Trouble in a Tank Top

During Ande’s first week in Mexico, she learned about the family that she would be staying with during her six months in the new, foreign country. Mikael was the one who had picked her up from the cabin and drove her down to Mexico. His wife was Adeli; a petitie, homely woman who already bared him two children and was half way through her second trimester with another. It was to be a girl, she was told. (“A nice change from these rowdy ones,” Mikael joked as he picked his sons up and heaved them over his shoulder, taking them into the back yard to play while his pregnant wife cooked a healthy dinner for them all.)

Mikael was a cargo truck driver, and one of Jaime’s many cousins. Ande and Adeli would only see him once or twice a week when he would be driving through town with one of his trucks. At least, this is what she would learn later on within her first month in the Perez-Integra household. Other than those few times, it was just the two women and the two boys in the house. It was also during this first month that Ande began to learn Spanish, and in return she taught English to the boys and Adeli.

The second week was blurred in with the third, and after almost a month, Ande had tried to find a way to cope with not hearing from any of the guys, and she was coming up empty handed.

Cleaning up after the boys and their friend, as well as the language lessons and cooking with Adeli, had taken some type of toll on Ande’s body, and it caused her to be sick to her stomach almost every afternoon after the boys had gone back to school after their small lunch break.

It wasn’t Adeli’s cooking, Ande was certain of that, since Adeli tried to cook something different each day. Ande felt bad, knowing it was rude to waste what little food the family had, and let a few days pass thinking it was a simple virus. However, after four mornings of waking up to the smell of Adeli’s breakfast and getting through a good bit of the day before being sick again and emptying her stomach of any liquids and acids it had, Adeli and Ande spent a hot afternoon walking the five miles to the nearest clinic while the boys were with Adeli’s older brother.

Ande had learned a fair amount of Spanish during her month in Sonora, but the flurry of words that the nurses and doctor said made Ande’s head hurt. However, the slighty shocked look on Adeli’s face caused Ande to question her repeatedly.

“What did they say?”

Adeli stares at the doctor, who is already leaving the room and off to other patients, and then looks back at Ande. The shocked look turns into an excited one.

“¡Tú estás embrazada!”

“Adeli, what does that mean?”

Adeli continues to ramble on and on, walking out of the room. Ande follows after her, out the clinic and on to the sidewalk that will lead them back to the Perez-Integra household. And then, Adeli utters the one word that causes cotton to fill Ande’s ears and her throat to catch the breath she tries to let out. It’s life-shattering and it’s just a single, harmless word.

Pregnant.

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Ande felt sick to her stomach as she stood in the shower. For almost ten minutes she had been staring at the drain watching the water go down while she thought over the events from earlier that day. It was the middle of the night, with the boys and Adeli already in bed to get ready for the next day. Mikael had plans to stop by for a few hours before heading to the border for another job.

At dinner Ande had barely eaten a thing, and she felt bad, again, because she knew how tight money was, especially getting ready for another baby. Adeli was about to enter her third trimester and the boys were being rowdier than usual. Now, Ande was apparently pregnant, too.

She was maybe six weeks along, counting back to her and Tony’s first time together in Jaxin’s home, or it could have been the second time, in the cabin after the game of Shots or Drops. But that wasn’t what she was the most worried about. Ande was more worried about how she was going to tell Tony, or…

Would she ever get the chance to tell Tony?

Mikael had told her that she would be spending six months in Sonora and she was her first month in. Ande had not heard a word from any of the guys, let alone Tony. All she wanted was another one of his spaghetti dinners and a night of movies while cuddling on her couch.

But, to her dismay, Ande had at least another five months without seeing any of the guys, not to mention she was now a month (give or take a few weeks) pregnant. Ande was scared, but she was also extremely frustrated.

Ande got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her waist, not bothering to wash her hair. She would do it the next morning after she tried to get some sleep.

As she walked down the hall to the spare bedroom that she had been sleeping in, that would later become the new baby’s room after a while of being in Adeli and Mikael’s bedroom. Just as she opened the door, however, the house phone began to ring. She knew Mikael liked to call when he was getting close to town, and didn’t think twice about walking down the stairs to the kitchen to answer the call. Ande was still wrapped in her thread-bare towel as she pulled the phone off the hook and pressed the speaker to her ear.

“¿Bueno?” She answers, and it’s become second nature to do so in Spanish.

“Ande,” Mikael says from the other side. “Are the boys and Adeli asleep?”

“Sí,” she replies while absentmindedly twirling the phone cord around her finger.

“How are you? Adeli told me about earlier.”

Ande sighs and sits down in the kitchen chair nearest to the phone. She wraps an arm around her stomach and watches as the water in her hair drops on the tile floor.

“I’m confused and frustrated,” Abde answers truthfully. “I’m mad and surprised and I miss Tony so fucking much. I thought I could make it but I can’t, Mikael. I need Tony more than anything else right now and it’s slowly killing me.”

Mikael doesn’t say anything for a while, but she can hear the familiar sounds the cab of his truck makes. Mikael probably doesn’t know what to say.

“When I get back in the morning we’ll have a little talk, okay?” he says softly, feeling empathy for the younger woman. Ande replies with a soft hum of acknowledgement towards his words. “Get some sleep, Ande. Que sueños con los angelitos.”

“Gracias,” she says and hangs up the phone. Ande sits in the kitchen until the water from her dripping hair gets too cold to ignore. She goes back to the spare room to finish drying off and put on sleep clothes. The bed is soft and warm, but it’s empty and she doesn’t hear Tony’s soft snores in her ear. The past few days she’s been waking up with a frightful fear in her chest, but she can never remember the dream.

Ande just lays awake until the sunrises and the small foot falls of Adeli make their way through the house. The boys are awake not too long after and demanding another large breakfast for their growing bodies. Adeli cooks for them without complaint, and the smell of bean hash fills the home. For once, Ande doesn’t feel the underlying need to throw up.

The mother of almost-three greets Ande with a smile, a kiss on the cheek and a plate of a fresh-cooked meal. Ande thanks her and sits down beside Raúl, the older of the two boys. Val, the younger, is sloppily eating while his brother takes his time. Half way through their breakfast, the breaks of Mikael’s truck come to a squealing stop. The boys jump up and run out to greet their father. Adeli stays in her chair, eating and rubbing her growing belly, waiting for her three boys to come back in.

Raúl and Val rush back in to grab their shoes and backpacks before the school bus drives by to pick them up for yet another day of school. Mikael sees them off before coming inside and fixing his own plate to sit beside Adeli. He leans over to give her a quick kiss, grabs at her hand to hold it, and begins to eat with his other. Ande tries to eat but all she can do is stare at Mikael, wanting to know what he will say to her later on.

The couple finishes and Adeli takes their plates, putting them in the sink to be cleaned later on. Adeli speaks to Mikael in fluent language, something that Ande can barely understand as her going to take a quick nap, before the two are alone in the bottom level of the home. Mikael sighs and stands, motioning for Ande to follow him.

They make their way out to Mikael’s truck where he lets her climb into the cab first before he follows and shuts the door. Mikael takes a small phone from off the dash and flips it open, clicking a few buttons before looking up at Ande.

“Don’t say a word,” he says firmly, before the phone beeps and a dial tone is heard clearly. It takes a few rings before the person on the other line picks up.

“Mikael?” Vic’s voice plays from the other side. Ande’s breath catches, and she uses her hands to muffle any other sound she’s going to make.

“Just giving you my weekly update,” he says gruffly, ignoring Ande, knowing that any wavering in his voice will give it away.

“Okay. Let me go get Tony.”

There’s shuffling and moving and dull voices of people talking as Vic walks. Mikael looks over at Ande and points to her midriff, quietly asking if she wants him to tell Tony. Ande stares at him, unsure of which answer she wants. Should she let Tony already know? Or just wait until they see each other again? (But what if they aren’t reunited until after the baby is born? If Tony knew now maybe he would fight harder to make that six months into three or four months…)

“Hey, Mikael, how is she?”

Ande almost begins to cry as she nods to Mikael, waiting for the confession to be released to the world.

“She was sick for the past few days, Adeli said, and they went to the doctor yesterday.”

“Did they find out what it was?” Tony asks worriedly, stopping what he was doing to pay attention.

“She’s pregnant.”

Everything in the world goes dead silent. The cry that Ande felt has disappeared, just like the knot in her throat and the scream building up in her lungs. She can’t even hear Mikael breath in the small truck cab. Ande feels the bubbling in her stomach again and she knows she’s going to throw up what little she ate, but she doesn’t know if it’s from fear or morning sickness.

“What?” Tony whispers through the receiver of the phone, and it echoes back out through the speaker on Mikael and Ande’s side.

“That’s what Adeli said. She seems really excited since Ande will still be here when she gives birth to Maria. Maybe this is what you need, hermano, a reason to finally settle down.”

Tony doesn’t say anything. It’s completely silent on his end and after a few seconds there is a click and a dial tone. He hung up on them. Ande starts crying. Mikael closes the phone and brings the woman into his arms, rocking her back and forth softly.

“C’mon, Ande, calm down,” Mikael says to her softly, but she only cries harder.

It’s now that Ande wishes had not rushed home from work that day to find Tony in her kitchen. She wishes that she could take everything back because it was every choice she had made since she left work that day that put her in this situation, and Ande didn't think she was going to make it out with any part of her insanity still intact.

“He doesn’t want a baby, and I don’t either,” Ande says through her tears, hiccupping as she stutters over her words. In her head, Tony hanging up translates to: he’s not coming back for her.

Notes

I have had so much time on my hands that I've been updating like crazy. Awesome for you! Awesome for me! (I guess?)