“But…”
“My cousin said the lab report on you showed some traces of X, so I just assumed that was where or how you might have gotten it. I told him I didn’t search you before I brought you home. Besides, I didn’t care if you did take it or not. I’m not going to say I haven’t,” she added, laughing.
“But he thinks that was the same as your telling him I did.”
“I can’t control what he thinks, Delia, especially after the doctor told him about your lab report. You don’t have to put on this act for me. I told you that I don’t care. It doesn’t affect my feelings about you one way or the other. In fact, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t tried it, and I told you about your cousin Sophia being tossed out of college.”
“That’s Sophia. It’s not me. And she wasn’t pregnant at the time.”
“I wouldn’t say yes or no to that, either. I bet she’s had an abortion or…two.”
“I never took any drugs, Fani.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Your cousin is just trying to get me to leave my baby and go,” I said.
“Delia, face it. Where would he be better off? Struggling in some Mexican cow town with you or as a Bovio living with Ray? He’ll be treated like a little prince. Don’t you want that? And besides, you want to get back out there in the playing field and find yourself a decent man, if there is such a thing. I have an idea for you,” she said excitedly. “Try to go to a nursing school in Los Angeles, and you and I will be able to hang out together. It will be like old times again.”
“You don’t have children and then just desert them as if they were nothing more than some out-of-fashion dress, Fani.”
“Really? You have a lot to learn about modern parents. In sociology class last week, the professor said there are now upward of fifty thousand new foster children a year here. If you want to think like that, you might be better off returning to Mexico. Families still mean something there.”
“You’re just bitter about your own family.”
“Whatever. Look, Delia, you can do what you want. All I can do is give you some advice. If I were you, I’d grab what I could get from Ray and move on. It’s going to end up being that way anyhow. You’ll just skip all the turmoil and nastiness. You’ve been through enough of it, haven’t you? Smarten up before it’s too late. Ray’s not going to want a public fight, either. Negotiate hard. There’s a big payoff waiting for you, I’m sure.”
“I cannot sell away my own baby, Fani!”
“So, don’t think of it as selling him. Think of it as renting him to Ray for about twenty years or so. Didn’t you tell me you felt you owed him something and that was what got you into this situation in the first place? It was truly as if you were giving him a gift. Delia’s gift. Well, just continue thinking that way.”
“I can’t,” I said, crying now.
“Rest on it for a while,” she said. “Look, I’ve got to get my pretty little buns on the highway before the traffic gets too thick. I’ll call you during the week. Maybe I’ll come down again next weekend. I’ll see what’s doing on campus. There is this guy in my psych class who’s been drooling over me. He’s pretty good-looking, and he plays a mean guitar. I heard he was writing a song for me. Maybe he’ll serenade me under my window tonight.”
I was sobbing now but doing it quietly.
“Delia?”
“Good-bye, Fani,” I said, and hung up.
I made my way back to my room and sat by the window, sucking back my tears. Mi tía Isabela’s words when she had first visited me at the Bovio estate haunted me, especially when she had said: “No matter what Señor Bovio tells you, no matter how rich and expensive the gifts he lavishes on you are, make no mistake about it. He still believes his son is dead because of you. He thinks you bewitched him. If Adan hadn’t come back for you, he would never have been on that boat that day, and if you hadn’t lost control of the steering, he might not have suffered such a terrible accident. In the days following Adan’s death, Señor Bovio muttered all these things to me repeatedly. And don’t think his priest talked him out of them. There’s no forgiveness in him. He has a bloodline that goes back to the Aztecs. He lives for vengeance. I know him through and through, Delia. You are in for a terrible time. Go home before you suffer some horrible fate.”
Was this the horrible fate she had accurately predicted for me?
Mrs. Newell interrupted my thoughts. “It’s time for your medication,” she said.
“Is this the antibiotic?”
“Of course.”
“It makes me tired, Mrs. Newell.”
“It can, but you’re not going dancing tonight,” she replied, and opened the pill bottle to spill out a pill.
“Shouldn’t I take it after I eat dinner? I have to prepare my own dinner.”
She stood there glaring at me. “You don’t learn quickly, do you? You’re either very stubborn or very stupid. I haven’t decided. Maybe you’re both. If I thought you should take the pill after dinner, I would have you take it after dinner, wouldn’t I?”