Big Chicas Don't Cry(85)

“How can you even ask me?” I almost cried. I wanted to tell him that he had been my first and only. But maybe he wouldn’t believe that either.

“I’m sorry, but I had to. I mean, this is kind of a shock.”

“No kidding.”

He started pacing again, and again I just stood there until he was ready to start talking. It was another couple of minutes before he came back to me. “So what are you going to do?”

My heart sank that he’d said you and not we. Even though I had expected it, a tiny part of me had always wished he’d find out by accident and then he’d hold me in his arms and tell me how happy he was and that he wanted to marry me. It was obvious that he was anything but happy.

“I’m going to have the baby, and I’m going to raise it on my own,” I told him.

“So, you’re not expecting me to marry you or give you money. Because that’s what some women think, and it’s just that I’m not ready to . . .”

“I’m not some women, Tony. I didn’t do this to trap you. Believe me, I was just as shocked as you. That said, this baby may not have been what I planned, but now I can’t imagine not having it,” I said. “And, no, I don’t expect or want anything from you. Not money, not phone calls, nothing. Not even this.”

I handed him the stuffed puppy and walked out.



The house was quiet. The calm before the storm.

I sat down in my dad’s blue recliner and waited for my parents to get home from the market. I had spent the night at Erica’s. I was so upset and devastated after the fiesta that I knew I couldn’t face my parents. One look at my face and they would’ve instantly known that something was wrong. I had stayed away on purpose.

At first, I drove around aimlessly. I had thought about calling Selena, but I knew if I did, then she would want to kill Tony. So instead, at about four p.m., I pulled into Erica’s driveway.

“I’m pregnant,” I’d said as soon as she opened the door. We spent the next couple of hours talking and crying. Eventually, we called Selena and told her the whole gory story. As I had thought, she’d immediately wanted to track down Tony and knock him out. She also had a few choice words for Sister Catherine. Erica asked why I hadn’t told Tony when I found out. “Because, I didn’t want him to stay because of the baby. I wanted him to stay because of me,” I said.

We cried some more, and then all of us agreed that I had to tell my parents as soon as possible. There was a good chance the news about Goody Two-Shoes Gracie Lopez getting knocked up was already making its way through the church gossip pipeline.

I took a breath when I saw my parents’ minivan pull into the driveway. My parents came inside a few minutes later carrying a few bags of groceries.

“Hija, help me put these things away,” my mother told me after I followed behind them. I dutifully put away cans in the cupboard and perishables in the refrigerator.

“If you don’t have to go back to the fiesta today, your dad is planning to cook your favorite—ribs in chile verde,” my mother mentioned.

“I’m not going back to the fiesta today. But Mom, after we put everything away, I need to talk to you guys,” I said.

“About what?” she asked me as she put boxes of cereal on top of the refrigerator. My dad wasn’t even in the kitchen anymore. As soon as I’d started helping, he left for the living room to go watch a soccer game.

“I just need to talk to you. Um, where’s Rachel?” The last thing I needed was Ms. Nosy hanging around when I talked to my parents.

“Oh, she ran into a friend last night at the fiesta, and we let her go over to the girl’s house. I may need you to pick her up later.”

I nodded and sat down at the table, watching my mom put away the rest of the groceries. Many people used to tell me that I looked a lot like Mom. I didn’t see it, except that we had the same dark hair and dark eyes. She was a little taller than me and had always been a little heavier. Lately, though, she and my dad had started taking walks in the evening, and I could see she was losing weight. She once told me that she gained twenty pounds with every one of her pregnancies. I had a feeling I was going to do the same. The nausea had stopped about a week ago, and I was craving everything in sight.

Even now as I waited for my mom to finish, I was eating from the container of chocolate-covered raisins my parents had just bought.

When she was finally done, my mom sat down next to me at the kitchen table. “Okay, Gracie. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

I told her to get my dad. By the look on her face, I knew she knew now that it was serious.

After some raised voices, again in Spanish, my dad turned off the television, and they both walked back into the kitchen.

My mom sat down. My dad stayed standing.

I couldn’t even look at them. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and put my hand over my mouth to stifle the sobs or vomit that threatened to come up.

“Ay, Dios mío! Gracie, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” my mother pleaded and grabbed my other hand.

No matter how hard I tried, the words wouldn’t come. I heaved with sobs, the kind where you can’t catch your breath. All I could get out was “I . . . I . . . I . . . I.”

My mother started crying too.

“I . . . I . . . I . . .”