A Perfect Life

By Tess Almendarez Lojacono


“Now what?”  It was a cry rather than a plea.  “Mama, I only married him to have children.  You know my heart’s always belonged to Clau--”
            “Modesta, hush! Your sister gone to her Savior less than a year ago, and here you are, coveting what was hers?”
            “I know, I know.  I’m a monster.”  Modesta covered her face with her hands.
            Mama put her arms around her elegant daughter, stroked her perfect hair.  “There, there.  You are no monster.  It’s just the doctor’s verdict that’s upset you.  Remember, he is not God.  Anything may still happen.”
            “Mama, it wasn’t a verdict!  It cannot be changed!  It was the result of a test.  Many tests.  And they all said the same thing!  I will not have children.  I cannot!”  If Modesta allowed herself the luxury of tears, she would have dissolved in a flood of mourning for those things she longed for, those things she could not have.   But such luxury was weakness to her.  She stiffened. “Mama,” she insisted, “Do you think God’s punishing me?”
            “Oh, dear heart!   Punishing you for what?”
            Modesta’s face hardened.  “You know,” she muttered.
            Mama sighed, patted her daughter’s back.  “Love is not a crime. Besides, your sister would have been the first to understand. You wouldn’t guess it, but she had a trouble like this too.”
            Modesta was caught off guard.  “How could she?  She had Mercedes!”
            “You don’t think she intended Mercedes to be an only child, do you?”  Modesta frowned.  “Oh, dear girl, how can I make you understand? To those without children, even one seems such richness!  But, one doesn’t want a second child any less than a first!  In fact, one wants it more.” 
            Modesta stared.   “You mean--but she seemed so happy!  She never said anything to--”
            “No.”
            “So I just assumed she and Claudio were satisfied the way they were.  I mean, he doesn’t make that much money and they have that little house and she doesn't work--didn’t work.  I didn’t see how they could afford to--she wanted more?  She tried?”
            “Since the day Mercedes was born, as soon as she was able, Adela began to try again.”  Mama stepped into the kitchen, lit the flame under what was left of the morning coffee.  She leaned toward the open window, inhaling the scent of Indian summer.  “I only know this because I found her crying one day.” She turned back to Modesta.  “She was in her kitchen, holding little Mercedes.  Remember how she used to keep the cradle next to her, in the room wherever she was working?  She couldn’t be away from that child for ten minutes!  Anyway, there she was, holding the baby, rocking her back and forth in her arms, trying to sing and choking on tears.  Her period had come.  Again.”
            “Huh.”  Modesta chewed her lip.  “Her little life always seemed so perfect.”
            “Perhaps your little life seems perfect too.”
            “Mine?”  Modesta sank onto one of the dining room chairs, offended that the description “little life” should be applied to hers.  She tried to push aside a pile of books, to make room for her purse on the table.  The effort was too great.  She hung the purse on the back of her chair instead. 
            Her mother poured coffee into thin china cups.  Modesta drank hers black, but Mama stirred milk into her own, shaking her head at the chipped rim, the handle that had been glued on again.
            “Mama,” Modesta leaned forward.  “How did she get over it?”
            “Adela? I’m not sure she did.  There wasn’t much time, after all, and it can take years to understand, even longer to accept.”  She handed Modesta her cup and sat down across from her.  “At least it did for me.”
            “For you?  You mean--understand what?”
            “That some things simply must be left to God.”  Mama smiled into her cup, waited for Modesta to roll her eyes, but she didn’t.
            “Oh Mama, that’s what Adela used to say!  That was her answer to everything!”
            “Yes, yes, she had the faith, but she was not given the opportunity to endure.”  Mama reached across the table and took Modesta’s hand. “You try and you fail and you try again.  If you fail again, is it failure, or is it just that your family is complete?  As God wishes it to be?”  She paused.  “Modesta, when you were little, do you remember the day you stopped playing?”
            “When I stopped playing?”
            “You and Adela and Trini, when Trini was a baby, you used to play dolls for hours--for days!  Do you remember?”
            Modesta smiled.  The bitter coffee was soothing her, the cluttered house, Mama’s patience.  “Of course!  We used to take those dolls, our baby dolls, everywhere!  Adela played with hers till she was thirteen!”
            “And you stopped when you were eleven.  Do you remember?”
            Modesta nodded.  “I came to you and said I don’t know what to do.  I don’t want to play and I don’t know what else to do!”
            “Do you remember how you felt?”
            “Oh, sure.  I was at a loss.  I didn’t know what else there was!”
            “And I told you to read a book, go for a walk, work on that embroidery you had started...”
            “The pillow cases!  But I didn’t want to do those things because they weren’t as much fun as playing.  Or as playing used to be.”
            “It took you a week or two, but soon you were planning a sleep over, learning to make empanadas.  You started listening to music. You noticed boys.  You left playing in the past.  And your sister eventually followed.  And years later, Trini.  We go through changes.  It happens to everyone.”
            “But Mama--. “
            “Dear heart, when God takes something away, He provides something in its place.  You must trust more.  We are on God’s path, not one created from our own desires.”
            Modesta smiled to herself.  How like Mama! She relaxed her shoulders, leaned back in her chair.  She could feel the strap of her new purse push against her shoulder blade.  She loved that purse!  Paul had smiled indulgently when she brought it home.  He said, “Do we need a new car to go with this bag or will the old Beamer do?” 
            “Mama, did you tell all this to Adela?”
            Her mother nodded.  “I don’t know whether she truly understood.  As I say, it took me years, and she was so young.”  The ‘when she died’ hung in the air between them, though neither spoke the words.  The women finished their coffees.          
            Modesta carried her mother’s cup to the sink and stood for a moment, looking out the window.  The bird feeder was full again.  Mama kept it so. She fed the birds, the animals, the family, from time to time a neighbor, never asking anything for herself.  Unless...?  “Mama!”  Modesta’s eyes were wide.  “Is that how you had Maria Elena?  She wasn’t an accident after all?”
            Her mother smiled.  “Modesta, there are no accidents.  There are prayers and there are answers.  It is what makes each life perfect.”