I did.
“Do you know why you are going to have surgery?”
I swallowed hard.
“Because I don’t have a baby. I have something bad growing inside.”
Adriana touched my hand.
“You know more than many of the relatives outside.”
She lowered her voice.
“Have you signed any documents recently?”
I tried to remember.
Monica had visited me two weeks earlier. She brought me warm guava drink and sweet bread. She told me the government was updating paperwork for seniors, that they needed my signature to “have everything in order in case the baby was born.”
I felt grateful.
I signed three sheets.
I didn’t read them well.
My heart began to pound.
“My daughter brought me papers.”
Adriana didn’t change her expression, but she gripped her pen tighter.
“What papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have a deed? Do you own your own home?”
I looked toward the door.
That was when I understood.
The house in East Los Angeles. The little house that Ramon and I bought, paying dollar by dollar, working extra shifts, enduring leaks and debts. The house my children always called “Mom’s little lot” once they found out a real estate developer wanted to buy several properties near the avenue.
My belly didn’t embarrass them.
It gave them an opportunity.
If they could prove I was crazy, they could take control of my house.
When they came in to prep me for surgery, Monica tried to kiss my forehead. I pulled away.
“What did you make me sign?”
Her face froze.
“Mom, don’t start.”
“What did you make me sign?”
Arthur looked at the floor.
Julian shoved his hands into his pockets.
Monica smiled with that smile children use when they think their mother can no longer stand up to them.
“Just papers to help you.”
“Lies.”
She leaned toward me.
“You’re surviving a miracle and you’re still fighting? Do you see why we need to control your things?”
The gurney moved before I could answer.
They took me to the operating room with that sentence lodged in my throat.
I didn’t pray for the baby, because there was no baby.
I prayed for myself.
For the first time in many years, I asked God not to look after my children, but to protect me from them.
The surgery lasted for hours.
I was told later that the tumor weighed almost as much as a child. A gigantic teratoma, the doctor said. It had hair, fat, teeth—parts that looked invented by a nightmare. There were also suspicious zones, which is why they sent samples to pathology.
When I woke up, the first thing I did was touch my belly.
It was flat.
Sore.
