Candlelight Bridge, page 32
37. God’s Hotel
1923 – El Paso, Texas
Yankee insisted Grace’s baby must become his first offspring born in a hospital, everything stainless, antiseptic, and modern. He still believed Chinese herbalists superior to Western doctors. His own herbalist had cured his appendicitis with a bitter tea of rhubarb, peony bark, and salt crystals—which shriveled his appendix to nothing. But the complications of Grace’s pregnancy called for a miracle. To him, miracle and science were interchangeable. Traditional Chinese medicine honored ancient wisdom, but Western medicine invented the future. He wanted Grace and her baby to have all the future money could buy. He refused to have their deaths on his conscience.
Not that Grace or her baby promised happiness to either the Wongs or the Riveras. Mother and child were sure to be outsiders among outsiders. His in-laws learned this the hard way the day they took Grace to Sunday Mass after she started to show. Of course, he wasn’t at the church to witness what happened, but Candelaria told him when she came home:
She said the Mass felt like an inquisition, one that replaced old-fashioned interrogators and torturers with a congregation that stared and whispered…or worse: ignored the Riveras altogether. Afterward, the priest pulled her family out of the receiving line to rebuke them in undertones that bounced off the ceiling, pronouncing their guilt to the gold-winged angels, blue-robed saints, and gossips in the vestibule. The padre accused Eduardo and Maria of flaunting their daughter’s sin.
Candelaria replayed the exchange:
“The priest said, ‘Her presence might tempt girls to believe God approves of fornication.’” Her mouth puckered around the word fornication as if it were dirtier than any common word for the act. “So Mamá asked the priest, ‘Did you not accept her confession and forgive her sins?’ He said that wasn’t the point. He said, ‘God places many souls under my care, and I can’t let your unfortunate daughter become a weapon of Satan in our church.’” She flung the words at Yankee like holy water at a demon.
He knew she expected the story to prompt more repentance from him. He also knew nothing he said would make her forgive him. All he said was, “This priest of yours is full of convenient excuses for cruelty.”
“Unlike some men who need no excuse for cruelty,” she said.
He stepped into her spitting rage, inches away. “Don’t be afraid to say what you mean.”
She didn’t flinch. “You know what I mean. And I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Had she ever been? He was the most powerful Chinese man in America’s Wild West. So why did this little woman make him feel small? He strode out the front door and slammed it, then crossed the courtyard into the café’s hum and committed another sin in the eyes of his wife’s church: worked on Sunday. Nobody expected Chinese businesses to close, and some Christians avoided cooking after church. Why shouldn’t he feed them? It was their God, not his.
After that Sunday’s ritual humiliation, many neighbors no longer allowed Grace near their families, as if her pregnancy were a disease their daughters might catch, her lost maidenhead a temptation to their sons. Her parents tried to protect her from judging eyes by confining her to their apartment for her final three months of pregnancy. During that time, Yankee saw her only four times.
The first time, he stopped by her parents’ to look for Miguel, and his mother-in-law made him wait outside. He saw Grace sitting near the screen door, reading. He felt sure she chose the spot because it received the most sun, which she rarely saw anymore. She was seven months along and looked like a pale stick insect that swallowed the moon. Miguel met him outside to talk business, but Yankee also asked how Grace was feeling. Miguel said she threw up a lot. Yankee didn’t know if this was normal, only that his wife was never sick so late in pregnancy. She’d recently given birth to their fourth child at home, as easily, he thought, as a chicken lays an egg.
The next three times he saw her were when he and Miguel kidnapped her for appointments with an obstetrician, over Maria’s protests: “What kind of doctor specializes in looking at a girl’s privates? No more perverts near my daughter!”
He scoffed, “Don’t be ridiculous!”
On the other hand, he did order Grace to ignore the doctor’s prescription of bed rest, which he also pronounced, “Ridiculous! She’s already withering away from lack of sun and exercise.”
Then, early one morning, her nine-year-old sister, Annie, ran to Yankee’s house, banged open the screen door, and hollered that Grace was in labor. The whole Wong family hurried to the Riveras’: Yankee, Candelaria, Benny, Celia, Mary, and even baby Rose, who Candelaria carried everywhere. At the Rivera apartment, he dismissed the midwife his mother-in-law hired and demanded Miguel drive Grace to the Catholic hospital, Hotel Dieu: God’s Hotel, the only place the church would welcome her, so long as Yankee paid for the privilege.
Miguel looked relieved as he ran outside to get his car.
Maria protested, “What, and have my daughter around all those sick people? It’s unnatural.”
“So is such a sickly young mother,” Yankee said. “These are the terms of my continuing to give you extra money to take care of her and her baby.”
In this, Candelaria was his ally. “It’s a Catholic hospital, Mamá. They have priests and nuns. And Grace might need a doctor. You know her pregnancy isn’t normal.”
To Yankee’s surprise, Candelaria asked him to carry her sister to the car—though it probably shouldn’t have surprised him, since Eduardo was lame, Sal was eleven, and Miguel was driving. He eased her from her bed, and she moaned so softly, he doubted this labor was real. Nonetheless, he carried her to the Model T idling out front. They all arranged her in back with her head in her mother’s lap and feet in Candelaria’s lap. Yankee sat in front with Miguel. Eduardo and the children watched unsmiling from the sidewalk as the car pulled away.
From outside, the old red-brick mansion of Hotel Dieu looked more hotel than hospital, and he worried it wouldn’t be clean. Then he and Miguel carried Grace between them, panting up the stone steps into the entry, where the relief of clean white tile greeted them. They shouted for help, and a pair of orderlies took over, leaving nothing to do but wait.
“Waiting is for women,” Miguel said and marched out.
Yankee took one look at his wife and mother-in-law, their faces an impenetrable wall, and marched out after him.
***
He turned down Miguel’s offer of a ride home. Yankee felt too wound up to stay cooped up in the house and too tired to work in the café. He decided to take the day off, stroll near the hospital, and return to check on the girl. Estefan and Marcela Wu had recently moved to El Paso and opened a store several blocks away. He walked there, just for something to do.
The West Orient Grocery’s aisles were too narrow, its shelves packed with too much inventory. The moment he entered, he perspired with claustrophobia and the urge to exit. But Estefan was there, unoccupied with customers, so he felt obliged to say hello. Waang dim, it might relax him to speak his own language. Not that their common culture had bonded the two men. They rarely paid social calls without their wives.
As usual, Estefan acted more excited to see him than he was to see Estefan. Yankee told him Grace was in labor and that he’d stopped by hoping to find a gift.
Estefan nodded, brow furrowed, as if trying to make sense of this. “Yes, Marcela went to the hospital. We’re all worried about Graciela.” He wagged his chin. “But I’m sorry, we don’t carry too many baby things…”
“No, not baby things. A gift to cheer up Grace. She’s been very sick.” A bin of California oranges caught his eye. “There! Sunny and sweet, to make up for the sunshine she’s missed.”
Estefan shook a finger at him, “Wait, I have an idea!” He led him to a stack of wicker baskets. “For the oranges. Ladies love baskets. No charge for your wife’s sister, poor thing.”
Why did he say it that way? Marcela must’ve told him who was the secret father of Grace’s baby. Eager to escape, Yankee dumped oranges into the basket as Estefan lamented his business woes, something about undercalculating floor space and over-ordering merchandise.
Yankee pointed to a man reading labels in the rear aisle. “I think that customer needs you.”
“Where?!” Estefan swung round. “You see! It’s all stacked so high, I didn’t see him.”
He rushed to the back while Yankee bustled out the front, tossing a “Do ze!” over his shoulder.
The basket of oranges weighed a few pounds, the morning was heating up, and Hotel Dieu stood a mile distant. So he did something he usually avoided: hopped a streetcar on bustling Stanton Street. He preferred to walk most places. He didn’t own a car—driving made him nervous—and he hated trolleys because of the staring. But this day was made for exceptions…
The trolley was packed with people heading to work, mostly Whites and Mexicans, who left extra space around him as he stood holding a pole, basket between his feet. Most riders cast their eyes everywhere he wasn’t, till two young boys jumped onboard. They gaped at him and whispered. Upon overhearing them use words like chinaman, dragon, and dare you, he bent to laugh in their faces, a booming, maniacal, “BWA-HA-HA-HA,” as a keeper of dragons might. They stumbled backward, ran down the aisle, and leapt off the moving trolley, giggling as they tumbled into the street. No doubt he’d regret it later, but for now he gave a satisfied nod and ignored the other passengers’ stares.
By the time he reached the hospital with the overweight basket, he’d worked up a rare sweat. He craved a swig from his flask, but his hands were full. He pressed on to the waiting room, where Marcela now sat between his mother-in-law and Candelaria, who was breastfeeding baby Rose. He envied that baby, not just the breast but the peace in her drowsy eyes.
Candelaria looked up at his sweaty face and pile of oranges, coughed a single laugh, and muttered to Marcela, “I told you.”
Marcela suppressed a smirk and squeezed her knee.
His mother-in-law snorted, “Hmph.”
The wall of women was widening against him.
He handed his mother-in-law an orange. She accepted it, held it to her nose, and inhaled without comment. She peeled the fruit and shared wedges with the younger women, all three ignoring him. He settled in a chair against the opposite wall, facing them over the stupid basket.
For the next few hours, the women exchanged their own childbirth stories, napped on each other’s shoulders, and diapered and rocked and fed Rose. Then an irritable white nurse walked up to them, said Grace was asking for her mother, and led her down the hall—but not before Maria leveled Yankee with an “I told you so” glare.
Hoi Sam came twice with food for them all, prompting a temporary truce.
Yankee dozed off and on, occasionally pacing to wake up his numb ass. Miguel was smart to leave, but a superstition took hold of Yankee: so long as he stayed here, worrying, Grace would live, but if he went elsewhere and took his mind off her, she might slip away.
Around hour four, Candelaria handed baby Rose to Marcela and crossed the room to him. “Go home. There’s nothing you can do here, and no telling how long this will take.”
“I’m responsible. I’m staying.”
“Now you want to be responsible.”
“I cannot keep apologizing for the past. I can only do the right thing now.”
“The right thing for who?” She didn’t wait for an answer but crossed the room to rejoin the others.
Being a pariah was exhausting. Again his eyes drooped into sleep.
His pocket watch ticked away almost twenty-four hours. Still the baby refused to come. The doctor emerged to say he feared Grace was too small to deliver it and might require a Cesarean section. While the family argued—Yankee convinced of the scientific logic of lifting the baby from a large opening instead of forcing it through a small one, the women aghast at the horror of slicing into Grace—the baby dropped farther until it was too late to cut it free.
After thirty-four hours of labor, Maria emerged, gray-faced, to announce Grace had given birth to a small but healthy girl.
Yankee couldn’t help thinking it was too bad. After going through so much, Grace now had a daughter who would become a burden, rather than a son who’d someday take care of her. So much was stacked against them both, that when a nurse with a clipboard asked who the father was, he gave his name—over the protests of Candelaria and her mother.
“Don’t you know when to stop?” Candelaria said.
“Haven’t you taken over enough of our lives?” her mother said.
“Wait, let’s think about this,” Marcela said.
The other two women gaped at her apparent betrayal.
At that moment, only Marcela understood him: in China, a child without a father’s name was a child who didn’t exist. If Yankee’s ancestors watched from the afterworld, then he wanted to keep their eyes on the most unfortunate of his offspring. So, he gave his new daughter his family name. Grace had already chosen her given name. A Christian name, a Mexican name: Esperanza. The nurse asked if he approved.
“Of course. It’s a perfect name. Exactly what she needs: Hope.”
“The mother wants to see you,” the nurse said.
The other three women rose.
“Sorry, only the father.”
The trio gave him a unified stare. He knew better than to smile in triumph. Just picked up his basket of oranges and followed the nurse down the hall. She pointed to a door and left.
Out of nowhere, Candelaria flung herself between him and the closed door. “Wait.”
If he’d learned anything, it was this: it often paid to listen to his wife. So he did.
“If you say or do anything to my sister other than what a brother-in-law would, Miguel will drive the kids and me home to Mata Flores to live. Nobody will welcome you there.”
He wanted to say he didn’t care, didn’t love her, the kids were a headache. But that would be a lie. He took a long look at her—muscled arms folded under milk-heavy breasts, hair spilling in tangles after a sleepless night, eyes glaring with determination—more beautiful than ever. The house would be lonely without her, without them all. What good was an empire without a son to take over or a daughter to take care of? Benny was finally starting to make interesting conversation. Yankee was teaching Celia to cook. Anyway, he’d already made his choice.
“Don’t worry. I’ll respect her as a brother-in-law.”
She stepped aside but remained next to the door like a sentry. He struggled to balance the basket against one side of his body while opening the door with the other.
***
Yankee set the basket on the nightstand and rearranged its oranges, averting his eyes from the distressing sight of Grace and her baby. Grace lay so slight in the bed she barely raised a bump in the sheets, and her eyes looked like bruises. Worse, she held a nightmare creature in her arms. The baby’s body was puny as a newborn squirrel, but its monstrous blockhead had nearly split Grace in two, which in turn mashed its face into a hideous red mask of outrage.
“So,” he said, “maybe I am Satan after all.”
“Pobrecita, she had a hard day. That’s why she looks cursed. But I’m sure she’ll grow into a beautiful blessing.”
“A child that’s a blessing? I’ve yet to father such a thing.”
“But you and Candelaria have four beautiful, healthy children.”
“Hmph! Bottomless wells of need, every one. They give us no peace.”
The question mark between her eyes narrowed to an angry exclamation point. “Don’t worry, Yankee, this one won’t burden you. My parents will take care of her.”
He wasn’t worried about who’d care for the baby so much as what would become of Grace. The mischievous girl of the past was receding, leaving an ancient spirit in her place. He laid a cheek atop her head, and noticed her hair no longer smelled of tortillas but antiseptic. Her body stiffened, and he knew she’d never soften for him again—as she had more than once, despite what he told her family. Just as well. If he were wise, he’d keep his word to her sister.
He stepped back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“Brother, I’ve given birth to your child, so I must forgive you. I do forgive you. You are as God made you. I don’t know why.”
“You know I don’t believe in God. I am as I have made me. I don’t know why either.”
She nodded, not as if he made sense but as if the topic was a waste of time. She pointed at the oranges and brightened. “Are those for me?”
“What? Oh. Yes.” He picked one up and thrust it at her.
She shrugged to indicate she had her hands full with the baby. “Peel it for me?” He dug in a thumb and unfurled a long curl into a trashcan while she revealed why she’d asked to see him. “I’m going to need to get out of the house sometimes, or home will become a prison. I also need money to take care of Esperanza. When I get better, may I work at the International Café?”
“Candelaria will never let you work for me.”
“She must. What other boss will let me keep my baby close so I can feed her?”
He puffed his cheeks and blew a gust of air. “Okay. I’ll ask your sister.”
“Let me ask her. She’ll listen to me. And please do one more thing for me? Forget Esperanza is your daughter. You’re her uncle, that’s all.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” She looked at the baby as if it were in charge. “If you ever hurt me or Esperanza, this time I will tell my sister. And if she doesn’t kill you, I’ll find someone who will.”
He clenched his teeth. The chastisement of women grated.
Worst of all, in the next moment, she acted like he didn’t exist. She directed her next words only to the red spawn in her arms, which looked nothing like him. “Be a good girl,” she cooed, as if an infant could understand such instructions.
