Ana's Story Page 8

On these nights, Ana often turned to the photocopy of her mamá still pinned to the wall by her bed in the hogar.

  She thought to herself: Mamá, I’m scared. I’m scared to bring a baby into the world.

  She looked at her mother’s young face. You were my age when I was born. Were you scared, Mamá?

  Ana thought about her mamá often, and in these quiet moments in the night, she longed for her mamá in the same way that a baby yearns for the comfort of a mother’s touch.

  I wish you were here to help me, Ana thought. I wish you could hold my hand. I want my baby to have a good life, a life without abuse or pain.

  Ana found comfort in thinking about her mother. She stared at the picture, just as she used to do when she was a little girl. When she started to feel safer, Ana closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

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  One night, Ana woke up with sharp cramping across her abdomen. She had experienced some tightness in the past few weeks as the muscles in her womb contracted and made her stomach feel as hard as an overly stuffed piñata.

  The pain eased and Ana caught her breath again. She rolled over in bed, expecting to fall back to sleep. A few minutes later, the pain returned.

  She knew this was it.

  Silvia drove Ana to the public hospital.

  “It’s okay, Ana,” Silvia said. “I will be waiting for you downstairs. You are ready for this.”

  “Can you call Berto?” Ana asked. She knew he couldn’t be there with her, but she wanted to make sure he knew that his baby was about to be born. He was in the same hospital, on another floor, and he would be able to see her after the baby was born.

  “And Silvia, gracias for everything,” Ana said. “Berto and I discussed it, and we want you and Pablo to be the baby’s godparents. We know that if anything ever happens to us, you would love and take care of our baby.”

  “Of course, Ana, of course,” Silvia responded. “We would be honored.”

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  Ana was prepared for surgery. The doctor had told her that she should give birth by cesarean section to reduce the risk that the baby would be infected with HIV. Ana was afraid, but she pushed the fear out of her mind; she would do whatever was best for her baby.

  Ana lay on a gurney, and a man she had never seen before came up to her and introduced himself as her doctor.

  “Where’s my doctor?” Ana asked.

  “She’s not here,” he said. “You’ll be fine.” This was not what she expected; she became more nervous.

  Another man came in to administer anesthesia. He injected medicine into her spine to numb her from the waist down. He told her that she would be awake during the surgery but she would not feel pain.

  A nurse hung a paper sheet across Ana’s chest so that she could not see what the doctor was doing. When the doctor began, Ana felt pressure and knew he was cutting into her belly. She thought of her father cutting up sea bass; the image amused Ana rather than frightening her. Ana closed her eyes.

  Then she heard a wail, the sound of her baby’s first cry. The baby’s voice—her baby’s voice—was so small and needy, yet fierce in its will.

  “It’s a girl,” the doctor said. “A beautiful baby girl.”

  The nurse took the baby to be cleaned and checked. Ana watched as she weighed her baby and put drops in her eyes.

  Tears slipped down the sides of Ana’s face. She was overwhelmed with joy and optimism. She knew that her world would now be different, more difficult in many ways, but at the same time Ana felt that she was given a second chance at happiness, an opportunity to love and to be loved in a way that she hadn’t been during her own childhood. Her baby was born, and Ana was reborn.

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  Ana named the baby Beatriz.

  After the doctor finished the surgery, Ana was moved into the recovery room. A nurse wrapped Beatriz in a blanket—like a burrito—and brought her to Ana.

  Ana held her baby against her chest and looked into her dark brown eyes. A nurse brought Ana a small bottle filled with formula.

  “You will need to bottle-feed her,” the nurse said.

  “I remember,” Ana said.

  Ana had learned from her doctor and from training at her support group that HIV can sometimes spread from mother to child through breast milk. Ana also knew that chance was involved—about one out of three babies of HIV-positive mothers are born HIV-positive. Isabel had not been breast-fed, and she was not infected; she had been one of the lucky ones.

  As Ana cradled Beatriz, she felt blessed. Ana watched, mesmerized by her baby’s beauty, amazed that those perfect little fingers had come from her.

  Ana knew that she would do anything to keep her baby healthy. The doctor had assured her that because she had taken her medication every day, the odds were high that Beatriz would not be infected with HIV.

  Ana thought about her mother; she flashed back to the memory of her mamá standing behind the bathroom door weeping over Lucía’s death. For the first time, Ana understood her mother’s pain.

  Ana looked at Beatriz—her dark eyes, her head topped with brown fuzz, and her delicate body—and she knew that her daughter would be the center of her life. Ana was overcome with a depth of love that she had never felt before, a perfect love between a mother and child, the same love she knew that her mother had felt for her.

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  The minute Berto heard that his niña had been born, he wanted to run down to meet her, but he didn’t have the strength to walk across the room. The nurse told him to rest and visit Ana and the baby in the morning.

  As soon as he woke up the following day, Berto limped downstairs, with a metal walker, to the maternity wing of the hospital. The walker made an annoying nails-on-the-chalkboard sound that embarrassed Berto. He felt ashamed of his dependence on the metal contraption, so he left it outside the door to Ana’s hospital room before he went inside.

  He paused outside Ana’s door to catch his breath and wipe the beads of sweat from his brow. He inhaled a deep breath of air, then pushed open Ana’s door.

  Berto used the railing of the hospital bed to guide himself closer to Ana. With considerable effort, he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Hola, mi amor,” Berto said, gently nudging Ana awake.

  “Hola, hey, have you seen her?” Ana asked, her voice raspy. “Did you meet our niña, our Beatriz?”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said sullenly. “I wanted to come yesterday, but the doctors told me I need to wait until I’m better.”

  “Don’t worry. There will be time,” Ana responded. She knew Berto was embarrassed by his dependency.

  “Ana, I’m proud of you,” Berto said.

  “I know, I know,” she said, smiling.

  Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. A nurse entered and said, “Ana, someone is here to see you.”

  Isabel walked into the room holding a single pink balloon. Ana was surprised. Was this Isabel—her Isabel—standing in front of her? They wrote letters and occasionally spoke on the phone, but Ana had not seen her sister in more than a year.

  Isabel rushed to Ana, tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, Isabel, I am so glad to see you,” Ana said, embracing her sister. “You can be the first to meet Beatriz.”

  Isabel wiped her tears and kissed Berto on both cheeks. She had already heard a lot about him.

  The nurse came back to the room. “Berto, you need to go back to your room. You should not see other visitors right now.” Berto’s immune system was so weak that he could not be exposed to anyone who might be sick.

  Berto kissed Ana. “Nice meeting you, Isabel,” he said. “I promise we’ll all be together soon.” He left quietly.

  The nurse returned with Beatriz. Isabel whispered, “She is so beautiful, Ana.”

  “Do you want to hold her?” Ana asked.

  “Oh, no. I’m scared. She’s so tiny,” Isabel said.

  “You are her tía, Isabel,” Ana reminded her sister. “You are one of the most important people in
her life. Hold her, don’t be nervous.”

  Isabel held her niece stiffly. Her face lightened when she looked at the baby. A moment later she handed Beatriz back to her mother.

  Ana and Isabel talked while Beatriz took her bottle. Ana told her sister that she worried that Berto might not be able to get a job because of the damage to his hip. How could he work when he spent so much time in the hospital? Without Berto to help out, Ana worried that she would be unable to support her daughter. She told Isabel that the doctors thought the baby was healthy. She told her that she and the baby were going to go home to live with their aunt Aída.

  “Will she let me live with her, too?” Isabel asked.

  “Aren’t you fine at your godfather’s house?” Ana asked.

  “Of course,” Isabel said, but Ana sensed something in her sister’s voice. “I just want us to be together—you and me and Beatriz. That’s all.”

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  Two days later, Aída came to the hospital to take Ana and Beatriz home. Ana was exhausted but excited to see her aunt.

  “Hola, Ana,” Aída said, giving Ana an enthusiastic embrace. “Let me see the baby! Where is she?”

  Aída picked up Beatriz from the bassinet. “She is so bonita, so pretty. She has her grandfather’s eyes,” she said, speaking about her oldest brother, Ana’s own father.

  “Thank you,” Ana said proudly. Then she added, “Thank you for everything.” Ana was pleased to be returning to her family, to what could be a permanent home.

  “I only wish I could have done this years ago,” Aída said.

  Aída drove up to a small cinder-block house with metal bars covering the windows. The house was in a poor barrio outside the city, where tiny houses painted bright tropical colors lined the streets. There were two small bedrooms, a kitchenette, and a living room for Aída, her husband, and her three children. Ana didn’t care about the lack of privacy or the crowding. She was grateful to be with family.

  Ana moved her box of clothes into the room she would share with her three young primos, her cousins. Ana hung her clothes on a pole mounted to the wall behind the bed she would share with Beatriz; the crib would not fit in the room. The room was littered with baby bottles, Barbies, remote-control cars, and piles of children’s clothes. Ana was too tired to worry about the mess.

  She placed Beatriz in the middle of the bed and used two pillows to create a barrier on one side; Ana lay down on Beatriz’s other side and promptly fell asleep.

  The next morning over coffee and fried corn patties with cheese, Aída and Ana talked.

  “Do they know if the baby is healthy?” Aída asked, concerned about the possibility that the HIV could have been passed to Beatriz.

  “The doctor thinks she’s fine,” Ana said. “But they’ll need to do some tests later.”

  “That’s a relief,” Aída said. “I remember when you were so sick. Your abuela was so worried.”

  “When was I sick?” Ana asked as she sipped her coffee. “I’ve never been sick.”

  “Haven’t you heard the story of how your abuela saved your life?”

  While she knew that her abuela had taken care of her when she was young, Ana had never heard any stories about her abuela saving her life.

  “When you were four, your abuela took you to the hospital, where the doctor said that AIDS was close to killing you. You were thin—very sick and unhealthy looking,” Aída told Ana.

  “You lost all of your baby teeth, and you were near death,” she continued. “Your abuela was determined to get the medication to save your life. She had to find a program in the United States to give you your medication when you were little. It was not an easy time for her.”

  Was Tía Aída talking about the same abuela—the one who beat her, the one who taught Ana to keep secrets? Ana had never heard this.

  “I don’t remember any of that,” Ana said to Aída. Ana was happy to learn this piece of her past. Ana’s abuela, her strong, proud, stubborn abuela, had loved her enough to fight for her life. This was important to Ana; it was important to know Abuela had loved her.

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  When Beatriz was six weeks old, Ana wanted to show her off by taking her to church in the hogar. That Sunday, it was raining heavily, but Ana decided to take the baby to visit.

  After Mass, everyone surrounded Ana and Beatriz; the room was filled with the sweet hum of family. Ana sat proudly, cradling Beatriz, while her friends from the hogar gathered around her to admire the baby. Berto sat quietly in the chair next to Ana, but he didn’t take part in the conversation.

  Suddenly Beatriz broke out into a muffled whine. Ana rocked her and wiped the tears from her eyes. Berto handed Ana a clean cloth, but he didn’t speak.

  When it was time to leave, Ana held Beatriz with one arm and extended her other to Berto, who needed both Ana’s arm and a cane to walk. She knew Berto had been distant because of the pain he felt in his hip, but he was not acting like the Berto she had met under the tree at the reform center.

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  Ana spent most of her days without Berto. He lived in the hogar and was constantly in and out of the hospital. Aída and her husband worked during the days, and Ana’s cousins attended school. Ana enjoyed the quiet and the time alone with Beatriz.

  In the afternoons, Ana would put on a CD of one of her favorite bands, Aventura. She sang along, using the remote as her microphone. She often reached down and scooped up Beatriz, twirling around the small living room like a ballerina in a jewelry box with her daughter held close to her chest. Sometimes Ana danced to the bachata, her feet moving back and forth like a dial on a clock as she sang along to the words.

  Ana’s beauty was striking; her brown skin, long waves of dark hair, and dark almond eyes resembled the exotic subjects in Gauguin’s Tahiti paintings. She was teaching her baby to dance the same way Papá had taught her.

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  When Beatriz was three months old, her doctor gave her an HIV test. Ana held her baby as the nurse drew the blood, offering a silent prayer that Beatriz would not be infected.

  A few weeks later, she received a letter from the doctor’s office. The results: negative.

  Ana would not allow herself to relax completely; follow-up tests would be required in several months.

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  Berto returned to the hospital and stayed there for another month. He had missed the excitement of the holiday season—admiring the palm trees adorned with red and green lights, shopping for the perfect gift for Beatriz’s first Navidad, taking his daughter to the annual Christmas parade. Ana had hoped to do these things with Berto, as a family; instead, she and Beatriz did them alone.

  At the hospital, Ana rode the elevator to Berto’s floor. The hallway had been decorated for Navidad with enormous red and green Christmas bells, which hung like monkeys from the ceiling. A Christmas tree with all its trimmings stood in the corner.

  Ana walked into the stark, white shoe box of a room that Berto shared with his roommate, a painfully thin man who wore oversize diapers. Even though he was in his forties, he had been reduced to the humiliation of infancy. The man was half covered by a thin wool blanket, and his lifeless leg hung off the side of the bed. It reminded Ana of a hollow branch of a rotten tree.

  Ana ignored the look of death in the roommate’s eyes. She focused on Berto. He was dressed in a loose hospital gown. His face looked angular and skeletal; his skin was covered with a rash typical of those infected with AIDS. His thin lips rarely smiled anymore.

  Ana brought Berto a box of shortbread cookies. She ripped into the plastic cover and opened the box. She bit into a cookie and then ran to the trash can and dramatically spit out the cookie. She wanted to cheer Berto up.

  Even though Berto’s eyes were still focused on the television, he quietly laughed. He was trying to play it cool.

  Ana tried to force Berto to sample the cookie. The cat-and-mouse flirting continued until he pulled her close to him.

  Berto was timid and introverted, but he was enamored with An
a. Pictures of Ana and Beatriz were taped throughout the room.

  Ana sat on the edge of the bed and told Berto stories about Beatriz rolling over for the first time.

  “I want to go home and see her do it,” Berto said. Beatriz was not permitted to visit the hospital because she was so young.

  “I want that, too,” Ana said. Ana did want Berto to be involved in Beatriz’s life, and she would have loved for them to be together as a family, but Ana had started to wonder whether Berto was the one for her.

  Outside the hospital room, three nurses gossiped at the desk while sorting through death certificates.

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  Although Ana’s barrio was a twenty-minute bus ride from Berto, she loved living at Aunt Aída’s. She loved belonging to a family. Ana liked walking the streets of her neighborhood, passing mothers outside watching their children play and men cutting grass with machetes on the side of the road. Ana liked the fact that she and her Beatriz lived close to where she lived when she was a little girl and her mamá and papá were still alive.

  Sometimes in the mornings, after Beatriz had been bathed and dressed for the day, Ana walked from her aunt’s house to the supermarket a few blocks away to buy milk and diapers. One morning, two girls her age stopped Ana a block from her home.

  “Hola, are you new around here?” said a petite girl.

  “Sí,” said Ana. “I moved into my tía’s house about three months ago. It’s the peach one on the corner.”

  “I can’t believe we haven’t met. Is that your bebé?” asked another girl.

  “Yes, this is Beatriz,” said Ana, warming up a bit. “She is almost five months old.”