Part 19 (2/2)
”Was it good? Was it bad?”
”Depends on how you look at it. Did you call your husband?”
”Yes.”
”He will be happy to see you.” She cradled the door as though she wasn't sure what to say next. ”The baby, she's okay?”
”Fine,” I said.
”Well, good night.”
Chapter 29.
Breakfast was plentiful: all the things that made me feel most guilty when I ate them-bacon and eggs and extremely sweet cafe au lait.
”I thought you would be hungry” she said, ”on the road to recovery. How can you resist all this food?”
”It's not as simple as that.”
I had a piece of toast while my mother gave my daughter her formula. She looked like she hadn't slept much. The eggplant shade came back to her skin, as it always did before she applied her skin bleaching creams.
”You didn't look very happy when you came home last night,” I said.
”Someone like me, you see me happy, you know I'm pretending,” she said.
”Is something wrong?”
”Brace yourself. I know you are not going to believe what I have to tell you. Sophie, your mother is pregnant.”
”Pregnant?” I stuttered.
”Marc and I, we have-”
”You sleep together?”
She nodded, looking ashamed.
”How far along are you?” I asked.
”A month or so.”
”Are you going to marry him?”
”Jesus Marie Joseph. Am I going to do what?”
”Doesn't he want to marry you?”
”Of course he wants to marry me, but look at me. I am a fat woman trying to pa.s.s for thin. A dark woman trying to pa.s.s for light. And I have no b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I don't know when this cancer will come back. I am not an ideal mother.”
Brigitte wrapped her arms around my mother's neck as my mother burped her.
”What are you going to do?” I asked.
”That's what I don't know.”
”What does Marc want?”
”It's my decision. Supremely, it's mine. I am very scared. I don't know. The nightmares, they're coming back.”
”In Dame Marie, it didn't seem like you slept at all.”
”Whenever I'm there, I feel like I sleep with ghosts. The first night I was there, I woke up pounding at my stomach.”
”What are you going to do about the baby?”
”I don't know.”
”You can marry Marc and have the baby.”
”And repeat my great miracle of being a super mother with you? Some things one should not repeat.”
”Think of it as a second chance.”
”I've had the second chance of my life by being spared death from this cancer. I can't ask too much.”
”Do you love Marc?”
”I think I love him. Since you left, he stays with me at night and wakes me up when I have the nightmares.”
”You still won't go for help?”
”I know I should get help, but I am afraid. I am afraid it will become even more real if I see a psychiatrist and he starts telling me to face it. G.o.d help me, what if they want to hypnotize me and take me back to that day? I'll kill myself. Marc, he saves my life every night, but I am afraid he gave me this baby that's going to take that life away.”
”You can't say that.”
”The nightmares. I thought they would fade with age, but no, it's like getting raped every night. I can't keep this baby.”
”It must have been much harder then but you kept me.”
”When I was pregnant with you, Manman made me drink all kinds of herbs, vervain, quinine, and verbena, baby poisons. I tried beating my stomach with wooden spoons. I tried to destroy you, but you wouldn't go away.”
She reached over and handed Brigitte back to me.
”When I was carrying you, you were brave,” she said. ”You wanted to live. You wanted to taste salt, as my mother would say. You were going to kill me before I killed you.”
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