by Angela Hunt
The driver of the seniors cranked the engine as the last strains of “¡Feliz Navidad!” faded from the radio, then the announcer’s voice cut in. Something in the man’s tone snagged my attention, and when I heard the words “jetliner” and “terrorist,” my heart congealed into a small lump of dread.
“Two Florida men were arrested today,” the announcer said, “for allegedly attempting to carry Tasers aboard an American Airlines jet leaving Tampa International Airport. No one was injured during the scuffle at the security checkpoint, but the men screamed out threats as they were led away, increasing fears and tension during this busy holiday season.”
I looked out the window as my heart began to thump almost painfully in my chest. Fools like those two men were going to get my husband injured or killed in some stupid international incident. I hated worrying about Gideon, but I simply couldn’t bear it if he were hurt or disabled. The military was pretty good about taking care of its own, but what would become of our dreams if Gideon spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair or a hospital bed?
A darker prospect loomed as well, but I couldn’t think about that. Losing Gideon would be horrible for me, but even worse for our daughter. So I refused to consider the possibility.
I watched the young activities director hold out her hand and herd the remaining senior adults onto the bus. Those people had enjoyed a long life, but with crazy people making threats every week, was my generation going to be able to do the same? How could I help my daughter thrive in a world where the man seated next to her on a plane might be determined to kill everyone on board? Or when the next piece of mail she opened might be filled with some variety of powdered poison? Gideon and his men were risking their lives to keep our country safe, but they were only a few men, and the world brimmed with lunatics. . . .
The little bus had just pulled out of the parking lot when angry voices shattered the sudden stillness in the store. After checking to be sure none of the seniors lingered in the aisles, I left the checkout stand and walked toward the back. I found Amelia and Mario standing in the stockroom, their faces tight with frustration.
“You can’t blame me,” Mario yelled, apparently not caring that they were no longer alone. “It’s not my fault you’re not pregnant.” He followed with a stream of Spanish so intense I couldn’t catch a word.
Anger blossomed in Amelia’s taut face. “Oh, yeah? Maybe it is your fault.” She switched to Spanish, too, and spoke so precisely, so sharply, that I caught something about staying out too late and leaving nothing for her.
“Maybe I should find a woman who sees me as a man and not a stud service.” Maybe Mario spoke in Spanish; maybe English, I don’t know. But his meaning would have been clear in any language.
Knowing I could be setting myself up for a full dose of Cuban fury, I stepped between them and held up my hands. “Hey, guys.” I looked from Amelia to Mario. “Anything you want to talk about . . . outside?”
Amelia turned away, her lower lip quivering, while Mario stormed out the back door without even looking at his wife. I watched him go, then moved to comfort my cousin.
“Hey.” I squeezed her shoulder. “Things are gonna be okay.”
She shook her head. “I don’t see how they can be. I love Mario, honestly I do, but sometimes he can be so bullheaded.”
“So—this is about getting pregnant, right?”
She laughed hoarsely. “I guess it’s no longer a secret, huh? Mario yelled it out for the entire world to hear.”
“No one heard. The store is pretty much empty now. Your mama went outside to say good-bye to the old folks.”
“Then we were lucky, because these days Mario isn’t thinking before he speaks.” Amelia looked up, her eyes damp with pain. “Mama knows about our problem, but I don’t want her to hear us arguing. The frustrating thing is we both want a kid, but all this trying and waiting is driving us nuts.”
“Maybe you two need to relax. Go on a vacation, take a second honeymoon. Have fun and don’t even think about getting pregnant.”
Amelia gave me a sour smile. “Like we’ve never heard that before. ‘Relax,’ Mama says, ‘and it’ll happen. Wait for God to answer.’ Well, we’ve tried relaxing, and it hasn’t happened. We’ve tried taking my temperature every morning and Mario’s been wearing baggy underwear, which he despises. I’ve even asked Yaritza about old wives’ tales. I’ve prayed for a baby until I feel like I’m just repeating useless phrases, and I’ve even been tempted to get one of those talisman fertility candles. . . .”
“Don’t waste your money on superstitious junk,” I whispered. “And I know God hears your prayers. He wouldn’t be God if he didn’t, right?”
“Mama says if I feel like I was meant to be a mother, he’s probably not saying no. He might be saying wait. But wait for what?” Amelia swiped tears from her face, then crossed her arms and gazed into private space. “I’ve been waiting a long time. I’m twenty-seven, and I’m not getting any younger. I want to have kids while I still have enough energy to chase after them.” She sniffed when the bells on the front door jingled, then jerked her thumb toward the register. “You should get back in there.”
“That was probably your mother coming in.” I took a step closer and lowered my voice. “Have you thought about investigating other options? There’s in vitro fertilization and artificial insemination. You should talk to your doctor about other ways to have a baby.”
“Mario’s old-fashioned.” Amelia pulled a tissue from her jeans pocket, then blew her nose. “He will barely talk about this, and he won’t admit that any part of it could be his fault. If the doctor asks him to—” She shuddered. “Never mind. I think he’d cut off his nose before he’d go in for an exam. And those other things you mentioned are expensive. Our insurance would never cover those kinds of elective procedures.”
The bells above the front door jangled again, and this time Amelia stepped away. “I’ve gotta get some cartons unpacked. Don’t mind me. There’s nothing you can do, anyway. And please don’t say anything about this to Gideon. Mario would die if he thought the men in the family knew he couldn’t get me pregnant.”
Amelia’s heavy sorrow seemed to spread until it crossed the space between us and mingled with my own anxiety about a terror-filled future. During that awful moment, I wondered if darkness might manage to erase all the light in the world.
Chapter Six
Christmas finally arrived, complete with a chilly breeze that blew down from Canada and forced us to haul our sweaters out of storage. I think my cardigans were grateful to come out of the closet, and Marilee absolutely loved the fuzzy red sweater I bought her for Christmas and allowed her to open early. The pullover was a little big on her, but it had a treble clef embroidered on one side and a bass clef on the other, so she rolled up the ribbed cuffs and promised that it fit perfectly.
Gordon and Yanela had brought many traditions with them from Cuba, but their love for the Catholic church’s nativity service topped the list. Out of respect for the elders, the entire family came together every Christmas Eve to celebrate the Misa del Gallo, or Mass of the Rooster, at St. Joseph’s Church. As usual, we paused in Mama Isa’s living room so Yanela could tell Marilee why midnight Mass was named for a barnyard bird. “The only time the rooster crowed at midnight,” she said, wagging her finger as she smiled at Marilee, “was when the Baby Jesus was born.”
My mom had driven down from The Villages to spend the holiday with us, so she accompanied us on our traditional visit to church and to Mama Isa’s house afterward. Mom stayed in the pew during the service, her Protestant conscience unable to sanction taking Communion from a Catholic priest, but I had come to adore the beauty of the service and figured I could partake of the Lord’s Supper with any group of believers that would let me.
After Mass, we climbed into our respective vehicles and drove to Mama Isa’s house, a modest home only a block from the grocery. The house had originally been constructed with concrete block and jalousie windows,
a style typical of old Florida, but over the years Isa and Jorge had added Latin touches. A knee-high concrete block fence, topped by white wrought iron and bright Christmas lights, enclosed the property, and Jorge had added a front porch supported by a row of square columns linked by arches. The entire house had been enclosed in pale orange stucco, and though a riotous thicket of purple bougainvillea grew by the side fence, over the years Jorge had turned the front lawn into a concrete parking lot.
Once when I asked Mama Isa if she missed seeing grass outside the window, she responded with a shrug. “Grass I have to cut and water, but concrete never complains.”
My mom had been horrified the first time she saw the stone forms spread over the lawn like a patchwork quilt. Personally, I had grown fond of the multisectioned slab—in it I could trace the family’s past, from the original driveway at the left side of the house, the narrow two-strip drive that came later, the double parking pad installed when Amelia bought her first car, and finally the “everything but two flower beds” paving Jorge had surrendered to in the end. My neighbors in Town ’n’ Country would stage a revolt if Gideon and I were to substitute concrete for landscaping, but no one on St. Louis Street dared rebuke Mama Isa.
As the cold wind quickened our steps and the moon played peek-a-boo in the clouds, Gideon carried Marilee into the house. I followed with our gifts and my mom.
After a delicious Christmas dinner and the subsequent cleanup, all of us went in search of places to sleep for a few hours. Marilee had nodded off during dessert, so Gideon carried her into one of Mama Isa’s guest rooms and Mom and I followed. Gideon dozed in an overstuffed chair while Mom, Marilee, and I lay down on the bed, covered with only a thin quilt. I knew Yanela and Gordon would sleep in the master bedroom, while Amelia and Mario would nap in the living room. Tumelo and Elaine actually went home to sleep, but they only lived a few blocks away. I never knew if or where Mama Isa and Jorge slept. They were always awake when I went to bed and awake when I woke up.
We didn’t need a rooster to wake us at sunrise on Christmas morning; we had Marilee. She ran from room to room, banging on doors and announcing that Santa had come once again. I emerged from the guest room with rumpled hair and bleary eyes, but the house shone with bright lights and glowing candles. Fragrant pastries and fresh-brewed coffee beckoned us to the kitchen, where Mama Isa stood in her holiday apron, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed.
Maybe, I mused, she never slept at all on those holiday nights. Or maybe she was energized by the Spirit of the holiday.
After filling a plate with the bounties of Mama Isa’s breakfast buffet, I tried to prepare Mom for the traditional Lisandra gift exchange. The extended family rarely gave expensive presents—tradition dictated that we draw names, then find something inexpensive, funny, or especially appropriate for the recipient.
With our plates in hand, we moved into the living room and settled on the sofa or pulled kitchen chairs into a circle near the Christmas tree. Tumelo, Gideon’s father, began the exchange by calling my name and asking me to open my gift—a tostonera, as it turned out, a hinged wooden device used for flattening plantain chunks so they could be deep fried. I knew what a tostonera was, of course, since we sold them in the grocery, but I played dumb and wondered aloud if the gadget was some sort of musical instrument. I tried flapping the device as if it were a castanet, but my efforts only elicited howls of laughter from Gideon’s mother, Elaine, who had probably been gifted with a tostonera in her younger days.
Her laughter made me smile. Elaine and I had never been close, and not even five years of marriage to her son had managed to crack the ice between us. I had always sensed that she didn’t think I was good enough for Gideon, and while that might be true, Gideon didn’t seem to care that he’d married beneath his mother’s standards.
I had drawn Mama Isa’s name, and spent days racking my brain for the perfect present. I finally found a garlic slicer in a kitchen store—and since Cuban chicken calls for loads of garlic, I thought she’d appreciate it. The gift wouldn’t be particularly funny, but if anyone could put a garlic slicer to good use, she could.
After opening my gift, Mama Isa spent a full minute staring at the shiny silver tube. “¿Qué es?” she finally whispered to Jorge. “¿Puedo ver a través de él?”
“Esto es un garlic slicer,” I hurried to explain. “You put a clove in the bottom part, snap the two sections together, and turn. Sliced garlic comes out the other end.”
She gave me a sweet, tolerant smile. “Muchas gracias, Amanda.”
The other women asked to see it, probably out of sheer politeness, and I sat, my cheeks flaming, as Gordon passed a wrapped present to Mario.
I snuggled closer to my husband as Mario made a big fuss over the beautiful package Gordon had given him. The old man beamed, a twinkle in his eye, and the older folks snickered when Mario opened the box and pulled out a pair of candy cane boxer shorts. Mario tried to smile, but a flush colored his face. Beside him, Amelia’s chin quivered and she lowered her gaze.
My heart twisted for both of them. Grandpa Gordon wouldn’t have known about their infertility; he had undoubtedly bought the boxers as a gag gift. Unfortunately, those randy shorts were the last thing Mario wanted to exhibit in front of the family.
“Gideon.” I nudged him. “Quick, take your present to Yanela.”
Bless my husband for not asking why. As Mario stuffed the shorts back in the box, Gideon leapt up and with great fanfare presented a gift to his grandmother—all in an effort to draw attention away from the miserable couple next to us.
“For you, beautiful Abuela”—Gideon fell on one knee in an exaggerated display of gallantry—“because without you, none of us would be here.”
Smiling, the old woman absently touched the mound of beautiful black and silver hair piled on the back of her head, then accepted the box—another gift I had chosen after days of frustrated shopping. With glacial slowness she unwrapped the paper, smoothed out the wrinkles, and finally removed the lid.
“Oh!” She lifted the hair ornament I’d ordered from an online site, then her gaze slid around the circle and met mine. “Que hermosa.”
I’d bought her a temblique, an ornate hair ornament typically worn by women in Panama. I had no idea whether Cuban women ever wore such things, but since Latin American culture pervaded the Caribbean, I hoped she’d at least know what to do with it.
Yanela murmured something to her husband, then smiled at me again. “I wore one of these at my wedding.” She pressed the delicate, feathery ornament to her heart. “Beautiful. Muchas gracias, mi querida niña.”
As Yaritza and the other women admired the temblique, Mom jabbed her bony elbow into my ribs. “What is that feathery thing? It looks like something you’d sew on an overdecorated nightgown.”
I thought about ignoring her, but didn’t want to be rude. “It’s an ornament,” I whispered, watching Jorge deliver a gift to Amelia. “You wear it in your hair.”
“Awfully fussy, isn’t it?”
“It’s supposed to be a little over the top.”
My mom harrumphed. “Gaudy is more like it. I can’t imagine ever wearing anything like that.”
“No one’s asking you to, are they?”
Why did Mom have to comment on everything, and why did her opinions have to be right? I sighed and slipped my arm around Marilee, then caught Gideon’s sympathetic gaze.
* * *
While I celebrated the holidays with my mom and Gideon’s family, Simone and Damien observed Christmas at home in France. Natasha called to explain that the couple had gone home for the holiday, but were due to return to Florida the next week. Because Simone had to be involved in all the steps to harvest eggs for in vitro fertilization, they’d probably rent a hotel suite for as long as it took to establish a pregnancy.
“Apparently the grape harvest is finished so this is a good time for them to be away,” Natasha told me after setting the date for my first appointment with the reproduct
ive endocrinologist. “They’ve had bad luck in previous situations, so they’re hoping everything will work out this time.”
The first Monday after Christmas, when most of the world went back to business as usual, Gideon and I went to see Dr. Harvey Forrester, the RE who would be taking care of me and Simone as we prepared for the embryo transfer. My husband and I sat in the doctor’s office and listened to his explanation of the procedure, then shook our heads when he asked if we had any questions.
When the doctor looked down to write something on my chart, Gideon leaned closer. “If you need a daily shot in the backside,” he whispered, a teasing note in his voice, “I don’t think I’ll mind watching.”
“Down, boy,” I countered, patting his arm. “The doctor said we can’t fool around until after we get a positive pregnancy test.”
I had lowered my voice, but apparently I didn’t lower it enough.
“Speaking of pregnancy tests”—Dr. Forrester looked up and nodded at the nurse waiting nearby—“we have to draw blood for the preprocedure beta test. We have to make absolutely sure you’re not pregnant before you begin the hormone injections.”
While the nurse tied a rubber strip around my upper arm, Gideon stood and walked to the wall, where he pretended to study diagrams of fetal development. A memory flickered through my mind—he had also turned away from the sight of a needle when I went into the hospital to have Marilee. Could my warrior husband be nervous about needles?
“All finished.” The nurse capped the blood-filled vial and carried it toward the doorway. “This will only take a few minutes.”
I held a cotton ball on the tiny spot where the syringe had broken my skin. “Why couldn’t I have peed in a cup?”
“Because urine tests aren’t nearly as reliable as blood tests,” the doctor said. “But let’s go ahead and talk while we’re waiting for confirmation.”
I shot Gideon a questioning look as he sat again, but he kept his gaze on the doctor.