a sword of ice through my heart. I took deep breaths to keep myself from crying and crying. Then an idea came to me, and I went to the wheelchair. I wheeled myself to the door and gazed up and down the corridor. It was very quiet, the very walls looking asleep. I did hear some muffled noise coming from the nurses’ station, but I saw no one. As softly as I could, I wheeled myself to the elevator, entered, and pushed the button for the NICU floor. When the door opened, I saw a corridor just as quiet and empty as mine. Again, I wheeled softly to the NICU doors. This late at night, there was no one at the reception desk. I went around to the intercom. After a moment, a nurse inside answered. It wasn’t Nurse Cohen.

  “I’m Adan Bovio’s mother,” I said. “Please, can I see him?”

  She was quiet a moment and then said, “Yes.”

  The doors opened, and she met m
e and had me wash my hands.

  “It’s late,” she said as I washed.

  “I had a bad dream,” I told her.

  She nodded with understanding. “He’s okay. Come along,” she told me.

  I dried my hands, and she pushed me to his pod. He was moving more than when I had first seen him. I put my hand in and touched his hand, and he turned his head in my direction so firmly even the nurse had to exclaim.

  “They say a baby knows its mother,” she told me.

  “And a mother knows her child,” I said softly. “Forever and ever.”

  I sat there gently touching him until the nurse thought I should return. She had called down to my nurse, who was very upset at how I had snuck up.

  “She’s waiting for you just outside the door,” the NICU nurse told me.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said. “Good-bye for now Adan. I will not lose you. I promise.”

  “Why would you lose your son?” the NICU nurse asked, curious.

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, “how easily we lose the ones we love the most.”

  She didn’t respond.

  She wheeled me out.

  I didn’t look back. I looked ahead. Whatever I had to do, whatever maze I had to go through, whatever challenges awaited me out there, I would meet and I would defeat.

  Abuela Anabela would have it no other way.

  10

  We Lose the Ones We Love

  Dr. Denardo stopped by in the morning to discharge me. He told me that Mrs. Newell was filling all of my prescriptions.

  “Don’t neglect the antibiotics,” he warned. “You’re still in some danger of infection. I’ll see you in my office exactly one week from today. Mrs. Newell has the time for the appointment.”

  I listened but said nothing.

  He noticed my silence, of course, and sighed. “I’m sorry for your troubles, Delia. I’m sure Adan Jr. will be all right despite everything.”

  “I did not take any recreational drugs, Dr. Denardo. I would swear on my parents’ graves.”

  “Yes, well, we’ve got to think beyond all that now, Delia. Let’s concentrate on your recuperation.”