Delia’s Gift Read Free

all of this, here I was in Adan’s mother’s room, listening to his father’s plans to make my pregnancy easier.
    “ Sí, sí, I know all about that fiasco in Mexico,” Señor Bovio said. He shuffled the air between us as if the words still lingered. “We won’t discuss it. What’s done is done. I’ll see about Fani,” he added. “Is there anyone else with whom you are friendly or have been friendly, girls at the public school, perhaps?” He raised his eyebrows. “We should be very careful about whom we invite to this house.”
    “No one at the moment, señor. However, I do want to finish my schooling and get my high school diploma,” I said. “Someday I hope to go to school to be a nurse.”
    “ Sí , that’s a good thought. You should pursue a career. I’ll get you into a very good nursing college. A friend of mine is the president of an excellent one on the East Coast.”
    “East Coast?” I smiled. “With a baby to care for, itwill be some time before I am able to attend a nursing school, señor, but there are surely ones not far from here.”
    “ Sí, you are right. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. As you have said, you still have to get your high school diploma. I told you at the clinic that I would look into home schooling or some tutoring. Don’t worry about it. Leave it all up to me. It’s nothing for me to arrange someone qualified to come here and get the job done.”
    “But really, I could attend the public school and…”
    “No,” he said sharply, and then took a breath to simmer down and smile again. “That would be unnecessary and foolish under these circumstances.”
    “I have only a month of school remaining, and I’m not much more than two months’ pregnant, señor. ”
    He shook his head. “I don’t want you mixing with so many people, people from much poorer conditions, unsanitary conditions. You know yourself how some of those schoolmates of yours in the public school live. They bring in diseases, flu, and now, with your being pregnant…well, it’s not necessary to take any of those risks. I’ll look into it for you. I’ll get you all the books you need, everything. Don’t worry. I’m very friendly with the commissioner of education. I can make these things happen. Do not think of them again.”
    I saw that these, too, were words inscribed in concrete. It was futile to argue about it. Maybe he thought I would find another boyfriend at school, even while I was pregnant, and run off to live far away with my baby.
    “Whatever you think best, señor. ”
    “ Sí, good. The doctor will be here this evening after his regular duties,” he said. “He’ll check you out, and we’ll go slowly from there. In the meantime, I’ll have them prepare something for you to eat for lunch. You can make yourself comfortable. You can wear anything you find that will fit you until we get you your own new clothes. You will see that much of what is here has barely been used. As Adan used to say, my wife was a clothes junkie, and you’re not far from her size. She was about your height, and you have a similar figure. There are pictures…” He waved at some of the framed photographs. “I have many more in my office downstairs, her films, her photo shoots. You can see them later.”
    He smiled and just stared at me as if I were some window through which he could look back at a happier past.
    “She wasn’t much older than you are when we first met,” he said, just above a whisper.
    “ Gracias, señor, ” I replied, bringing him out of his musing.
    His smile dimmed and faded like a light slowly going out. He shook himself as if he had just felt a chill. “ Sí. Let me see about the lunch. Just rest,” he told me, and started out of the suite.
    “One more thing, Señor Bovio.”
    He paused.
    “When you came for me back at the clinic this morning, you promised you would take me to my village in Mexico so I could visit my parents’ and my grandparents’ graves.” I