Menos Vida

“Menos vida de la que deberia tener una bebe,” she heard the nurse say as she set the baby down on the table.

Through the fog of childbirth, she couldn’t think. She was confused. Why wasn’t the baby crying? Where is the crying?

“Menos vida,” she repeated in her head several times.

What the hell did that mean? Why is the room so quiet?

“Less life? Less life than a baby should have?” She pieced together after what felt like several trips around the sun.

Amalia couldn’t move. She was still paralyzed from the epidural and foggy from having been in labor for the last few hours. Confused as to what was happening and pissed that no one was talking to her, she squirmed to see her baby.

“No…” she whispered to herself after finally seeing the unmoving newborn on the table. He was red and limp, with the umbilical cord flopping around the loose red and white blanket that was carelessly draped around him. Her newborn. There he lay. Nameless. Now, breathless.

Then panic took over.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she climaxed from a breathless whisper to a hysteric scream.

The nurses rushed and crowded around her, speaking Spanish. Always speaking Spanish. This may be Mexico, but they knew she was American.

“Santiago, goddammit! Get Dr. Santiago!” Amalia screamed and everyone scattered to find the only person that she trusted in this son of a god damn whoring country.

--

Dr. Roberto Santiago was a tall man with grey hair. He was from Veracruz and seemed to smell of the sea. He sat coolly in the waiting room doodling in a small leather pad. Never one for flipping through magazines, he enjoyed simply sketching patterns. It seemed to be an extension of the calmness that defined him. A cacophony of panic broke through the small waiting room doorway. He didn’t flinch as he put the final mark on the page and looked up.

“Dr. Santiago!” several hospital employees squawked. Nurses or doctors; He couldn’t decipher who was who. All he knew was his brother’s daughter had gotten herself knocked up by some filthy dog who left her stranded on a corner in the murderous, black-market section of Mexico City, Morelo. Nine months later and the son of a bitch still hasn’t appeared; Now this fiasco in the waiting room demands his attention.

No surprise. No fright. Only his cool, sea salt eyes blazing at the one person in the swarm that appeared to have any semblance of composure remaining.

“Tell me!” He barked.

“The baby. The baby is not breathing. No breath at all.” The poor intern stammered and finally managed to release through trembling lips.

A long moment settled in on the room. The Wheel of Fortune beeped on the ancient television in the waiting room, apparently stuck in the '80s, as the wheel slowed and finally stopped. Bob Barker read the number and Santiago came to life.

“Go to my office,” Santiago said calmly.

“Go to my office, now. Get the brown paper box on my desk. Meet me in the delivery room.” He paused to make sure the words settled in.

“Now!” he barked, and the room cleared.

--

“You came,” Amalia said. “I knew you would.”

“I am your uncle, Amalia. I am not supposed to be involved in your,” Santiago paused searching for the right word, “Procedure.”

He was still bitter that she had called him and not her father when she was in trouble. His brother, her father, Raul, was a whoring asshole, more likely to run off on a cocaine-fueled bender with a prostitute than to pick up his pregnant daughter when she needed him. He almost expected the call that rainy night almost a year ago. That was when he became more of a father to her than anyone had ever been. That really pissed him off.

“Oh, Amalia.” He sighed and picked up the breathless child. He wasn’t granite, after all. There was a heart in there.

“I will do what I can for the child.”

Maneuvering the child more like a master mechanic than a doctor. His hands moved quickly and gracefully. Deliberate with every motion. No movement was wasted. He was a strong man, but he had a delicate touch with the baby. He wrapped the baby, placed it on the table with a grunt that seemed to indicate that everything was as he expected.

As if choreographed, he reached out his hand without looking just as the delivery room door tore open. The young man bounded into the room, wheezing and sweaty, and reached out to settle the brown paper box in Santiago’s hand. He opened the box and removed one of the three cigars that had been delicately wrapped in the paper. With what seemed like one smooth motion, he cut the cigar, lit it, and took one long, gratifying draw. He only took a moment to savor the thick smoke before blowing a dense cloud in the baby’s face.

The room wheezed and went silent. Jaws went slack. Sphincters tightened.

The baby cried.