Delia's Crossing (Delia 1)

“Right. C’mon, Delia, before I throw up.”

“Jesse?” Edward called. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Jesse replied. He mumbled some curse, entered the room, and closed the door. We heard him lock it.

“If my mother saw that, she’d have a heart attack,” Sophia told me. “So, if you want to kill her, tell her.” She headed for her room.

I stood there looking after her. Could she possibly know that her mother wanted me to do exactly that, report anything I had seen to her?

“Will you come on?” she cried from her doorway. “You move like an old lady.”

I was tempted to go to my own room and lock the door, too, but I followed her. She flopped onto her bed.

“Shut the door!” she ordered, and gestured.

I closed it and stood there. She closed her eyes, and I thought for a moment that she was just going to fall asleep. I wished she would, but her eyes snapped open, and she sat up quickly.

“Come here,” she said, and nodded at the chair beside her night table. Then she pulled her legs back and sprawled on her stomach, reaching for a pillow at the same time. She folded her arms and positioned herself to rest her head on the pillow and look at me in the chair. I walked slowly to it and sat. For a few moments, she just stared at me. It made me uncomfortable. What did she want?

“You know enough English to tell me what Mr. Baker did to you at the rented house?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Too much to tell.”

“Did you do it with him, too? Did he make you?”

I shook my head. She looked disappointed.

“He never tried anything with me,” she said, sounding unhappy about it. “He was a lousy teacher. He had bad breath. My mother hired him just to torment me.”

She stared at me again, making me feel very uncomfortable.

“What about in Mexico?” she asked.

“In Mexico?”

“You did it with boys there?”

“No.”

“Bradley was the first?”

I didn’t answer, which was an answer for her.

“Oh, I get it. You people in Mexico don’t believe in birth control, right? No stopping birth,” she added when I grimaced with a bit of confusion. “You have lots of babies. Where are your sisters, your brothers?”

“No sisters, no brothers.”

“Just you?” She pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Why? Your father had birth control?”

“No more babies,” I said. I didn’t know the details about it, but I understood there was a reason my mother couldn’t have another child. We just didn’t talk about it.

“Probably decided not to have one and used something,” Sophia thought aloud. “If it wasn’t for my father, my mother wouldn’t have had Edward or me,” she added. “My father wanted children, not my mother, understand?”

“Sí, I understand.”

She studied me again and smiled.

“You know, you might be pregnant. Maybe there is a baby in you,” she said. “Bradley’s baby.”