Chapter 2 - THE HUSBAND ESPERANZA NEVER TALKED ABOUT
Caridad closed the refrigerator.
“What does ‘the first two’ mean?”
Esperanza did not answer immediately.
She shut the infirmary door behind her.
Miguel and Tomás were asleep in the nursery room Sister Agnes had created after Miguel’s birth.
No one else was in the corridor.
Caridad held up the pharmacy bag.
“Embryo transfer?”
Esperanza’s face had gone pale.
“Please keep your voice down.”
“Why?”
“Because the others don’t know.”
“The others think God caused three pregnancies without a father.”
“I never said that.”
“You allowed them to believe it.”
Esperanza flinched.
Caridad set the bag on the counter.
“Start at the beginning.”
Esperanza sat on the examination table.
For several seconds she looked less like a nun than a tired thirty-two-year-old mother who had not slept through the night in two years.
“My husband was Mateo Delgado.”
“I know his name.”
“You know he died.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know everything before that.”
Caridad waited.
Esperanza clasped her hands together.
Mateo had been diagnosed with lymphoma less than a year after they married.
He was twenty-eight.
Esperanza was twenty-six.
Before chemotherapy began, an oncologist recommended fertility preservation.
“They froze sperm?”
“Embryos.”
Caridad stared.
Esperanza nodded.
“We did IVF. Four embryos reached the stage they could freeze.”
“Four.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Rio Grande Fertility Center in Albuquerque.”
Caridad felt her stomach tighten.
Paloma Reyes had worked there before semi-retiring.
Esperanza continued.
“Mateo recovered the first time.”
“But the cancer came back.”
“Yes.”
“He died?”
“Two years later.”
Caridad sat across from her.
“What happened to the embryos?”
“They stayed frozen.”
“And when you entered Santa Lucía?”
“I told Paloma.”
“Why her?”
“She had treated Mateo’s family for years. She helped us through IVF.”
“And she became our doctor afterward.”
Esperanza nodded.
Caridad looked at the progesterone.
“Did you ask her to transfer an embryo?”
Silence.
“Esperanza.”
“Yes.”
The answer came barely above a whisper.
“With Miguel?”
“Yes.”
Caridad stood.
The room seemed too small.
“You chose the first pregnancy.”
“I did.”
“After taking vows.”
“My temporary vows.”
“You were living in community.”
“Yes.”
“You looked me in the face and said you had no idea how it happened.”
Esperanza’s eyes filled.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Being sent away.”
Caridad laughed once.
It sounded cruel even to her.
“You believed pregnancy was less likely to send you away if everyone thought it was a miracle?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Esperanza wiped her face.
“Mother Benedicta knew.”
Caridad stopped.
Mother Benedicta had led Santa Lucía for twenty-seven years.
She died eighteen months after Miguel was born.
Caridad had succeeded her.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“About Miguel.”
Caridad sat again.
“Tell me.”
Esperanza said the first transfer happened at Paloma’s private office in Albuquerque.
No intercourse.
No man entering the convent.
No supernatural event.
A medical procedure.
She had taken medication in secret for weeks.
Paloma drove her home afterward.
Mother Benedicta covered the trip by telling the sisters Esperanza had gone for treatment for endometriosis.
“When the pregnancy test came back positive,” Esperanza said, “Benedicta told me we would handle it quietly.”
“Quietly?”
“She said no newspaper. No spectacle. No false claims.”
“Yet everyone inside these walls talked about miracles.”
“I never used the word.”
“You never corrected them.”
Esperanza looked down.
“No.”
“And Miguel’s father?”
“Mateo.”
“DNA?”
“Yes.”
“Confirmed?”
“Paloma arranged it after birth.”
Caridad rubbed both hands over her face.
“And Tomás?”
Esperanza’s shoulders tightened.
“That was more complicated.”
“Meaning?”
“After Miguel was born, I told Paloma I was done.”
“Yet you became pregnant again.”
“Yes.”
“Did you consent?”
Esperanza closed her eyes.
“Eventually.”
Caridad stood again.
“Eventually?”
“Paloma kept saying Mateo and I had created four lives.”
“Embryos.”
“I know.”
“She said keeping them frozen forever was another kind of abandonment.”
“And you believed her?”
“I was grieving.”
“You had already been grieving for years.”
“I was also a mother.”
Esperanza looked toward the nursery wall.
“Miguel had Mateo’s eyes.”
That silenced Caridad.
Esperanza continued.
“Every time I looked at him, I remembered the children Mateo and I thought we would have.”
“So you agreed to another transfer.”
“Yes.”
“With Tomás.”
“Yes.”
Caridad pointed at the pharmacy bag.
“Then what is this?”
Esperanza began shaking.
“I didn’t ask for a third.”
“When did Paloma last examine you?”
“Seven weeks ago.”
“The visitor log says two months.”
“She came through the old orchard gate.”
Caridad stared.
“That gate has been locked for years.”
“Imelda has a key.”
Sister Imelda.
Treasurer.
Keeper of the convent’s accounts.
Caridad felt another piece move.
“Why did Paloma come?”
“I had bleeding after Tomás’s birth that never completely stopped. She said she needed to check my uterus.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Medication?”
“A sedative.”
Caridad’s skin went cold.
“Were you awake?”
“Partly.”
“What do you remember?”
“Pressure. A speculum. Paloma saying everything looked normal.”
Esperanza began crying.
“Then I woke in my room.”
Caridad looked at the progesterone.
“Did you take this afterward?”
“Paloma told me it was to stabilize my hormones because I was nursing and bleeding.”
“You injected yourself?”
“For ten days.”
“You never read the pharmacy label?”
“She removed the labels from the first syringes.”
Caridad stared.
“The bag was not here then.”
“No.”
“Then how did it get here?”
Esperanza looked toward the locked cabinet.
“I found it yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In Paloma’s old supply drawer.”
Caridad’s heart began to pound.
“So Paloma was here recently.”
“I don’t know.”
“You dropped the tape in my office.”
Esperanza nodded slowly.
“I wanted you to find something.”
Caridad stared at her.
“You could have told me.”
“I’ve been lying for three years.”
Esperanza’s voice cracked.
“I didn’t know how to begin telling the truth.”
The next morning, Caridad searched the infirmary supply cabinet with Esperanza present.
Behind a box of sterile gloves, she found a folded shipping invoice.
Rio Grande Fertility Center.
Cryogenic transfer.
Patient: Elena Vega-Delgado.
Contents:
ONE CRYOPRESERVED EMBRYO.
Date:
Seven weeks earlier.
Destination:
Paloma Reyes, MD.
Caridad stared at the signature authorizing release.
ELENA VEGA-DELGADO.
Esperanza leaned over her shoulder.
“That’s not my signature.”
At the bottom was a witness.
SISTER IMELDA ROJAS.
Caridad looked toward the chapel.
May you like
The woman who balanced Santa Lucía’s books had apparently helped move the embryo.
And she had never said a word.
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