{"id":823,"date":"2024-02-15T10:18:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T16:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/?post_type=product&#038;p=823"},"modified":"2025-09-05T12:49:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T17:49:36","slug":"concepcion-and-the-baby-brokers","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/product\/concepcion-and-the-baby-brokers","title":{"rendered":"Concepci\u00f3n and the Baby Brokers"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>by\u00a0Deborah Clearman<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<style>\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t#tab_container_822 {\r\n\toverflow:hidden;\r\n\tdisplay:block;\r\n\twidth:100%;\r\n\tborder:0px solid #ddd;\r\n\tmargin-bottom:30px;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .tab-content{\r\n\tpadding:20px;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\tmargin-top: 0px;\r\n\tbackground-color:#fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tfont-size:16px !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n\t\r\n\t\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n\t}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs {\r\n    border-bottom: 0px solid #ddd;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a, #tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:hover, #tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li.active > a:focus {\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tcursor: default;\r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #e6e2cc !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a {\r\n    margin-right: 0px !important; \r\n    line-height: 1.42857143 !important;\r\n    border: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n    border-radius: 0px 0px 0 0 !important; \r\n\tbackground-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tcolor: #000000 !important;\r\n\tpadding: 15px 18px 15px 18px !important;\r\n\ttext-decoration: none !important;\r\n\tfont-size: 14px !important;\r\n\ttext-align:center !important;\r\n\tfont-family: Open Sans !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\noutline: 0px !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:before {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:after {\r\n\tdisplay:none !important ;\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\npadding:0px !important ;\r\nmargin:0px;\r\n}\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:hover , #tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a:focus {\r\n    color: #000000 !important;\r\n    background-color: #fffbe5 !important;\r\n\tborder: 1px solid #ece8d2 !important;\r\n\t\r\n}\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li > a .fa{\r\n\r\nmargin-right:5px !important;\r\n\r\nmargin-left:5px !important;\r\n\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\t\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs a{\r\n\t\t\tbackground-image: none;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-position: 0 0;\r\n\t\t\tbackground-repeat: repeat-x;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n    float: left;\r\n    margin-bottom: -1px !important;\r\n\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n#tab_container_822 .tab-content{\r\noverflow:hidden !important;\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (min-width: 769px) {\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\tfloat:left !important ;\r\n\t\t\t\tmargin-right:-1px !important;\r\n\t\t\t\t\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\tmargin:0px !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t}\r\n\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav{\r\n\t\t\t}\r\n}\r\n\r\n\r\n\t.wpsm_nav-tabs li:before{\r\n\t\tdisplay:none !important;\r\n\t}\r\n\r\n\t@media (max-width: 768px) {\r\n\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t.wpsm_nav-tabs{\r\n\t\t\tmargin-left:0px !important;\r\n\t\t\tmargin-right:0px !important; \r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\t#tab_container_822 .wpsm_nav-tabs > li{\r\n\t\t\tfloat:none !important;\r\n\t\t}\r\n\t\t\t\r\n\t}\t\t\t\t<\/style>\r\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"tab_container_822\" >\r\n\t \r\n\t\t\t\t\t<ul class=\"wpsm_nav wpsm_nav-tabs\" role=\"tablist\" id=\"myTab_822\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  class=\"active\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_822_1\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_822_1\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Overview<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<li role=\"presentation\"  onclick=\"do_resize()\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#tabs_desc_822_2\" aria-controls=\"tabs_desc_822_2\" role=\"tab\" data-toggle=\"tab\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span>Excerpt<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/li>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/ul>\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <!-- Tab panes -->\r\n\t\t\t\t\t  <div class=\"tab-content\" id=\"tab-content_822\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane  in active \" id=\"tabs_desc_822_1\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">In nine interconnected stories set largely in Guatemala,\u00a0<em>Concepci\u00f3n and The Baby Brokers<\/em>\u00a0brings to life characters struggling with familiar emotions and dilemmas in a place unfamiliar to most Americans. From the close-knit community of Todos Santos to the teeming dangerous capital city, to a meat-packing plant in Michigan and the gardens of Washington DC, Deborah Clearman shows us the human cost of international adoption, drug trafficking, and immigration.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\"><em>A Cup of Tears,<\/em>\u00a0the opening novella, reveals a third-world baby farm, seen through the eyes of a desperate wet nurse, a baby broker, and an American adoptive mother. In \u201cThe Race\u201d a young man returns to his native village to ride in a disastrous horse race. \u201cEnglish Lessons\u201d tells of a Guatemalan immigrant in Washington DC who learns more than English from a public library volunteer. A teenage girl tries to trap her professor into marriage in \u201cSaints and Sinners.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">With searing humanity, Clearman exposes the consequences of American exceptionalism, and the daily magic and peril that inform and shape ordinary lives.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">\"In these vivid and often heart-wrenching stories, Deborah Clearman illuminates Guatemalan culture at ground level, through characters whose struggles are palpable and moving. The collection couldn\u2019t be more timely, or necessary.\"<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Julie Salamon, <em>Wendy and the Lost Boys<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: left\">\"With deep respect for Guatemalan culture, particularly its variations in the beautiful, haunted town of Todos Santos, Deborah Clearman gives us the lovely, captivating <em>Concepci\u00f3n and the Baby Brokers.\u00a0<\/em>Hers is a voice worth hearing; these are stories worth reading.\"<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"sm_text\" style=\"text-align: right\">\u2014Mark Brazaitis,\u00a0<em>The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>Julia &amp; Rodrigo<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-855\" src=\"https:\/\/rainmountainpress.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Deborah-Cleaman-headshot.jpg\" alt=\"Deborah Cleaman\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" \/>Deborah Clearman<\/strong>\u00a0is the author of a novel\u00a0<em>Todos Santos<\/em>, from Black Lawrence Press, and<em>\u00a0The Goose\u2019s Tale<\/em>, a children\u2019s book she wrote and illustrated. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including\u00a0<em>Witness, storySouth,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em>Beloit Fiction Journal<\/em>. She is the former Program Director for NY Writers Coalition, and she teaches creative writing in such nontraditional venues as senior centers, public housing projects, and the jail for women on Rikers Island. She lives in New York City and Guatemala. For more visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deborahclearman.com\/\">www.deborahclearman.com<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div role=\"tabpanel\" class=\"tab-pane \" id=\"tabs_desc_822_2\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<P><strong>Baby Snatcher<\/strong><\/P>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s idea was to give the jaladores just one baby. Think about it. Is a woman not overblessed with two identical sons? One son is a gift, a joy, a polestar. The second? A redundancy.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The twins had been awful all morning. They both had colds. Globs of snot hung from their pug noses no matter how often she swiped at them. They screamed for the breast. They were too old and toothful to be such nursing fiends, and her nipples were chewed raw. She had finally gotten them to sleep, one swaddled to her back, the other in the playpen on the patio, and she was doing laundry. She bent over the pila, the ponderous outdoor sink that guarded the patio, and raked the twins\u2019 little pants and shirts over its cement washboard. She wrung ice water out of their clothes with vengeful vigor. She hated that this job sucked the juices out of her for another woman\u2019s children. She felt the sun blasting down on her from a cold sky, lighting up the gloss on her heavy black braid (of which she was so proud), burning into her secret places.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The three strangers arrived stealthily, unheralded by bus-horn blast or truck-gear grind. They must have walked the four dusty kilometers from town, peering into yards. They climbed up the short flight of steps to the pila. Concepci\u00f3n, tall for fifteen, straightened up to her full height, put on a haughty expression and stared at them with eyes like black stones. They were two women and a man, dressed as Todosanteros. A long silence happened, as if all four people on the patio were the earth\u2019s first humans, awaiting the miracle of speech. The strangers took in the sleeping twin, the compound of low buildings that hemmed in the patio, doors opening onto the narrow veranda, the steep rise behind of outbuildings and milpas, the cornfields standing up against the weight of mountain walls.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cBuenas tardes,\u201d one of the women said at last. The words jumped out in a clip, instead of the long sing-song the country people gave them. \u201cIs your husband or father-in-law at home?\u201d Concepci\u00f3n could tell she was not really from Todos Santos. The indigo skirts, the hand-woven blouses, the man\u2019s red pants were a ruse. The disguise triggered her instinct to be on guard.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cThey\u2019re not home,\u201d she said, not offering information or hospitality. Concepci\u00f3n had so little to give. She had neither of those valuable male assets (husband, father-in-law), but she would never reveal that. What she had was Do\u00f1a Lala, the twins\u2019 mother, and Do\u00f1a Pancha, their grandmother. In her thoughts she called them la Subcomandanteand la Comandante, delegated by the men of the household to rule her.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cWe have nice items to sell, baby things. Perhaps you\u2019d like to see. You\u2019ll soon be needing more.\u201d The saleswoman eyed Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s stomach through the thick folds of her clothing. Concepci\u00f3n didn\u2019t tell the woman that there was nothing left inside her cavernous bulge except expired dreams. The doctors had taken out her womb along with her dead baby.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The man lowered the bundle he\u2019d been carrying on his back, and they spread out their wares on the patio, next to the playpen: baby slings and plastic bottles and soft, squeezable toys. A suspicion had occurred to Concepci\u00f3n, an idea had burrowed its way into her skull like a bead of glass. She watched and waited for the real reason for the sellers\u2019 visit. It didn\u2019t take too long.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cSo hard when the babies come one after another!\u201d the saleswoman said in a voice like sweet melon. \u201cAnd so expensive! Yet there are women in other countries who have no children at all\u2014pobrecitas! Rich women who would give anything,\u00a0<em>anything<\/em>, for a little chuchitolike your sons.\u201d She looked from the playpen to the bundle on Concepc\u00edon\u2019s back with a hungry smile. \u201cSo precious. What are their names? These wealthy gringas value girls even more. Perhaps your next one will be a nena<em>.<\/em>\u00a0She could grow up in a big white house with a marble kitchen and green lawn, just like on TV. Little Guatemalans every day now grow up to be Americans and go to college and drive big cars with doble tracci\u00f3n. They don\u2019t have to live in the dirt like animals, the way we do.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The saleswoman scuffed with the toe of her platform sandal at the dirt of the patio, which, to be fair, had a patch of starved grass in one corner. It was the dry season. A film of grit crusted everything\u2014the cement porch floor, the painted wood bench, the prickled hedge between the patio and the road below, the laundry flung out on the hedge to dry. No matter how many times a day Concepci\u00f3n hosed down the road, every passing vehicle fired up a cloud of dust.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">An idea takes time to put together, like stringing the glass beads one by one into a grand chandelier, the kind that hung over the lovers in Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s favorite telenovela<em>, The Body of Desire.<\/em>\u00a0She placed her hands, sun-brown and rain wrinkled, on her big belly, cradling the hypothetical baby, and set a date three months hence for the strangers to return. After they left, she made a slit in the thin mattress in her dark little room off the woodshed, and shoved the wad of dirty quetzales into it. For medical expenses, the woman had said. But they both knew it was a down payment. For of course, the jaladores weren\u2019t really sellers; they were buyers.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n, when she was seven, had dropped her baby brother off the balcony of their house. It was an accident. She\u2019d been told to watch him, her job since her sisters had married and moved out. Emptied of older siblings, the house was dull and lonely. Out front her mother washed dishes; her father worked the labyrinthine strings and pedals of his big wooden loom. Concepci\u00f3n could hear the steady thunka thunka of the loom even over the roar of rain pounding the tin roof\u2014the roof that extended in front of the house over the loom and pila, in back over the hanging balcony\u2014heard it even over the TV. Rodrigo, intent on baby things, was learning to pull himself up, first on Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s extended fingers, and then, when she got tired of the game, on the table legs. Her mother didn\u2019t like Rodrigo to sit on the dirt floor of the house, so Concepci\u00f3n, eager to prove sufficient to her task, plopped a straw mat by the table for him. Rodrigo had just mastered the art when the rain stopped and Concepci\u00f3n, looking through the open door to the balcony, saw a rainbow.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cLook, Rodrigo!\u201d she squealed, hauled him up from the mat, and rocketed out onto the balcony.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The double bow arced the head of the valley, spanning the hoary tops of T\u2019ui Bach and T\u2019ui K\u2019oy, the two sentinels casting off roiling clouds. Under the rainbow the silver-cliffed mountain walls fell into Todos Santos and broke against the ridge, crosswise to the valley, on the crest of which Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s house teetered. Below the balcony her father\u2019s cornfield dropped like a knife into the part of town called Los Pablos. On the flats of Los Pablos, stretched between the ribs of the mountain town, the red-tiled and thatched roofs of squat adobe houses swam in a sea of corn.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">At the balcony railing Concepci\u00f3n stopped short, but somehow Rodrigo did not. In an inexplicable move\u2014a wiggle on his part? a failure of strength on hers?\u2014he shot from her arms, over the rail and out into space. Concepci\u00f3n, horrified, felt herself freeze into something rigid and useless. The baby canonballed out of view, into the green mouths of cornstalks, five meters below. Rodrigo\u2019s wail reactivated Concepci\u00f3n, and she screamed.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The baby did not die. In fact, the curandera assured them, after a thorough poking of bones and organs, that he was fine. She did the necessary rituals to ward off his fright. But seven years later, when the thatched roofs of Los Pablos were all gone and new houses had sprouted all over town\u2014many-storied, gabled and arcaded, tiled in dollars from the generous North\u2014when Concepci\u00f3n fell in love with the leader of the Los Pablos gang, Rodrigo had never learned to talk. The Cuban doctor said it was not her fault, that the fall was not the cause, but what did the Cuban doctor know?<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">While Concepci\u00f3n went back to her chores, Prudencia\u2014she of the platform sandal\u2014led the other two jaladores down the steps from the patio. No, not jaladores<em>.\u00a0<\/em>Prudencia didn\u2019t like that rural slang word, smacking as it did of hauling and yanking and dragging. She considered herself a professional, not an ox. She was a baby contractor.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Prudencia had worked hard to get to where she was, on the opposite side of the country from where she\u2019d started out, just as worthless as that girl who had just sold her baby. Prudencia had left eastern Guatemala, where the rainy season never arrives and thirsty eucalyptus trees suck what moisture there is out of the earth and famine comes as regularly as new babies. She\u2019d run away from Chiquimula, the so-called Pearl of the East, and the father who had done unspeakable things, to the capital, where she was taken in and put to work in Do\u00f1a Merced\u2019s household. Do\u00f1a Merced was a lawyer, an adoption lawyer.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She learned how to clean indoor bathrooms\u2014porcelain and stainless steel, f\u00edjese! Later on how to cook fine dishes. Her new employer recognized her skills, and after they got to know each other, elevated Prudencia from housekeeper to personal assistant. Her rural roots and knowledge of Mayan languages made her perfect as a scout to search the countryside for desperate girls and unhappy families for whom the foreign appetite for black-haired, saucer-eyed babies would be a salvation.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cYou\u2019re so clever,\u201d Prudencia\u2019s companion Marta said when they were out of Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s earshot. \u201cYou talk so beautifully. So convincing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cI\u2019m not happy,\u201d Prudencia replied. \u201cThere\u2019s something about that girl I don\u2019t trust. Something\u2019s not right. The house buildings are freshly painted, the flowerbeds well tended. Even a satellite antenna! That household smells of money and lies.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">They heard distant honking.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cThe bus,\u201d Jorge, the man carrying the bundle, said. Prudencia had hired him in Huehue to accompany them. He had claimed knowledge of the local language and customs, claims that had turned out to be exaggerated when they arrived in Todos Santos. His Mam was imperfect and accented by a different region.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cGood,\u201d Prudencia said. \u201cLet\u2019s get out of here.\u201d Having made their deal, they needed to go quickly, before word of their presence could spread to people hostile to baby contractors. Villagers in other regions had been known to attack jaladores, beat them and shave their heads as punishment for their efforts on behalf of poor mothers who didn\u2019t want their babies.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The three jaladoresflattened themselves against the embankment and waited for the bus, the\u00a0<em>Flor de Cuchumat\u00e1n<\/em>, to grumble to a stop. Jorge\u2019s bundle, disguised by its cloth cover so that no one could guess their business, went on top. The three blended into the crowd on the bus and wedged themselves into seats. They gripped the metal seatbacks in front of them. The bus bounded over potholes, spewing dust. The dust settled on the town they left behind them as they climbed up out of the valley.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Two months later, on a Sunday, it was the twins\u2019 first birthday, and Do\u00f1a Lala, their mother, had decided a party was in order. Although it was Concepci\u00f3n who had suckled them these last six months, she knew that Do\u00f1a Lala would take full credit for their fat bellies and dimpled limbs bulging with health.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Do\u00f1a Pancha disapproved of the celebration, and said so that morning to her daughter-in-law, in the kitchen, where Concepci\u00f3n, bent over the wood stove, was patting out tortillas. \u201cYou\u2019ll only tempt God to come after them,\u201d Do\u00f1a Pancha said. Her face was severe and lined with years of suffering; her nose divided it like an escarpment. \u201cWhen I was a girl we never celebrated birthdays, only funerals. Then at least you know your troubles are over.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Do\u00f1a Lala only laughed and rolled her eyes. \u201cNawita!\u201d she said, addressing the matriarch of the house as Little Mother, another thing that annoyed the older woman. Educated and confident, a teacher at the local elementary school, Eulalia shrugged off respect for her elders like a threadbare shawl, lightly and with ease. \u201cDon\u2019t be so superstitious! My boys will grow up to be doctors and lawyers and poke fun at those old ideas.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Lala plucked up the chilies and miltomates toasting on the stove\u2019s hot iron surface and tossed them into the electric blender with a practiced hand. Do\u00f1a Pancha measured flour and scowled more deeply. \u201cWatch that the onions don\u2019t scorch,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">In this dispute, Concepci\u00f3n silently agreed with Do\u00f1a Pancha. Her Amor would never have a birthday. Better to celebrate death, a fact so much more certain than life. She slapped harder at the tortilla in her hands.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cConcepci\u00f3n! What are you doing?\u201d Lala, as if noticing her taciturn servant for the first time, changed to her subcomandantevoice, machete-edged. \u201cThe fire\u2019s dying. Fetch more wood.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n wiped the dough from her hands on her apron and left the kitchen. She passed the open door to Lala\u2019s room, where the twins\u2019 father Octavio lounged on the big bed with his two little sons, watching TV, and continued out to the woodshed. Returning to the kitchen with her load of splintered logs, she counted the days. Escape played constantly in her mind like a telenovela, filling her with desire and apprehension. She saw herself running through lush grass toward a many-turreted mansion. She fed a log to the fire. Smoke billowed from the stove and stung her eyes. Do\u00f1a Lala exploded in a coughing fit. \u201cH\u00edjole!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cStand back, girl,\u201d Do\u00f1a Pancha said, and whipped the fan back and forth until the fire caught and drew the smoke. Do\u00f1a Lala recovered and ran the blender with a grating roar. The scent of burnt squash seeds and cinnamon rose from the stove like bitter memory.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The day proceeded as Do\u00f1a Lala had ordered it, with the guests arriving under a cloudless sky. The guests\u2014all uncles and aunts and cousins, grandparents and great grandparents of the twins\u2014came to honor the new princelings and stuff themselves with the turkey that had been slaughtered that morning at dawn and now swam in golden sauce. Concepci\u00f3n passed plates and bowls and cups of sweetened maize drink, while the twins bounced from knee to knee, and ate her pepi\u00e1n in a corner by herself. Only Octavio\u2019s younger brother Wilfredo paid any attention to her. He caught her at the pila where she was stacking piles of plates to wash.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cPoor Cenicienta,\u201d he said and put his hand on her waist. \u201cHow about a kiss for your handsome prince?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She pushed his hand away.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">It was seven years after she dropped her brother, and Jer\u00f3nimo was back again. That\u2019s what the rumors whispered: older, handsomer, and more dangerous from his years in steely Michigan. Always Concepci\u00f3n had kept track of his comings and goings, for she had an instinct that could sense his presence. It was her crime that gave her radar: she was the baby-dropper, self-judged and self-convicted by the weight of her neighbors\u2019 pity and fear.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Rodrigo was her punishment. He\u2019d become a strange and secretive child, her special charge, placed on her by her child-worn mother. Concepci\u00f3n and Rodrigo, the last two of six, were on their own, linked by Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s crime, and by the fact that only she could understand and interpret the speechless boy. She wore Rodrigo tied by the baby sling to her back until he was nearly as big as she was, because only the tight binding could ease his anxious tremblings, his angry fits.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Jer\u00f3nimo, ten years older, was already a man and she a grade-school girl when she had first noticed him at the corner below her house, where the dusty track looped down toward Los Pablos. He was with a group of boys drinking beers and breaking bottles against a large grey rock in the shape of an ear that jutted out from the mountainside. His muscled arms flexed with each toss. His thick hair hung to his waist in a luxuriant ponytail. She knew instantly that he was their leader, and that he was bad. She clutched Rodrigo\u2019s little hand in her fist and hurried past the gang, keeping her eyes down on the tips of her plastic sandals, to their jeers of \u201cMudo! Mudo!\u201d Their scorn for her damaged brother burned. Jer\u00f3nimo\u2019s appraisal scorched her.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Then he disappeared to El Norte\u2014to Michigan, the rumors said. Distance didn\u2019t lessen his pull. She felt drawn by his criminal magnetism, with its hint of her destruction. If she could have, she would have gone after him, to Michigan. Each time he came back, expelled from the beast of the North, deported or sloughed off, he brought the boys of Los Pablos new knowledge\u2014a secret language of whistles, marijuana smoking, fighting with knives. The boys stayed young while Jer\u00f3nimo grew older. Concepci\u00f3n grew older as well, until at fourteen she was a quiet beauty at the end of her first year of middle school, tall for her age, twisting magenta ribbons into her long, black braids.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">It was October thirty-first. Fiesta frenzy ignited the town of All Saints. Men, boys, and even women were drinking and brawling in the streets. All over town boys and girls walked in furtive pairs, lust hanging over them like a vapor. Tonight there would be a dance in the sal\u00f3n, but Concepci\u00f3n did not intend to wait until nightfall. She knew what to do. She tucked her brilliant blouse into the sash of her dark skirt and cinched it tight.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">A bright morning sun shone, boasting that the rains were over. Concepci\u00f3n slipped down the road to the rock in the shape of an ear, where, sure enough, Jer\u00f3nimo was holding forth to his gang of boys, passing a bottle of aguardiente. Beer was not potent enough for this day. She stopped in front of the group and looked Jer\u00f3nimo in the eye. \u201cHombre,\u201d she said, \u201cI\u2019ve lost my brother, the mute, and I need your help.\u201d She slid her eyes aside and down, in practiced modesty.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The boys, several from Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s class at school, whooped and cawed. \u201cWe\u2019ll help, mamacita! Whatever you need, Concha.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n tossed her head, flashed her magenta entwined braids. \u201cNot you,\u201d she said. \u201cI need a man.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Jer\u00f3nimo smiled and stretched toward her in a lazy slouch. \u201cOK, chicos. I\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She led him up the road, past her house, past the humps of buried pyramids, staked by two crosses. Next to them smoke curled up from a ceremonial fire. From the top of a pine tree the clarinerocalled like a lover. She led Jer\u00f3nimo on, higher, drawing him after her, casting an occasional glance over her shoulder. They left the road and followed a path through cornfields and into forest. In all this time Concepci\u00f3n hadn\u2019t said anything, and if Jer\u00f3nimo was waiting for explanation, he didn\u2019t mention it. She felt him captive.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">They crossed a small stream rushing over flat rocks toward a waterfall where, in their season, blackberries ripened. They climbed a steep slope, and before Jer\u00f3nimo could wonder if she was taking him all the way to the altiplano, she turned off the trail and dove into a copse of black pine. Thick duff on the forest floor deadened the chatter of birds. She stopped, breathed deep, sucking in the silence, quivering like a wire, and said, \u201cI lied to you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She turned around to face him, look again into his eyes, willing him to be hers. \u201cMy brother is with my older sister in Huehue, seeing doctors. I need to talk to you about the mara<em>.\u00a0<\/em>I want to join.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cMara?\u201d Jer\u00f3nimo said. Gang? \u201cWe\u2019re just a group of friends.\u201d His full lips spread in a dangerous smile. A stud glimmered in one ear, a red bandana knotted around his thick neck, his shirt opened on a sweat-damp tank top. She could see the heat rise off him.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cIs it true, what they say about the marasin the United States, that before a girl can join, the whole gang initiates her?\u201d Concepci\u00f3n picked up his right hand and placed it against her blouse, cupping, through the thick cotton huipilwoven with hieroglyphs of sun and rain and corn, her breast. \u201cI only want to be initiated by you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">His other hand came up and tugged the huipil out from her sash. She raised her arms like a child and he lifted the blouse up over her head.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">On the morning of the day appointed for the return of the jaladores, Concepci\u00f3n, jittery with anticipation, took extra care with the twins. She kissed them and tickled them the way they liked, to make them laugh. She dressed them in new clothes: matching blue pants, lighter blue sweaters, like matched pearls. Would even their mother know the difference? She knew the difference. She picked up C\u00e1ndido and gave him a squeeze. \u201cYou\u2019re my big boy!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Fel\u00edcito tugged at her skirt and raised his arms.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cYou too!\u201d She tumbled them both onto their parents\u2019 big double bed, with the TV on. Her goal was to keep them perfect until the jaladores came. Anxiety curled in Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s belly like a snake. The house was empty. The twins\u2019 parents both worked respectable jobs as schoolteachers. Do\u00f1a Pancha was at her shop in the market, it being Wednesday, market day. Don Chepe, the head of the household, was safely in his office in the municipal palace, at least for now. If the baby contractors came on time, she would be free. Her bag was packed, ready for escape, ready for a new life with thick carpets and silk negligees, so wonderful it could only be imagined in scenes from a telenovela.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Unable to sit still, she stood in the open doorway room and kept one eye on the peaceful twins, the other scanning the empty sky above the mountain walls. Then, above the sound of the TV, she heard barking dogs and an approaching vehicle.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Now was the moment of decision. Which twin to leave behind for Do\u00f1a Lala? She hadn\u2019t thought about this part of her plan. The magnitude of the choice almost paralyzed her. She picked up Fel\u00edcito. \u201cHere, my sweet boy,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a treat for you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She plopped him in the playpen, handed him a sippy cup of cherry drink and a cookie. Then she took C\u00e1ndido in her arms and went out to the edge of the patio to look down the road. A large red pickup arrived in a cloud of dust.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The dance was well underway. In the sal\u00f3na wall of sound blasted from speakers stacked three meters high and six wide at the far end of the crowded room. The basketball hoops had been pushed aside and the cement floor seemed to pulse. Red pants stamped, indigo skirts swirled, heads bobbed, and writhing arms winked in strobe light. Concepci\u00f3n stood at the sidelines in darkness, waiting for her black prince. Before they had parted at the ruins earlier in the day, Jer\u00f3nimo had promised to dance with her. She felt she must be glowing, giving off blue light like a TV screen. She watched the entry to the sal\u00f3n<em>,<\/em>\u00a0where people funneled in through narrow doors past three lurking polic\u00eda<em>.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Jer\u00f3nimo reeled through the door, clutching his younger brother Oscar, also back in Todos Santos. It looked like they\u2019d been celebrating and were bien bolos<em>.<\/em>\u00a0Jer\u00f3nimo stopped in the entry and flicked his gaze over the hall, probing for her, Concepci\u00f3n hoped, but not seeing her yet in the shadows. Oscar took a slug from a bottle of Quetzalteca he carried, then held the bottle out to Jer\u00f3nimo.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cI\u2019ll take that. Prohibited inside the sal\u00f3n<em>.<\/em>\u201d An official voice cut through the rockero din. The three polic\u00eda circled the two brothers. One reached for the bottle. Jer\u00f3nimo\u2019s hand met the bottle first, grasped it, twisted it upward in a defiant gesture just grazing the chin of the polic\u00eda, and then, in a brazen finale, balanced the bottle on top of his own head. He pirouetted toward Oscar.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cI\u2019m so scared,\u201d he piped in a ludicrous falsetto. \u201cI\u2019m so scared of the mean policeman. Hermanito, save me!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Guffaws erupted from the audience of watching youths, sounding over the Babas\u00f3nicos\u2019 beat. Concepci\u00f3nstiffened. Ever since Jer\u00f3nimo\u2019s return the police had been under pressure from the comit\u00e9 de seguridad, the town elders, to arrest him, get him out. Concepci\u00f3n liked the added luster that the comit\u00e9\u2019scensure gave him. She knew his crimes in town were not so desperate as the comit\u00e9 would have its citizens believe: small larcenies, like the charity fund left on a teacher\u2019s desk at the Instituto Urbana Mixta, fist fights with the rival Tiburones gang, occasional blood wounds from a broken bottle or knife slash. But to the elders of Todos Santos his crime was the upending of social order. Jer\u00f3nimo relished the opportunity to flout their authority.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The cop hit Jer\u00f3nimo with a hard fist to the gut. Concepci\u00f3n gasped. Oscar swung back and laid the polic\u00edaout like a petate. The second polic\u00eda yanked out his stick to flail at Oscar. Jer\u00f3nimo grabbed the stick and brandished it in the music-dense air, playing to the crowd of revelers. \u201cCoca, too hot in here. Let\u2019s take it outside!\u201d he shouted and led Oscar in a charge for the door.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">One hand rising in an unseen gesture, Concepi\u00f3n watched them go, watched the police chase after them, like dogs after the fox, watched the crowds at the entry follow out into the night. Caught in the excitement of pressing bodies, Concepi\u00f3n was carried like flotsam out of the hall, into the street, where she raced uphill. She felt her excitement turning to fear, pounding in her ears. She heard feet pounding on the pavement, heard shouts all around and up ahead, heard the firing of a shot, and then another.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She kept running until she reached a wall of people. She shoved her way through the crowd, not hearing shouts, questions, explanations, expletives, exhortations, until she reached the inner circle, found its weak point, and burst through it to the body of Jer\u00f3nimo, face down on the paving stones. Illuminated in the streetlight, the back of his shirt was bright with blood.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She screamed and collapsed to her knees beside him, not caring if she gave her love away. She knelt beside his head that was turned toward her, his ear pressed against the pavement as if listening for sounds from the earth. She touched his cheek with a tentative hand, wanting to brush aside his knotted hair, to look into his hooded eyes. Blood spread from his nose and open mouth, smashed against the stones.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cHe\u2019s dead! My brother\u2019s dead!\u201d a woman\u2019s voice wailed nearby. A hand grabbed Concepci\u00f3n and tossed her aside. More shouts rose in a chorus around her.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cThe polic\u00eda did it! After those bastards!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cGet the police!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cFuck those polic\u00eda! Kill the sons of whores!\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n, whose life was over at fourteen, slunk home.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Two months later, she discovered that Jer\u00f3nimo had left her a gift. She named her gift Amor and kept him secret. She kept her secret as long as possible. Her mother was the first to notice, late in the seventh month, the bulge growing under her thick huipil and tightly cinched skirt.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cAy, hija!\u201d her mother wailed, \u201cWho has done this to you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">But Concepci\u00f3n wouldn\u2019t say. Even when her father struck her a blow across the face that knocked her to the floor, she wouldn\u2019t say.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cYou can kill me,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Her parents didn\u2019t kill her, but they closed their faces and their hearts to her. They kept her out of school, away from the eyes of the world. With Rodrigo gone, in Huehue in the care of her older sister while the doctors tried to make him speak, Concepci\u00f3n was a prisoner in her house. She had no one left to care for, to bundle and feed and protect. She was alone except for Amor. She talked to her unborn baby boy and sang him sad songs while she worked.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Late in the eighth month, despite her parents\u2019 efforts, the world\u2019s prying eyes saw Amor. Up and down the streets and pathways of town the gossip traveled at the speed of sound. And the leaderless boys who still lolled at the rock shaped like an ear, who had seen her lead Jer\u00f3nimo away on the morning of his death, dropped his name into the rumor stew.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Her father heard the name and, yanking up her huipil, lashed his leather belt against her back, demanding to know if it was true. \u201cJust kill me,\u201d she repeated, her naked and bleeding back to her father.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cSin verg\u00fcenza,\u201d he rasped. \u201cI\u2019ll sell you instead.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Her practical mother defended her by reasoning that no one would buy the services of such an encumbered girl. Her mother took pity and called the midwife when her time came, and wiped her face with a damp cloth when she lay screaming each time pain clamped down on her Amor. The midwife said, \u201cNot long now.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The midwife was wrong. Concepci\u00f3n labored and screamed and labored and screamed until the midwife said, \u201cYou must get her to Huehue.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Her father took pity and called for a truck to carry her at bone-shattering speed over the fifty-two rocky kilometers to the hospital, where white-coated nurses delivered her into blackness.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">When she woke up, Amor was gone. The doctor told her he had saved her life. Her womb could not be saved. \u201cWhere\u2019s my baby?\u201d she demanded. \u201cI want my son.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The doctor\u2019s voice was like a machine. \u201cYour baby was a girl. She\u2019s with the angels.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n wailed and thrashed against the blankets and had to be sedated. When she could leave the hospital, her parents took her home. Their pity and their savings exhausted by the medical ordeal, they sold her to Do\u00f1a Pancha and Do\u00f1a Lala, to be a wet nurse to the twins.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" align=\"center\">* * *<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cStop here,\u201d Prudencia told the driver, Do\u00f1a Merced\u2019s nephew. This time there would be no public bus. \u201cWait for us,\u201d she told the nephew. She and Marta got out. This time there was no pretense of the local costume. Prudencia wore her city clothes, a straight black skirt and pink sweater, poised and professional, the kind of outfit Do\u00f1a Merced herself would wear.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The girl met them at the top of the stairs, with a toddler in her arms and a satchel by her side. Prudencia stared at her, trying to put it together. \u201cWhere\u2019s the baby?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cFix on this, se\u00f1ora!I lost the baby.\u201d There followed Concepci\u00f3n\u2019s long-prepared tale of medical emergency and woe.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n talked fast and watched the jaladora\u2019sface. The woman didn\u2019t believe her, she could tell. Her plan was withering in the woman\u2019s glare. What would she do if the jaladora wouldn\u2019t take the twin and give her the money, money she needed for her journey, for the coyotes to take her North?<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cSo you see, se\u00f1ora<em>,\u00a0<\/em>I lost the baby but you can take my little C\u00e1ndido instead. He\u2019s all I have to give you. Please.\u201d She begged, because even the woman could see that her roundness had burst. In the three months since the jaladores\u2019last visit, the bulge Amor had made had collapsed beneath her tender breasts and cinched sash.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">The woman\u2019s lips drew a tight line. \u201cWe want babies, daughter. Newborns. That\u2019s what the North Americans want to adopt. Not little boys who run around making messes and speaking their mother tongue.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n felt the panic of her collapsed dream. Escape from Do\u00f1a Lala, from her hopeless life, from her lost Amor, vanished. It was punishment. Happiness was never intended for Concepci\u00f3n, the girl who had dropped her brother.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">From the bedroom came Fel\u00edcito\u2019s cry. He would not be left behind. She shoved C\u00e1ndido into the second woman\u2019s arms, the one who stood like a duck beside the baby-buyer, and ran.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cHija!\u201dthe duck quacked.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Concepci\u00f3n returned with the other twin. \u201cYou see, he wants to go too, to El Nortewith his brother. The American can have both boys. I want them to be together, to be happy.\u201d The wish for both boys\u2019 happiness swelled in her with sudden force. \u201cI\u2019m going to America too. My husband wants me to come. He\u2019s in America. There\u2019s nothing for me here.\u201d Concepci\u00f3n spoke faster and faster. \u201cYou must believe me. My mother-in-law beats me,\u201d she lied. \u201cI can show you scars.\u201d With her free hand she tore her huipilout from her skirt, but before she could lift it past the wriggling twin, the baby-buyer grabbed her arm.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">Prudencia had done a fast calculation. The risk had doubled. More so. If she had been closer to the capital, she might have turned her back on the lying girl and her goods, and the money she had already spent on the deal. But the boys were healthy and adorable; she knew the foreign hunger for progeny would gobble them up. Would the family come after them? Even if they traveled the seven hours of terrible road, they would never find these two in a city teeming with orphans. They would swallow their sorrow as country people always did, and have more babies. Her decision made, she acted.<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">\u201cStop,\u201d she said. \u201cMarta, take the child. And you,\u201d she poked out her lower jaw at Concepci\u00f3n, \u201cwill come with us to sign the papers.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p class=\"excerpt\" style=\"text-align: justify\">She turned away. 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