Roosevelt Avenue
Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights, ten minutes before eight a.m., María is waiting for the R train to arrive. She still has that lurid taste in her mouth and she still feels a little dizzy. Finally the train arrives and she is pushed inside by the human flow. She manages to grab one of the poles and feels the doors close behind her, as she pushes to enter the car completely.
But her mind is not in that car; her hands produce a cold sweat. She remembers the day she met José and damns it. She thinks how stupid she was, in how he promised her love and that he would help her to get the visa, and how she was innocently fooled. Two weeks later the menstruation didn’t come.
She still hasn’t had courage to tell her mother. This unwanted pregnancy will ruin the future of her brothers; she has been working very hard for the last two years in order to bring them to the States. Finally the train stops and she manages to get out.
The place is humble, but clean, and projects a very professional atmosphere. The nurse takes her to a room and asks her to take her clothes off. She gives her a green dress. She rests on a table, glued to it by her warm skin against the cold metal.
The doctor comes into the room and gives her a smile, asks her some questions and tells her to relax.
Her heart beats quickly. The nurse gives her an intravenous injection, seconds later she is calmed and her worries are gone.
Her mind feels like a cloud. Suddenly a dream that she had had a month ago and had already forgotten comes to mind. It is incredibly real. An angel named Gabriel comes and talks to her. She is the elected one.
The sedative starts working; María closes her eyes and thinks about her brothers.
