Page 181 of The Moon Sister
‘Mamá?’ came a voice from under the covers.
‘Lucía? What are you doing here?’ María reached for the light switch and saw her daughter was curled up in a foetal ball, just as she used to sleep when she was a child on the straw pallet beside her in the cave. ‘Are you sick,querida?’
‘Yes, no . . . Oh Mamá, what am I to do?’
‘About Meñique?’
‘No, this isnotabout Meñique! He has made his decision and left me because he does not love me enough. And I never want to share the same air with him again.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘It is . . .’ Lucía rolled over, her dark eyes haunted in her thin face. She took a deep breath, sighed as if working up the courage to say the words. ‘It is the present he has left me with.’
‘What “present”? I do not understand.’
‘This!’ Lucía pulled back the covers and pointed to her abdomen. To others, the slight curve of her distended belly would have been unnoticeable, but María knew her daughter did not have an ounce of flesh to spare. When she lay down, her stomach was normally concave between her narrow hips.
‘¡Dios mío!’ María crossed herself, then put a hand to her mouth. ‘You are with child?’
‘Sí, I am filled with the spawn of the devil!’
‘Don’t say that, Lucía. This child is innocent as every baby is, no matter who its parents are and what they have done. How many months?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lucía sighed. ‘Often I don’t bleed. Maybe three or four . . . I can’t remember.’
‘Then why did you not say something to him? To us?! My God, Lucía, you should be resting, eating, sleeping . . .’
‘I did not know, Mamá.’ Lucía pulled herself upright on the pillows and jabbed a finger at her belly. ‘Until this started to look like a half moon two weeks ago.’
‘You did not have any sickness? Feeling faint?’
‘Sí, I did, but it stopped a while ago.’
‘You have not been eating, and even your father asked me tonight what was wrong with you . . .’ María studied the bump. ‘Can I touch it, Lucía? Feel how big the baby is?’
‘It is starting to feel as though I have a balloon growing daily down there. I want to rip it out! Oh Mamá, how could this have happened to me?’ Lucía wailed as María felt her daughter’s stomach.
‘There! I just felt it move! It is alive,gracias a Dios.’
‘Oh yes, it kicks me in the night sometimes.’
‘Then it is at least four months! Stand up, Lucía, relax those strong muscles of yours and let me see you from the side.’
Lucía did as she was told, and María looked at her in wonder. ‘I am now thinking five months. How you have managed to hide this is a mystery to me.’
‘You might have noticed I no longer wear my trousers. I cannot zip them up round my waist, but at least the corset of the dresses pulls my stomach in.’
‘No!’ María shook her head in horror. ‘You must not wear corsets again, Lucía! The little one needs room to grow. And you must stop dancing immediately.’
‘Mamá, how can I do that? We have another tour coming up and . . .’
‘I will tell your father and he will cancel it tomorrow.’
‘No! I keep hoping that if I carry on dancing, the baby will just slip out of me. I’m amazed it has survived so far because I have fed it nothing except cigarettes and coffee—’
‘Enough!’ María crossed herself. ‘Do not say these terrible things, Lucía. You will bring a curse upon yourself. A child is the most precious gift we are given!’
‘But I don’t want the gift! I want to send it back where it came from, I—’
