Ana's Story Page 7

  “What’s wrong?” Berto asked.

  “Oh, nada, nothing,” she replied. This was one secret she had kept from him; the shame still haunted her.

  “I know something is wrong,” Berto said, his voice warm and soft. “It’s okay, you can trust me.”

  Ana looked at Berto, and she felt safe and loved; she wanted to trust him completely. She told him about the horrific night years before when Ernesto came into her room. At first the words came out robotically, as if she didn’t feel their full meaning. But as the story continued, she broke down and began to sob.

  “Ana, it’s all right,” Berto said, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m here for you.”

  She shook her head no.

  Ana drew a deep breath and said, “It’s my fault.”

  “No, guapa, it’s not,” Berto offered. “You didn’t do anything. Why should you feel bad for something that animal did to you?”

  Ana sat up, looked him in the eye, and said between hiccuplike gasps, “I didn’t protect mi hermana. I didn’t protect Isabel.” Berto couldn’t comfort her, but he held her and that was enough.

  70

  Ana hadn’t expected to live in a home with a makeshift family of people living with HIV/AIDS. She hadn’t expected to find someone she trusted completely. Most of all, she hadn’t expected to fall in love with Berto.

  After the night that Ana revealed all of her secrets to Berto, there was nothing that separated them. He knew everything about her, and still he loved her. Ana let her guard down with Berto, making their love stronger in a way that she could not have imagined.

  The next Sunday, Ana and Berto ate breakfast together and attended the Mass that was offered in the courtyard of the hogar. Ana could think of no place she would rather be than in the sanctuary of that garden, standing next to Berto, singing joyful songs. She had opened herself completely to him, and her heart was no longer weighed down by her secrets.

  After the service, Silvia and Pablo took most of the residents to the supermarket and to run other errands. Ana and Berto stayed behind.

  The hogar was quiet. The air smelled like cut grass. Gold afternoon sunlight filtered from the hallway into Berto’s room. Ana and Berto sat next to each other on the couch, watching television and listening to one another breathe.

  They began kissing. Berto ran his fingers through Ana’s long, wavy hair. She looked into his eyes and saw pleasure and desire.

  “Berto, are you sure we should do this?” Ana asked between kisses, sensing that they were about to take things one step further. She felt no fear, only love.

  “Te quiéro, guapa, I love you,” he said gently. Ana’s heart felt overcome with love, but she wanted to be safe.

  “Do you have any condoms?” Ana asked, but it was all happening too fast. “We should use condoms,” she said, as if trying to convince herself as well as Berto.

  “I’ll get some tomorrow,” he said. This time, it was too late.

  71

  Ana spent her days in school and her afternoons with Berto. At night, when the house was dark and everyone had gone to sleep, Ana snuck through the courtyard to Berto’s bedroom and they made love. They used condoms every night except the first.

  72

  On most mornings, Ana awoke at five-thirty to dress and eat breakfast before the bus arrived. She usually stole a moment or two to look at the picture of her mamá on the wall, silently telling her about what was going on in her life. Ana told her mamá about her feelings for Berto and how he had written her a love poem. She liked to think her mamá would be happy for her.

  But one morning, Ana felt nauseous, as if she had just gotten off one of the spinning carnival rides she used to go on with Papá. She jumped out of bed and vomited.

  For the next several weeks, Ana was queasy and sick almost every morning, and she felt tired and feverish through the day.

  At first, Ana feared that she could be pregnant, but she had had her period a couple of weeks before, though it was lighter than usual, so she ruled out pregnancy.

  “I think I have some sort of stomach illness,” Ana told Silvia one morning at breakfast. “I am not sure what it is, but I wake up nauseous every morning.”

  “You need to see a doctor,” Silvia said without alarm. “I’ll take you after school.” Silvia spent a lot of time with the residents living with HIV/AIDS, so she wasn’t distressed by what she suspected was a mild stomach bug. After all, Ana seemed to shake the illness by midmorning, and it hadn’t interfered with her ability to go to school.

  Silvia took Ana to the hospital after school. Ana wasn’t at all nervous; she spent a lot of time there picking up her HIV/AIDS medications and visiting friends from the hogar.

  Silvia waited in the reception area while Ana went in to see the doctor.

  “Hello, Ana, I’m your doctor,” a young woman said as she came in. “First, how old are you?”

  “I’m sixteen,” Ana replied while the doctor took notes on a brown clipboard.

  “And what seems to be the problem?”

  Ana told her about the nausea and vomiting.

  “When was your last period?” the doctor asked.

  “I’m not exactly sure, but it was a couple of weeks ago,” Ana said.

  “All right, then I’m going to do an ultrasound to see what the problem is,” the doctor said.

  Ana lay back on the exam table and rested her head on a tiny pillow on one end. The room felt cold and drafty. The doctor rubbed jelly on Ana’s stomach and then began the ultrasound. When the doctor turned off the machine, she lent Ana a hand so that she could sit up.

  “Ana, you aren’t sick,” the doctor said.

  “Oh, thank God,” Ana said, letting out a deep breath. She had been thinking about her father and his illness, the months he spent wasting away.

  “You are four months pregnant,” the doctor added.

  “No,” Ana said, “I had my period.” She was sure that something must be wrong.

  “Sometimes women have spotting early in their pregnancy during the time they would normally have their period,” the doctor explained. “That must be what you experienced, because you are pregnant.”

  Ana panicked. The room began to spin, and she thought she was going to be sick. Her mind raced: How could she finish school? What would Berto think? How could she take care of a baby?

  And then she felt numb: What if her baby had HIV?

  She tried to ask the doctor, “Will my baby…will my baby have…” She couldn’t continue. She felt suffocated and couldn’t catch her breath.

  “Ana, calm down,” the doctor said. “You will be okay, and your baby should be okay. If you take medication and follow other precautions while you are pregnant, there is a very good chance your baby will be perfectly healthy.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ana said over and over like a scratched CD.

  73

  When the doctor left the room, Ana put on her clothes and washed her face. She looked up at her reflection in the mirror above the sink and thought, You’re going to be a mamá.

  She felt that someone else was looking back at her. She was only sixteen years old, too young to have a baby. Still, once the doctor told her she was pregnant, she could begin to feel the life inside her. She stared at the person in the mirror again, and for a second she thought she saw her mother looking back. Ana’s mother had been sixteen when Ana was born.

  “Mamá,” Ana said to her reflection, “what am I going to do?”

  Ana shook her head as if she were trying to awaken from a dream. She opened the door and walked back to the waiting room.

  “I’m fine,” Ana told Silvia, who had been waiting for almost two hours. “Let’s go home.”

  Silvia didn’t press for details. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said, giving Ana the same privacy that she allowed all the people living in the hogar.

  Ana didn’t speak on the way home. When they arrived, Ana said, “Thanks for the ride. I’ve got to get started on my homew
ork.” She went back to her room, nestled under the comfort of her sheets, and fell asleep.

  74

  After dinner that evening, Ana walked down to Berto’s room, knocked on the door, and went inside.

  Ana felt nervous, like she was moving in slow motion.

  “Hey there,” Berto said, clearly glad to see her.

  For no reason—and for every reason—Ana began to laugh. She couldn’t stop. The more she tried to control herself, the more absurd she felt and the harder she laughed.

  “What’s so funny? What has happened to you?” Berto asked.

  She laughed harder, tears streaming down her face, then said, “Berto, you’re going to be a father.” She gasped for breath and said again, “You are going to be a papá.”

  Berto’s face became serious. “Is this true? Ana, is this for real?”

  Ana nodded her head, rapidly sobering up as she felt the significance of what she was saying. She stopped laughing and asked, “Berto, now what are we going to do?”

  75

  After Ana told Berto, he started to laugh, too, only his was joyful rather than nervous laughter.

  “We’re having a baby,” he said, adjusting to the idea. “We’re having a baby.”

  Berto’s enthusiasm comforted her like a warm blanket. He kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair gently.

  “We’re going to have to tell Silvia and Pablo,” Berto said.

  “I know,” Ana said, but she was afraid.

  The following morning, Ana asked Silvia and Pablo if she and Berto could speak to them in private. All four sat at the kitchen table after everyone had cleared the breakfast dishes.

  “We have something to tell you,” Ana started. She looked at Berto for assistance, but he was looking out Jenna Bush the window. She would have to be the strong one.

  “This is difficult to say,” she started.

  “Just say it, Ana,” Silvia said.

  “I have never seen you look so serious, guapa,” Pablo joked.

  “I am pregnant. I am pregnant, and Berto is the baby’s father.” Ana took a deep breath; she felt her face flush.

  “What? Oh, Ana, Berto,” Silvia said. “How could you have done this?” Silvia asked, rubbing her hands against her temples. “You both are HIV-positive. You can make each other sicker.”

  Neither Ana nor Berto spoke.

  Silvia drew a deep breath. “What were you thinking?” she asked angrily. “You shouldn’t have been having sex at all—and certainly not without a condom.”

  “It was once,” Ana said, defending herself, her face hot. “Once without a condom.”

  “Once was enough, Ana. And now your baby is also in danger. Now what?” Pablo asked. “This is a home for teenagers and adults. We can’t keep a baby here. You’re going to need to find another home, Ana.”

  Ana’s heart stopped. She loved living in the hogar. It was the closest thing she had known to her dream home in the orchard. Where could she go? It had never occurred to her that she would have to leave the hogar, and especially Berto.

  Ana began to sob.

  “Calm down, Ana,” Silvia said. “We will figure it out. We will figure this out.”

  76

  In the next few weeks, Ana’s nausea began to subside, but her emotions began to swing back and forth like a pendulum. Some days she was excited and euphoric—honored that God had chosen her to be a mother—and other days she was anxious and afraid. Some days she imagined that she could provide her child with the loving and stable home she had longed for during her own childhood; other days she feared that she would repeat the cycle of her past and that her baby could end up like her sister Lucía, who never made it home from the hospital. Ana vowed to do everything she could to prevent her baby from developing HIV/AIDS.

  Ana had always been responsible about taking her medication, but she now understood that she needed to take her medication not just to protect herself but to protect her baby as well. Taking her medicine each day was the first thing she could do to offer her baby a good life. Every time she swallowed a pill, she thought to herself, I’m doing this for you, mi niña. Somehow, from the beginning, Ana knew she would have a girl.

  77

  At first, Ana didn’t tell her friends that she was pregnant. When she was at school, she acted like a sixteen-year-old girl, concerned with homework and gossip. Sometimes, when she let her mind wander in class, she remembered the baby and smiled. No one had any idea that she had a new life inside her.

  In a few weeks, Ana’s skirt began to pull around her waist as her belly grew. She had lost some weight in the beginning of her pregnancy because she was sick so often, but she had made that up and more.

  “Hey, chica, you’re getting fat,” one of her friends told her when they were waiting in line for lunch.

  Instead of defending herself or offering a snide remark in response, Ana smiled.

  Her friends noticed that rather than being insulted, Ana seemed to feel proud.

  “What, are you pregnant?” asked one of her friends, laughing as she gently pulled the sleeve of her shirt.

  Ana said nothing.

  An astonished look passed over their faces, and the girls huddled together and whispered, “You are!” “Is it Berto?” “When will the baby come?”

  Ana’s friends had heard her talk nonstop about Berto, but they had never met him.

  The girls spent the rest of the lunch hour trying to come up with names for the baby. Ana enjoyed the attention from her friends; for days, Ana and her baby were all anyone could talk about. She felt special and important. Ana also knew that she was lucky; many schools in her neighborhood would not allow pregnant students to stay enrolled.

  Ana didn’t know how much work a baby would be. She didn’t worry about balancing her jobs as a mother and a student. At that moment, all she could focus on was her baby and how she would love her.

  78

  Ana went to school most days, but she did her assignments at home if she felt tired or nauseous. Berto got a job washing cars in the streets so that he would have money to buy Ana maternity shirts and clothes for the baby.

  Berto worked hard, but his left hip hurt. It had given him trouble off and on for months, but the pain now felt like sharp gravel grinding into his joints. He went to a doctor, who told him he had an infection in his hip. The doctor gave him a cane to take some of the weight off when he was standing or walking.

  Within a couple of weeks, Berto could no longer stand long enough to wash a car. His leg throbbed all the time, and he hobbled like an old man. He couldn’t work anymore, and Ana worried about him and also whether he would ever be well enough to help her take care of their baby.

  79

  When she was seven months pregnant, Ana’s family at the hogar threw a baby shower for her. Ana was still sure she was having a girl.

  The residents of the hogar bought the baby a chest of drawers, a crib, a fan, and piles of tiny pink clothes, including handmade socks and a shirt. They decorated the house with pink balloons and streamers, trusting that Ana’s intuition was correct.

  Ana loved celebrating her baby: It was a new beginning, a chance to relive her childhood and to provide all the love and security to her baby that she wished she had had for herself. Ana was more optimistic about her future when she considered it through the eyes of her unborn niña.

  Ana was so preoccupied with what was happening inside her body that she had little time to worry about leaving the hogar when the baby was born. In part, she didn’t want to imagine life outside the hogar; she didn’t want to think of being alone, living without Berto, or starting over in a new group home.

  Silvia and Pablo spent hours on the phone, tracking down leads and trying to find the best place for Ana and her baby. Eventually, they contacted Ana’s favorite aunt, Aída, who had been unable to take Ana several years before. This time it was different: Aída had a little more money from her job waiting tables at a restaurant, and her own children were a little bit older
and more independent.

  “A baby belongs with family,” Aída told Silvia. “I would love to have Ana and the baby live with me.”

  When Silvia hung up the phone, she felt confident that Ana would be welcomed and supported as a new mother.

  80

  A month before Ana’s due date, Berto was hospitalized; the pain in his hip had become unbearable, and he needed surgery to clean out the infection so he could regain use of his leg. Berto couldn’t offer much support to Ana during this time; he needed to take care of his own health. He told Ana he was sorry he couldn’t help more.

  “It will be okay,” Ana told him, but the words felt empty to both of them. For months she had imagined Berto standing by her side, holding her hand, stroking her hair as she delivered their baby; she knew there was nothing he could do about his situation, but she was very disappointed that the birth was not going to happen as she had hoped. Ana was afraid of the pain, afraid of possible complications, afraid of the unknown; she didn’t want to be alone during the birth of the baby.

  Ana tried to be strong for Berto. She visited him in the hospital a couple of times, but in the last few weeks, Ana’s doctor told her to stay off her feet as much as possible because hers was considered a high-risk pregnancy. Ana quit school and rested at the hogar.

  Ana couldn’t get comfortable: She didn’t sleep well at night; her big belly created too much pressure. She sometimes had nightmares, flashes of a beastlike figure that made her awaken in a panic.