A week later, Rosa tried to reason with her husband. “I have spoken with a lawyer,” she told him after the boys were in bed. “He wants to meet with us.”
“I have no interest in lawyers,” replied Luis.
“He asks for no money. He just wants to talk.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“He wants to help us, Luis. He says there are grounds for a strong case.”
“Grounds, he means, for him to get rich.”
“He knows of another baby who died at this doctor’s hands. We are not the first. The lawyer says the doctor could be charged with negligence.”
“Rosa,” said Luis. “Look at us. Who are we to accuse a doctor?”
“Not us. The lawyer. He would do the talking. He’s a smart man, Luis. He asked questions that made me think. Questions, he said, they should have asked in the hospital. I trust him.”
Luis was silent. He had no time for lawyers, no trust in anyone but himself. Man to man, she had said. An eye for an eye. It was his duty. On the other hand, he did not want to cause his wife unnecessary grief.
“Then go to him,” he said. “Talk to this lawyer.”
“Yes?”
“By all means. Please. We must do what is right.”
Luis by nature was not a violent man. Before the death of his daughter, he was tender with his wife and gentle with his children. And even after, the violence he planned did not spill beyond its target. He didn’t yell at the kids or bark at his wife, didn’t lose his temper at work or with friends. If anything, he seemed more docile than usual, except to Rosa, who knew him best. She worried, but she also held out hope that with time his wounds would heal.
Luis owned a machete from his days as a field hand in Mexico. He had used it to cut wood, clear brush and on occasion kill a chicken for dinner. It had an ebony handle that he polished and a steel blade he kept sharp. Three weeks after his daughter’s death, he left in the morning as usual, but instead of going to work, he drove to the medical building where Dr. Admonson had his obstetrics practice. He wore a white shirt, pressed pants and cowboy boots. His hair was slicked down and parted to the side, his moustache neatly trimmed. He carried the machete loosely in his left hand, drawing curious glances from passersby, none of whom took it upon himself to comment. At the medical building he rode the elevator to the third floor, where he exited with two youngish women and an elderly man. Dr. Admonson’s office was at the end of the corridor on the left. The waiting room, whose pastel walls were hung with watercolors of flowers and idyllic landscapes, was full of women. Some were at term; some were just getting started; one or two nursed newborns. Luis was the only man in the room. He was also the only person carrying a machete.
He found an empty place on a couch next to a woman with a toddler in her lap. A hush fell in the room as he took his seat. He stared at the floor. The toddler, drawn by the gleaming machete, squirmed away from her mother and went for the blade. Luis quickly blocked her way and shook his finger in remonstrance. An instant later, her mother snatched her back. A nurse in a starched white lab coat opened an interior door and called the name of a patient. As the two of them disappeared inside, Luis got up and went to the receptionist’s window. He tapped on the frosted glass, and it slid open.
“May I help you?”
“I want to see the doctor.”
The receptionist was a woman in her sixties with silver blue hair and glasses that magnified her eyes. She sat at a low desk from whose vantage point the machete was hidden.
“Are you here with someone?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“He delivered my baby. I want to talk to him.”
She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and peered at Luis. “Pertaining to what?”
“My baby,” he repeated. “Maria Elena Hermosilla Rodriguez.”
Dr. Admonson had a number of patients named Rodriguez, but the receptionist kept up with the mothers, not the babies. The name was not familiar to her. She looked at her appointment book.
“I have an opening tomorrow at two.”
Luis stared at her blankly. He was not prepared to negotiate.
“Two tomorrow?” she repeated.
“Today,” he said.
“We’re very busy today.”
This met with no reply, and the receptionist, a retired retail clerk with passing knowledge of the vagaries of human behavior, deemed it an inopportune time to argue. She re-checked her book.
“All right. I’ll try to squeeze you in. You’ll have to wait.”
Luis nodded and returned to his seat. Several more patients were called by the nurse, while others entered the office to take their places. He was troubled. He loved women of all ages and types, but most of all, he loved women who were carrying new life. Pregnancy was a miracle and a sacrament to him, a time for women to be honored, protected and loved especially hard. How could he kill the doctor without creating havoc among them? Even behind closed doors they would hear him hacking away, they would smell the blood, and they would suffer. Then the burden of guilt would be on him.
The nurse appeared at her door and called his name. Slowly, he stood, machete in hand, hacking edge out, tip to the floor. He was caught between duty and love, between command and conscience. When the nurse took a step toward him, he shrank back. When she took another, when she repeated his name, when she extended her arm and motioned for him to follow, he fled.
Two days later, at Mass, Maria Elena visited him again. She was older, dressed in Mary Janes with a pink crinoline skirt and a bow in her hair. She had some questions, chiefly why her father had not done what he had promised.
“I cannot kill a man like an animal,” Luis replied with downcast eyes. “That would make me an animal too.”
“An eye for an eye,” said Maria Elena. “That was our agreement.”
“I beg your forgiveness, little one, but I cannot.”
She looked at him in such a way that he felt guilty of being less than a man. Then her expression changed.
“Another way perhaps.”
Luis brightened. “Yes. Anything but cold-blooded murder.”
“The doctors are smart. The doctors and the lawyers. Smart and powerful. We must be cunning. And patient. We must plan carefully.”
This was a relief to Luis, who did not want a repeat of the debacle with the machete. The thought of what he had nearly inflicted on those innocent women filled him with shame.
“Do you have an idea?” he asked.
Maria Elena did, but she wasn’t saying, not just yet. Instead, she gave him an enigmatic smile, and for a moment he got a glimpse of her as a young woman. She had an uncanny resemblance to someone he knew, and then it dawned on him that that someone was himself, that his daughter now looked just as he might have looked had he been born female. Long lashes, dark eyes, broad cheeks and lips. Hair the color of coal. Skin like clay. It was unsettling. The girl had something up her sleeve, and suddenly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was.
He was sitting in a pew at the back of the church. From the pulpit the priest gave the call to prayer. Reflexively, Luis fell to his knees and clasped his hands together. Organ music filled the air, then the choir began to sing. Maria Elena joined in, her voice soulful and sweet. It eased her father’s heart to hear her sing. Here especially, in the bosom of the Lord. What could he possibly have to fear?
A week later, he shaved his moustache and made an appointment to see the doctor. He gave his name as Luis Flores and neither the receptionist nor the nurse recognized him. He was ushered uneventfully into the doctor’s office, and fifteen minutes later, Dr. Admonson swept in. He was a rangy man in his early fifties with silver hair, liquid blue eyes and a disarming smile. He shook Luis’ hand, glanced at his chart, which was blank, then sat opposite him at his desk.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Flores?”
Luis had rehearsed what to say, but the sight of the docto
r unnerved him. Suddenly, he was back at the hospital, with all the attendant feelings of helplessness, panic and despair. Rosa’s bag of waters had broken six weeks ahead of time, in itself not a terrible tragedy, except that labor had not followed. The baby could have been delivered by Caesarean section, but Dr. Admonson had said no, he wanted to give it as much time as possible to mature inside its mother, whom he put in the hospital at bedrest and visited daily, monitoring her for signs of infection or fetal distress. None occurred, and Rosa and Luis waited, a week, then two, then three. Their anxiety mounted, and repeatedly they questioned the doctor about the wisdom of waiting so long. Repeatedly, he reassured them. And finally labor arrived, and the child was breech, and instead of doing a Caesarean section and bringing it out safely through Rosa’s belly, Dr. Admonson, who decried unnecessary surgery, elected a vaginal delivery, during which the baby’s head got stuck, so that forceps had to be used. Luis remembered the clink of metal as the blades were engaged, the beads of sweat on the doctor’s forehead, his strained words behind the green surgical mask. And then the tugging of his daughter through the birth canal, the gentle but insistent pressure that had inadvertently broken her neck, so that instead of kicking and wailing at delivery, she had come out limp and blue. And then the bleeding on the brain that followed, and her being rushed to intensive care and put on a respirator and other machines to keep her alive. And how after a week, when she couldn’t survive on her own, the machines were turned off, and she was allowed to die. And Rosa’s tears, and from her breasts the rivers of warm milk. And his own tears, and his rage, and his vow of revenge.
Dr. Admonson bridged his fingers and awaited a reply to his question. It was rare but not unheard of that a man came to him alone, a husband without a wife, a beau without his belle. Often, like this man, they were shy. Usually this meant that the reason for coming involved questions of fertility. What they thought of as their manhood. He tried again.
“What brings you in today, Mr. Flores?”
“I need help,” Luis muttered, which was manifestly true. It was also what Maria Elena had told him to say.
“In what way?” Admonson asked.
Luis stared into his hands. The plan, such as it was, had been to ask for help and then to receive it, in this way insinuating himself, however tangentially, into the doctor’s life, thus buying time to plot his revenge. The plan’s weakness was that, beyond this vague request for help, he had nothing more to say.
“Mr. Flores?”
Luis attempted to elaborate. “I need a doctor.”
“Of course. But as you must be aware, I am an obstetrician. On occasion, a gynecologist. This means I take care of women. Is there a woman involved somehow in this? A problem at home? Elsewhere? I have no moral agenda, Mr. Flores, and frankly, there are few things that either surprise or offend me. But you have to help out. You have to speak your mind.”
Luis shrunk from the doctor’s ease of delivery, his fluid command of the situation. His purpose in coming, ill-defined to begin with, drained from him completely. He felt as he had as an immigrant boy fresh from the farm, when the English-speaking school teacher had upbraided him in a language he did not understand. His mind went blank. He picked at a piece of skin in his palm and at length muttered an apology and got up to go. He looked for his hat, but he had left it at home. What could he have been thinking, he wondered, to have come without his hat?
To his surprise, Maria Elena was not cross. She understood how lacking he was in cunning, how disinclined to subterfuge and deception, how innocent of malice. Patiently, she worked with him, built up his courage, rehearsed what to say. When in these practice sessions he faltered, she reminded him of the doctor’s offense, appealing to his pride and sense of justice. For maximum effect, she sometimes appeared to him as she had at the moment of her birth, head grotesquely ballooned with blood, body limp as a rag. At other times she used a different tactic, coming to him as a girl, or a young woman, bewitching, vivacious and full of promise. In this way she reminded him what had been cut short. The flower that had been denied its bloom. Flor del fuego, ever fanning the flames of her father’s discontent.
Two weeks later, wearing a bolo tie and crisp white cowboy shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps, Luis returned to the doctor. He apologized for his previous behavior. He admitted it was not easy saying what he had come to say.
“And what is that?”
“I want you to be my doctor.”
Admonson regarded him. “But why?”
Luis faltered.
Admonson became impatient. “I don’t see how I can.”
“By saying yes.”
“And what will I do for you? What is it that you need?”
It was a difficult question, and Luis waited for Maria Elena’s help, which she had promised. Moments later, she materialized, wearing a peasant blouse embroidered with finches and other colorful birds. Her hair was wound in a thick braid, and she wore lipstick and makeup. She slid behind him on the chair and eased him forward, until he was perched on the edge. She pushed his knees together in a feminine way and folded his hands demurely in his lap. She helped him bow his head ever so slightly, in deference to the doctor’s prestige and superiority. She added a faint sibilance to his voice.
“I put myself in your hands, Doctor.”
It didn’t take a genius to get the message. Nor, once it registered, was it hard to understand why the man insisted on being so vague and indirect. Admonson chided himself. He took pride in his ability to read people, and it irked him when he couldn’t. He had been misled by the man’s attire, his cowboy boots and starched shirt. By his calloused hands and yes, his Mexican background. The only men posing as women he had ever seen, and these from a distance, were white and anything but shy. He asked if Luis had spoken with anyone else regarding this matter.
“No, Doctor.”
“There are specialty clinics, you know. People with more experience than I have. To tell the truth, I have none at all. You would be my first, my only, patient.”
Luis inclined his head to signify he took this as a compliment.
“I really shouldn’t,” said Admonson, who was, despite himself, intrigued. “Apart from a basic standard of care, it’s a question of common sense. Simply put, you’d be better served by an expert in the field.”
“Please, Doctor.”
Admonson resisted. “I could give you a referral.”
Flatter him, whispered Maria Elena. Appeal to his skill. His reputation.
“You know how to treat women,” said Luis. “You’re the best there is. Everyone says.”
Admonson demurred.
Luis insisted. “I beg of you.”
“I couldn’t,” said Admonson.
Tell him the truth, Maria Elena enjoined. That your fate is in his hands.
“My fate is in your hands,” said Luis.
“I hardly believe that,” replied Admonson, flattered nonetheless.
Luis inclined his head, gave a chesty sigh and slowly stood, striking a posture midway between disappointment and defeat. “I am sorry then. I should not have come. I should not have bothered you.”
He turned to go and had his hand on the door, when Admonson called him back.
“If I consent to be your doctor in this, I’ll need your full cooperation. You understand that.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“And you’re willing to accept the risks. Psychological, emotional, physical. Whatever. You’ll sign a document to that effect.”
“Yes.”
Admonson weighed the situation one last time. Something didn’t seem quite right, but he was not one to back down from a challenge. He could always change his mind later.
“All right. You’re willing, I’m willing.” He motioned to the chair Luis had recently vacated. “Have a seat. We might as well get started.”
From this point on, his questions became blunt and sexually explicit. Luis’ cheeks burned with embarrassment, and he would have run from the room had M
aria Elena not been there to help out. She did the talking: it was shocking some of the things she said. But she made no apology. It was necessary, she told her father. If he wanted his revenge, this was the way.
And so it was that Luis Flores, formerly Rodriguez, began his daily doses of estrogen, putting his trust in the hands of the man whose hands had caused his greatest grief. Maria Elena appeared frequently the first few months of his treatment to encourage him and ensure he kept his appointments with Dr. Admonson for his monthly injections. She was with him when, at the doctor’s insistence, he took the battery of psychological tests to determine his personality profile, his mental stability and adjustment potential. She helped him brave the furtive curiosity of the pharmacist who dispensed his medication, and she stayed with him through the bouts of nausea caused by the pills. She did not explain the specifics of her plan for revenge. She had, in fact, little at all to say about the future. When Luis asked, she was either vague or else told him to be patient, so that eventually he stopped asking. He gave himself up to the treatments and did what he could to ingratiate himself to Admonson. As time passed, Maria Elena came less often, until, for reasons known only to herself, she stopped her visits altogether.
Not long after, Rosa came across his bottle of pills. She had done the laundry and was piling his underwear in the top drawer of the bureau when she felt something in the toe of one of his socks. Normally, she would not have given in to curiosity, but under the circumstances, which included an increasingly moody and uncommunicative husband and a marriage nearing the breaking point, she felt justified in investigating. The bottle, which had no label, was half full. The pills were small, oval and white, with a line down the center and a number embossed above the line. She recognized them as the same pills her mother had been taking ever since her ovaries and womb had been removed. This puzzled and alarmed her.
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