“That baby in your stomach, is that baby mine?” The alcohol was making him irrational and mean.
“Of course, this baby is yours. Let me help you with your boots.”
“How do I know, Sofía? How do I know? Tell me!”
“Carlos, stop!” She knew it was the booze talking, but his words still hurt her deeply.
His calloused right hand quickly clamped around her small neck, and he pulled her face close to his. She could feel his hot breath on her skin and smell the stench of whiskey.
“That baby had better be mine, you whore!” he screamed, as he shoved her hard back onto the bed.
Eva was awakened by all the yelling, and she was crying.
Carlos stumbled back out of the bedroom, and Sofía heard the front door slam. She didn’t know where he was going, and she didn’t care. Picking Eva up, she tried to comfort her and get her back to sleep. She was glad to have him out of the house. He would find somewhere to sleep it off, and maybe he would be in a better mood in the morning.
Sofía had hoped having another baby, Carlos’s baby, would make things better. It only seemed to make things worse. If she could give him a boy, perhaps that would help. If she couldn’t, well, she didn’t want to think about that.
Chapter 9: Brothers
It was 1934. Sofía’s belly was growing very large, and she could no longer work in the fields. Her back ached all the time and her feet were usually swollen, but she could not let that keep her from the cooking and laundry, or from caring for her daughter.
One of the other farm worker’s wives, Fatima, had experience in assisting with childbirth and agreed to help Sofía when the time came for her to give birth. It was a relief to Sofía that Fatima lived next door and would be there to help her.
Sofía’s labor pains started late one morning in early spring. She left Eva playing in a makeshift crib and with great pain walked next door to let Fatima know she felt the baby coming. Fatima immediately helped Sofía back to her own place, where she put Eva down for a nap and tried to soothe the expectant mother. Sofía’s water broke and labor quickly came in full force.
Fatima stayed by her side, coaching her, wiping her face with a cool cloth, and finally assisting her with the actual birth. Labor only lasted three hours, but it was intense. The waves of pain grew closer together and more severe, until it was time to push hard and give birth.
“Push, Sofía, push!” Fatima hollered.
Finally, the baby emerged. It was a boy!
Carlos will be happy, Sofía thought to herself. She hoped this would put him in a better mood. His drinking and temper were becoming unbearable. Only a week prior, Carlos had again returned from the bar drunk and irrationally warned her that this baby had better be a son.
“What will you name him?” Fatima asked.
“Eduardo,” Sofía replied, as she looked down at the baby boy in her arms. She always liked that name, she thought it sounded strong.
“Eduardo? Hmmm…I like that. It’s a good, solid name,” Fatima said.
Carlos came home from work later that evening, finding Sofía had given birth. He was thrilled that he had a son – a son that was truly his child. Sofía was right, his temperament did improve, at least for awhile. For the next few months, he drank less and laughed a little more.
Six months later, she found herself pregnant once again. Although Carlos was happy with the first son, the pressure of another mouth to feed drove him to drinking heavily again. The few months of calm that Sofía enjoyed were coming to an end, and she would have to endure his episodes of drunken rage once more.
When Sofía was alone in the house, tending to her two little ones, she thought about the baby that was growing in her belly. This would be her third child, and she was still unmarried. She knew she was generally accepted in the farm worker camps as Carlos’s wife, but she privately suffered the shame of it, knowing she was not. At times, she wondered what her mother and father would think of her if they knew how she was living. Then the babies’ cries would draw her attention back to the present tasks at hand.
Always trying to find where the next opportunity for employment was, Carlos had gotten confirmation from his fellow workers that there was work to be found in Ventura County. So he packed the family up once more and they traveled there to work the fields of this fertile southern California valley for the season.
They settled once again into the housing provided for the migrant farm workers. It was always poverty-level living conditions, nothing more. Sofía decided she could despair over it or make the best of it. She chose to be as thrifty as she could and provide a good home for her family.
She washed the dingy curtains and scrubbed the wood floors. She cleaned the kitchen sink, counter and shelves as much as possible. To save money on clothes, she washed and mended hand-me-downs from the thrift store in town. Powdered milk and large bags of dried pinto beans and white rice became the basis for their meals. Meat and fresh fruits and vegetables came at a high price, so they were bought sparingly.
Sofía knew her third baby would arrive in just a few months. She got to know some of the other women living in the complex and found one of them had a lot of experience helping to birth babies. Her name was Ysenia. Sofía felt twice blessed to once again have someone close by to help when the time came.
Her water broke a month early and the pains started within a few hours. Not wanting to leave Eva and Eduardo alone, Sofía went to her front door and stepped outside to find someone who could tell Ysenia it was time. She saw another woman she knew walking down the driveway and called out to her to get Ysenia. Within minutes, Ysenia was knocking on Sofía’s door.
This time it was a long labor and a difficult delivery. Eventually, the baby’s head began to crown and Ysenia gave the order for one more hard push. The baby finally made his way out and gasped his first breath before giving out a good cry. It was another boy. He looked a little small because he was early, but he was healthy.
Ysenia took him and cleaned him up, wrapping him in swaddling. She started to hand the baby to Sofía, but Sofía felt hard cramping. She knew something wasn’t right in her body.
“Ysenia!” Sofía cried out in fear. “I feel like I’m still having more labor pains. What’s happening?”
Ysenia laid the baby in the cradle. Then she felt Sofía’s belly and took one more look between her legs. Another head was crowning.
“Twins!” Ysenia screamed.
“Twins?! Ay, Diós!” was all Sofía could say between the new waves of labor pains. “Ay, Diós!”
Ysenia continued to coach Sofía through the pains and another son was born. Both women were so stunned they were speechless for a few moments.
“What a handsome young man you are,” Ysenia said to the second baby boy as she cleaned him up and wrapped him in swaddling, as well. She gave the babies to Sofía, one at a time, to nurse. Sofía was in shock. First her water had broken a month early, and then the surprise of two babies instead of one. With Ysenia’s encouragement, she was eventually able to cradle the first son and began to nurse him.
“Are you doing okay, Sofía?” Ysenia asked her. “You look exhausted and you had, well, quite a surprise.” Ysenia started cleaning up the rags and bowl.
“I shouldn’t have been surprised. I am a twin, and twins do run in my family.” Her words were soft and she was getting drowsy. “I just had no reason to think…” She grew very quiet. Ysenia turned back to her and noticed Sofía had fallen asleep. So she took the baby out of his mother’s arms and put him down to sleep.
When Carlos returned home from work about an hour after the delivery, Ysenia met him at the door. Carlos was a little startled by her at first, but he knew it meant the new baby had come.
“Sofía went into labor today…” she started to say.
“Is it a boy?” Carlos asked excitedly.
“Well, yes and no,” Ysenia answered.
Surprised by her answer, he didn’t know what to think.
“What do you mean – yes and no? What kind of foolishness is that?” Carlos sounded irritated by her response.
“What I mean is that you do have another son. In fact, you have two more sons. Twins!”
His eyes got as big as saucers. His heart started to pound. He was excited and terrified at the same time. He felt weak in the knees and grabbed a chair to sit down and catch his breath for a minute. Two more mouths to feed now, he thought to himself. Where will the money come from? He was starting to panic, his mind was racing.
Ysenia watched him for a moment, her brows knitting together in a frown. “Don’t you want to see your sons?”
He looked at her blankly. Then he ran his hand over his face as if to wake himself up from a dream and remembered that he had new sons – two more sons! He got up from the chair and rushed into the bedroom to see his new sons. “Ay caramba!” was all he could say, with a look of shock and panic on his face.
They named the boys Arturo and Alfredo. Now they were a family of six. Eva was four by this time and Eduardo was almost two. Sofía had her hands full with all the young ones, taking care of them all by herself. Carlos was no help with the children, he was often at the bar when he was not at work. The burden to feed and raise four children was ever-present. Because of that pressure, the family almost lost little Alfredo.
Carlos was happy about having two more sons, as most men are, but soon that excitement turned to worry. There were two more children to support, to feed, and to clothe. Work had been leaner than usual, and money was tight, very tight. Over the ensuing months, worry turned to stress, which turned to desperation.
When the twins were about nine months old, Carlos found out that another farm worker in the camp and his wife couldn’t have children, and his wife badly wanted a baby. To ease some of the financial pressure, Carlos started thinking maybe he could give her one of his baby boys. When he came home from work one night, during supper, he told Sofía about the childless couple. He suggested to her that they give one of the twins to them.
“We don’t have enough money to feed all these kids, Sofía. I think we should give one of the twins to Imelda and David to raise.”
“What!?” Sofía was shocked. “Give away one of my babies? No, Carlos. Por favor, no.” How could a mother give up one of her own children? This was unthinkable to her.
“Don’t ask me to do that, Carlos,” she told him, shaking her head, panicking at the thought of it. “I can’t do that. No, I can’t do that.” She resisted the idea. But Carlos pushed hard, strongly insisting, reminding her that he was the head of the house. She got up from the table and tried to walk away. She couldn’t listen to any more of this.
“Listen to me, you worthless woman,” he growled at her, as he grabbed her hard by her arm. “You will do as I say, you hear? We just can’t afford to keep all these kids!”
Yanking her arm free, she looked at all her children. The babies couldn’t comprehend what their parents were saying, but Eva was old enough to understand. She sat at the table, very still, afraid of her angry father. She had heard him say he wanted to give away one of her brothers. When will he want to give me away? she thought.
Sofía looked at little Eva and felt badly that she had to witness this argument. She could see her daughter was frightened. Why did Carlos have to bring this up in front of the children? she wondered to herself. She dared not say it out loud.
Yes, she knew that finances were extremely tight, and she also knew Carlos would not relent. What she didn’t understand, though, was how he could be so cruel to make her give away one of her children – one of their children. They obviously didn’t mean as much to him as they did to her, she told herself. She could see she was not going to win this fight, because she never did.
She reluctantly gave in, tears streaming down her cheeks. She felt backed into a corner with no way out except to give in. So, she finally agreed to let Imelda raise Alfredo. They would keep Arturo. They didn’t choose to keep Arturo over Alfredo for any particular reason, just a flip of a coin.
The next morning, while Alfredo was asleep in her arms, she walked alone to Imelda and David’s home, about a half a mile away in another migrant camp. Carlos stayed home with the other children. He had already told David that Sofía would be coming over with the baby.
Sofía knocked on the door and the couple opened it.
“I’m Sofía. Carlos told me you want to have children very badly but you’re not able to.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Imelda said. “Come in.”
“No, I can’t.” Sofía needed to leave quickly before she would begin to cry.
She kissed the baby on the forehead and handed him over to Imelda. “This is Alfredo.” Sofía’s chest was tight as she fought back her tears. “I hope you’ll be a good mother and love him and care for him like I would.”
“Yes, Sofía, we will,” David replied.
Sofía turned and walked away. She cried all the way home.
There was a profound sadness that settled over Sofía because of the loss of her son. She found herself crying several times throughout the day as she thought of Arturo’s soft dark hair, his inquisitive brown eyes, his little crooked smile. Little Eva would ask her what was wrong, but Sofía would change the subject and get Eva’s attention on something else. Each night she would cry herself to sleep thinking about her lost son.
Carlos saw Sofía’s tears every day, and it filled him with guilt. She hardly spoke to him anymore unless she had to. His pride would not let him admit that he had made a mistake. And now Alfredo was gone. He had given his son away, and he couldn’t take him back without being humiliated.
A couple of months later, Sofía decided to go and check on Alfredo and see how he was doing. She got a neighbor to come and watch the children while she went for her visit.
She hadn’t told Imelda she was coming, she just showed up at her door unannounced. Imelda sheepishly let her in, and Sofía looked around the sparsely-furnished place. It was tidy, but she didn’t see a crib or a cradle anywhere.
“Where is Alfredo?” Sofía asked, suspiciously.
“I’ll get him,” Imelda said. She looked a little embarrassed and quickly left the room. So, Sofía, close on Imelda’s heels, followed her to the bedroom. She saw Imelda pull a box out from under the bed and her sweet little baby boy was lying in the box with a blanket under him, sleeping soundly.
He had skinny arms and legs and a bloated belly. She would later find that the baby had rickets, a disease caused by malnourishment. Enraged by what she saw, Sofía angrily pushed Imelda aside and scooped up her son, blanket and all.
“No, no, no, no!” Sofía kept saying, shaking her head. She bundled him up and stormed out of the bedroom. Sofía did not stop to think about what Carlos would have to say about this. She didn’t care if money was tight. This was her son, and there was only one thing she could do – she had to rescue him.
She stopped at the front door and turned to look Imelda in the eye. “You will never see this child again, estúpida! Maybe God didn’t give you a child of your own for a reason!”
Sofía was fuming mad as she walked back home, carrying her poor sickly son. She knew Carlos would not be happy she brought the baby back home, defying his wishes. But she knew she had to stand her ground on this, no matter what it cost her.
That evening, when Carlos came home from work, he saw that Alfredo was back. His temper started to flare.
“What have you done, woman?!” he shouted.
“I went to see Alfredo today, to see how he was doing,” she quickly tried to explain. “I found him in a box under the bed. Under the bed, Carlos!” She showed him what Imelda had done to his son, the skinny arms and legs and bloated belly.
“She was starving him, and who knows what else,” Sofía continued. “I couldn’t leave him there. I just couldn’t.”
Carlos was furious. But not at Sofía this time, for a change, he was angry at Imelda and David. Still worried about how he would provide for
this child, he agreed Sofía had done the right thing. Somehow they would get by.
* * * *
Time passed and life continued to be difficult. A couple of years later they returned to Hollister, where they knew work would be plentiful. It was 1939.
After the twins, Carlos and Sofía had another son, Ygnacio. There were now five kids in all - Eva and the four boys. Because the family was growing, they decided to stay put in Hollister for awhile.
Carlos found them a small, old house in town that he rented. It was only slightly better than the shacks they were used to. The house had only one bedroom, where Carlos and Sofía slept. The children shared a room that was originally intended to be used as the living room. It had one big, old brass bed in it and one small wooden dresser. All five children slept in the one bed in the beginning and shared the single dresser.
Eventually, when Eva was about nine, she couldn’t stand sharing the bed with her four brothers anymore. So, with only a mat and a small, thread-bare blanket, she made her bed on the floor near the front door.
There was also a long, narrow room that served as a dining area and a rudimentary kitchen at the far end. The kitchen had an old wood stove, a small sink, and one old cabinet with peeling yellow paint. Left by the previous tenants, there was also an old work table for preparing food, very well-worn but still serviceable.
The ramshackle old house had wooden floors with gaps between some of the boards and no rugs to cover them. In the winter or on windy days, the family could feel the cold air coming through the cracks. On the walls was faded, peeling wallpaper and most of the windows had cracked glass and torn screens. For what little rent they were paying, the landlord refused to do any repairs.
Since Eva was the oldest child, she was expected to help care for her younger siblings. She was often feeding them, changing their diapers, and helping Mama with the cooking and household chores. There was a new baby every year or two, so there were lots of dirty diapers to wash.
She Had No Choice Page 8