16
He steps outside for a cigarette before going up to give Krieg the reports. His phone rings. It’s his mother-in-law. He answers the call and says, “Hi, Graciela,” without looking at the screen. On the other end there’s silence, at once serious and intense. That’s when he realizes
it’s Cecilia.
“Hi, Marcos.”
It’s the first time she’s called since she went to stay with her mother. She looks haggard.
“Hi.” He knows it’s going to be a difficult conversation and takes
another drag on his cigarette.
“How are you?”
“I’m here at the plant. What about you?”
There’s a pause before she answers. A long pause. “I see you’re there,” she says, though she’s not looking at the screen. For a few seconds, she’s quiet. Then she speaks, but she doesn’t look him in the eye. “I’m not well,” she says, “still not well. I don’t think I’m ready to
come back.”
“Why don’t you let me come visit?”
“I need to be alone.”
“I miss you.”
The words are a black hole, a hole that absorbs every sound, every particle, every breath. She doesn’t answer.
He says, “It happened to me too. I lost him too.”
She cries silently. She covers the screen with one hand, and he hears her whisper, “I can’t take any more.” A pit opens up and he’s free-falling, everywhere there are sharp edges. She gives the phone to her mother.
“Hi, Marcos. She’s having a really tough time, forgive her.”
“It’s okay, Graciela.”
“Take care, Marcos. She’ll get there.”
They hang up.
He stays where he is for a little while longer. The employees walk by and look at him, but he doesn’t care. He’s in one of the rest areas, outdoors, where you can smoke. He watches the treetops move in the wind that alleviates the heat a little. He likes the rhythm, the sound of
the leaves brushing against each other. There are only a few trees— four surrounded by nothing—but they’re right next to each other.
He knows Cecilia will never get better. He knows she’s broken, that the pieces of her have no way of mending.
The first thing he thinks of is the medicine they’d kept in the fridge. How they’d brought it home in a special container, taking care not to break the cold chain, hopeful, deeply in debt. He thinks of the first time she asked him to give her an injection in the stomach. She’d given millions of them, trillions, countless injections, but she’d wanted him to inaugurate the ritual, the start of it all. His hand had trembled a little because he hadn’t wanted it to hurt, but she’d said, “Go on, dear, just put the needle in, go on, you’ve got this, it’s no big deal.” She’d grabbed a fold in her stomach and he’d put the needle in and it had hurt, the medicine was cold and she’d felt it enter her body, but she’d hidden it with a smile because it was the beginning of possibility, of the future.
Cecilia’s words were like a river of lights, an aerial torrent, like fireflies glowing. She’d tell him, when they didn’t yet know they’d have to turn to the treatments, that she wanted their children to have his eyes but her nose, his mouth but her hair. He’d laugh because she’d laugh, and with their laughter, his father and the nursing home, the processing plant and the heads, the blood and the stunners’ sharp strikes would disappear.
The other image that comes to him like an explosion is Cecilia’s face when she opened the envelope and saw the results of the Anti- Mullerian hormone test. She didn’t understand how the number could be so low. She looked at the piece of paper, unable to speak, until very slowly, she said, “I’m young, I should be producing more eggs.” But she was disconcerted, because as a nurse she knew that youth doesn’t guarantee anything. She looked at him, her eyes asking for help, and he took the piece of paper from her, folded it, put it on the table and told her not to worry, that everything was going to be okay. She started to cry and he just held her and kissed her on the forehead and the face, and said, “Everything’s going to be okay,” even though he knew it wouldn’t be.
After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them, and the pressure to fill the
plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question, “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mothers’ Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the bin, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.