Delia's Gift

  She looked skeptical. “Why would he do all that?”

  “It’s a bargain he has made.”

  “What bargain?”

  “I agreed to live here during my pregnancy and let him take care of me so that my baby, his grandchild, would be born healthy rather than go back to Mexico. In return, he has hired a private-duty nurse and nutritionist, bought me personally made maternity clothing, even maternity shoes, and has the doctor coming here and giving me very personal attention. He’s arranged for me to finish my high school work here. A teacher is bringing everything to me today.”

  “Buying you a car, paying your expenses after you give birth? You fell into a gold mine, didn’t you? I hope you planned all this. I hope it wasn’t all accidental.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Why? I’d like you more if I knew you were as good a schemer as I am, if not better.”

  “You’re not going to like me very much, then,” I told her.

  She paused for a moment, and then she laughed. “I do miss you, Delia. It’s been rather boring at school, as a matter of fact. I’m not even interested in picking on your stupid cousin Sophia. It was always like shooting fish in a barrel, anyway,” she said, and blew some smoke.

  “What are you doing?” we heard Señor Bovio cry out.

  Both of us turned to see him walking quickly in our direction.

  “Fani!” he screamed louder.

  “What?”

  “I asked you to come by and be a companion for Delia but not to blow smoke in her face,” he said, drawing closer.

  “I’m not blowing smoke in her face, Ray. Calm down. Jesus.”

  “Put that cigarette out,” he ordered. “Don’t you know it’s bad for pregnant women to be around smoke?”

  She stared at him and then stamped it out. “Sorry, mi dios.”

  “I don’t want smoking anywhere on my property.”

  “What about your Cuban cigars, Ray?”

  “I’ve locked them away for now,” he said. He turned to me. “Mr. McCarthy is here to see you. He has all of your books and materials. Go change and meet him in the library. He’s waiting there. You don’t want to catch cold walking around the air-conditioned house in a wet bathing suit.”

  “Why are you getting so hyper, Ray? She’s not that fragile,” Fani told him.

  He turned to her with a look of pain in his eyes. “I would have expected you to think like I do, Fani. She’s carrying Adan’s baby.”

  Fani glanced at me and then looked away. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I have a few silly errands to do for my mother. I’ll call you sometime, Delia.”

  “I’ll walk back with you,” I said quickly, and joined her.

  Señor Bovio remained standing there as we walked off toward the house.

  “Maybe I was wrong,” Fani told me as we drew farther away.

  “Wrong? About what?”

  “About your falling into a gold mine. Maybe you just fell into a dark hole. I’ll call you,” she promised, and walked to her car.

  I watched her get in, looked back at Señor Bovio, who was still standing at the pool looking our way, and then I hurried into the house to dress and meet my teacher.

  Mrs. Newell was waiting for me at the top of the stairway. She seemed to pop out of nowhere.

  “I’m happy you’ve come back inside. I see you went out without putting any sunblock on. We don’t want you getting a heat rash or sunburn.”

  “I have lived in the sunlight all my life, Mrs. Newell. I know when I’m getting too much.”

  “You haven’t been pregnant all your life, have you?” she shot back at me. Then she paused with a new thought. “Were you ever pregnant?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “It’s not a foolish question to ask. Girls even younger than you are often married and mothers back where you’re from, aren’t they?”

  “I was not,” I said.

  “Um. Next time, put on the sunblock. I left it on the dresser in your room. People don’t understand,” she said in a more thoughtful, calmer voice. “Young girls can be physically mature enough to conceive, but that doesn’t mean they have the basic intelligence necessary yet to take care of themselves and their children. Sex is easy; motherhood is not.” She smiled. “It’s why we have so many problems with young people today.”

  “Do you have children, Mrs. Newell?”

  “No, but…”

  “Why don’t you have children?” I was going to add, if you’re so smart about it.

  “That’s not your business. We’re here to deal with you, not me.”

  “Deal? I don’t want anyone dealing with me, Mrs. Newell. I’m not a deck of cards,” I told her, and went to my room.

  Fani would have liked that, I thought, smiling to myself. I made a mental note to tell her. We’d have some good times laughing about it. Despite all she had said, I was happy she had come to see me and looked forward to the next time. I hoped she wouldn’t wait too long.

  When I stepped into my room, I saw the schedule Mrs. Newell had prepared for me. She had left it on my pillow so I couldn’t miss it. It was quite detailed, with almost every moment of my day accounted for, right from when I awoke, had my breakfast, and then, according to her wishes, took my morning exercise, which she specified as only a ten-to-fifteen-minute walk. She had even outlined where I should walk.

  After that, I was to go to the library to do my schoolwork until lunch. I would then return to the library, where, on Wednesdays, Mr. McCarthy would meet me at two P.M. to review what I had done and to see if I had any questions or problems. He would leave me the next week’s assignments.

  Following that, Mrs. Newell would take my blood pressure and check to be sure my feet or hands weren’t swelling. I was always to tell her if I had any problems, but she would consider this to be her examination. Since the sun was lower, I could, if I wanted, go for a fifteen-minute swim. She dictated that I would then take a nap, to relax before dinner.

  My time after dinner was my own, but I was to be in bed by ten P.M.

  Every other day, I would be weighed in the morning before breakfast.

  The doctor’s visits were clearly indicated on the calendar she had created. I did see that I was scheduled to be taken to his office for the ultrasound test and something called chorionic villus sampling. She didn’t explain it but told me to see the pamphlet she had left on my desk. Three weeks after these tests, I was to have an amniocentesis. I read in the pamphlet about each exam. She had underlined that chorionic villus sampling was generally done when the mother or father had a genetic disorder that ran in the family.

  “Since medical records for poor rural Mexicans are nonexistent, this is important,” she had written in the margins.

  My first reaction was pure anger, but then I thought it was not untrue, although I could not recall mi abuela Anabela or my mother ever mentioning such problems in either my father’s or her family. Since Señor Bovio was paying for all of this, how could I object?

  My phone rang. My first reaction was hope and excitement. Perhaps it was Edward, but it turned out to be only the intercom.

  “You are keeping your tutor waiting unnecessarily,” Mrs. Newell complained.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  I hung up, quickly took off my bathing suit, and dressed in a skirt and blouse. Still in sandals, however, I rushed out and down the stairway to go to the library.

  Mr. McCarthy sat at the long, light-walnut desk with my books, workbooks, and other school materials spread before him. He was a stout man with thin, balding gray hair and a round face that looked swollen because his small dark-brown eyes were so sunken. His complexion was smooth, however, so smooth that he looked as if he never had to shave. He stretched his thin, pale lips into a smile that seemed to sink into his cheeks and disappear. He wore a brown-and-white-striped sport jacket with a coffee-colored bow tie that was so tightly tied it moved with his Adam’s apple when he spoke.

  “Hello there,” he sa
id.

  I hurried to the desk.

  “Hi.”

  “So,” he said, getting right down to business, “I met with your teachers before I came here today to learn where you were in your studies before you stopped attending school. If you’ll sit down,” he said, pausing. “I don’t like having to look up at students when I speak to them.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “You’ll notice that I have marked each textbook where you should have been at that time. Under each book are the assignments to follow once you read the text assigned. I have also created a time line for it all. I understand you hope to take your exams at the same time as the students in your old school?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “We’ll see,” he said. “You have to be ready.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said. “I have not much else to do but my schoolwork.”

  “I don’t imagine so. You’re not the first prospective teenage mother I’ve had to tutor. In fact, these days, it seems like an epidemic.” He dropped the corners of his mouth even deeper into his cheeks.

  I felt my whole body tighten and close like a fist, but I said nothing. I dropped my gaze to the books.

  “Well, then, I’ll leave it all with you and see you next Wednesday. We’ll go over what you did and see what you didn’t understand.”

  He rose. His waist was as wide as his shoulders, and he wasn’t much taller than I was. Didn’t he want to tell me anything else or ask me anything?

  “I was always a little ahead in all of my classes,” I said, “even though my grades weren’t perfect.”

  “That should make things easier, assuming, of course, that you knew what you were doing. You’re right about your grades. They weren’t all that impressive,” he added, bending over to whisper. His breath smelled like sour milk. “This is not going to be a walk in the park. I’m a private tutor since retirement, but I’m not for sale. I have my standards, and I don’t compromise them to please my employer.”

  “I don’t think you should, either.”

  “Good. Then we have an understanding. I left my telephone number if you have any problems that can’t wait until next Wednesday.” He nodded and walked out.

  I looked at the books and the assignment sheets. He was right. I hadn’t done as well as I could have in the public school, but that was because I was very depressed and unhappy after we had returned from Mexico. I would do well now, I thought. I wanted a future.

  I sat and looked at the doorway through which Mr. McCarthy had just walked. He was very different from the pleasant teachers I had at the private school and the public school and not very encouraging. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. Perhaps all of these challenges, the lonely world I was living in, were of my own making and not just the work of some evil eye that had chosen me for torture and unhappiness.

  I always had trouble blaming God for our misfortunes, always had difficulty believing that he kept track of every little thing that happened to us or whatever we did. We wrote our own stories. I wasn’t pregnant because of some unexplainable accident. I had wanted to make love with Adan. Deep in my heart, I wanted his child, a child who would be our child.

  And so I was here and would have to do whatever was necessary, walk over whatever hot coals I had to walk over. If I kept feeling sorrier and sorrier for myself, I wouldn’t have the strength or the will to get to a brighter future for myself and for my child.

  As mi abuela Anabela would say whenever she heard or saw someone full of self-pity, “Gato llorón no caza ratón.” A crying cat catches no mice.

  I will not be a crying cat, I thought.

  Almost out of anger as much as out of ambition, I set forth to attack the work Mr. McCarthy had detailed for me. I vowed to myself that I would do it so well that I would wipe the smirk off his marshmallow face.

  5

  Clear Sailing

  Marking off the days designed for me on Mrs. Newell’s schedule was like counting drips of molasses falling into a bucket. Even though I followed her orders and kept myself busy with my schoolwork, the monotony began to wear on me.

  In fact, the days became so dreary that I actually looked forward to being taken to Dr. Denardo’s office for my tests. As promised, he stopped by every other week to check on how I was doing and get a report from Mrs. Newell, but he did very little and was very happy with what he saw. He never failed to compliment Mrs. Newell on how well she was managing my pregnancy. They discussed me in front of me as if I were invisible.

  “How is her appetite? How is she sleeping? Does she have any unusual pains?”

  It made me feel like some controlled laboratory animal.

  Finally, the day for my ultrasound arrived. Señor Bovio surprised me by insisting that he would drive me to Dr. Denardo’s office himself.

  “This is too important to send you off with surrogates,” he told me. “If fate had permitted Adan to live, he would surely be going with you today.”

  Even though he had said it was for family, he told Mrs. Newell to come along.

  “She needs to hear everything, just in case there is a problem,” he told me.

  It was then that I became nervous. I wanted to ask Mrs. Newell what sort of problems could be determined, if any, but I didn’t want to hear her doom and gloom. Whenever she warned me about anything happening to my baby, she always made it sound as if it would be the direct result of something I had done, some way I had lived, or simply something genetic in my family. Nothing could ever be the fault of Adan’s family line.

  Dr. Denardo had a very modern office with a plush waiting room. There was a small area off to the side for the children of the mothers and prospective mothers. In it was a television, toys, and even a sandbox. The lobby itself had three soft-cushion sofas and a half-dozen comfortable chairs, shelves of magazines, mostly about raising children but a good variety of others, a machine for hot water to make tea, all decaffeinated, and a refrigerator with juices and soft drinks. Light, soft music was piped through two speakers.

  He had two nurses and a receptionist. There were four examination rooms just past the reception desk. Almost the moment we arrived, we were brought into the room that contained the ultrasound equipment. One of the nurses, Betty Rosen, apparently knew Mrs. Newell, but I sensed she was not very fond of her. They eyed each other like two gunslingers, with Mrs. Newell looking as if she was evaluating everything Betty Rosen did. I could feel the tension and was happier when Dr. Denardo entered.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s get right to it. This is going to give us an even more accurate idea of gestational age,” he explained.

  Everyone’s attention went to the screen as Dr. Denardo pointed out my developing baby’s head and spine, chest and heart, abdomen, liver, stomach, and kidneys, as well as the arms and legs and hands and feet. He announced that everything looked perfect.

  “And,” he said, turning to Señor Bovio, “she is carrying a boy.”

  Señor Bovio’s eyes lit up with such joy it nearly made me cry. He surprised me by putting his hand on my stomach and closing his eyes as if he could communicate with my developing child. No one spoke. Even Dr. Denardo looked moved.

  “It is truly a resurrection,” Señor Bovio whispered.

  “Well, Millicent,” Dr. Denardo said after completing his evaluation of my health, “continue to do what you’re doing. She’s in perfect shape.”

  Mrs. Newell gloated and eyed Betty Rosen, who busied herself with other preparations.

  Afterward, Señor Bovio was so pleased he decided to take us to lunch. The prospect of eating something other than the bland, so-called perfect foods Mrs. Newell had prepared for me daily cheered me, but when we sat in the booth at the restaurant, she was highly critical of almost everything on the menu. Señor Bovio could see my displeasure growing.

  “Oh, I think we can loosen the reins a bit today, Millicent. Go on, Delia, order whatever you like.”

  Even with this permission, Mrs. Newell’s disapproving and critical eyes
intimidated me. I ordered and ate less than half of what I wanted.

  But Señor Bovio’s joy at discovering I was carrying his grandson and not a granddaughter spilled over in many different ways once we returned to the hacienda. He showered me with more gifts. Every day following, either Mr. Blumgarten or Mark Corbet appeared with something new. My protests were useless, even when I pointed out that I couldn’t possibly wear everything enough times before I gave birth, after which I would have no use for it.

  “Unless, of course, you have another child relatively soon after,” Mrs. Newell couldn’t help but point out. She always managed to hear our conversations. “But perhaps you’ve learned something about birth control now.”

  “If it would mean having to go through every day like this, I think I’d become celibate,” I responded. Instead of being upset by my remark, she smiled that self-confident, know-it-all smile that was longer than her usual blink.

  “I doubt you would have that concern, Delia. You wouldn’t have another Bovio.”

  It was as if her words went directly to my heart and not through my ears and brain. I felt the pain under my breast, a pain that was so sharp it pierced on through to my spine. For a moment, I lost my breath.

  “That comment was unnecessary, Mrs. Newell,” I said.

  She shrugged, unremorseful. “It’s always better to face reality, Delia. If young women did that, for example, there would be fewer unwed mothers.”

  She gave me one of her blink smiles before walking off full of self-satisfaction.

  After that, I finally expressed my dissatisfaction with her to Señor Bovio.

  “She’s making everything very unpleasant for me,” I told him.

  “What? You saw how pleased Dr. Denardo is with her. You mustn’t take her too personally,” he said. “She’s here in one capacity only and is the best at what she does. Pay no attention to anything else she says or does.”

  “That is not easy to do most of the time, señor. She hovers over me so much, I feel as if she’s attached herself to my shadow.”