Free The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

vomits it back up. It’s not that I care, none of this is any of my affair, but what will I tell her mother if she dies on me? I don’t want anyone coming round later asking for an accounting.”
    Riad Halabí put the sick girl in his truck and drove her to the hospital, and Antonia went with them. They returned with a variety of colored pills and a new dress for Concha, since she could not pull the one she was wearing down past her waist. The other woman’s misery forced Antonia Sierra to relive portions of her youth, her first pregnancy, and similar outrages she had lived through. In spite of herself, she wanted Concha Díaz’s future to be less dismal than her own. She felt no anger toward her now, but a secret compassion, and she began to treat her like a daughter who had gone wrong, with a brusque authority that barely veiled her tenderness. The girl was terrified to see the pernicious transformations in her body: the ungovernable swelling, the shame of the constant need to urinate, the waddling like a goose, the uncontrollable nausea, the wishing she could die. Some days she woke up so sick she could not get out of her hammock; then Antonia left the children to take turns looking after her while she rushed through her work to get home early and care for Concha. Other days Concha woke with more spirit, and when Antonia returned home, exhausted, she found dinner waiting and the house cleaned. The girl would serve her a cup of coffee and stand by her side waiting for her to drink it, watching Antonia with the moist eyes of a grateful animal.
    The baby was born in the hospital in the city, because he did not want to come into the world and they had to open up Concha Díaz to get him out. Antonia stayed with her a week, while the schoolteacher Inés looked after her own children. The two women returned in Halabí’s supply truck, and all Agua Santa came out to welcome them back. The mother smiled while Antonia exhibited the baby with a grandmother’s ebullience, proclaiming that he would be christened Riad Vargas Díaz in just tribute to the Turk, because without his help the mother would never have reached motherhood and, besides, the Turk had paid all the expenses when the father turned a deaf ear and pretended he was drunker than usual, to keep from digging up his gold.
    Before two weeks had gone by, Tomás Vargas tried to coax Concha Díaz back to his hammock, despite the fact the woman had an unhealed scar and battlefield dressing across her belly. Antonia stepped up to him with her hands on her hips, determined for the first time in her life to keep the old vulture from getting his way. Her husband made a move to whip off his belt to give her the usual thrashing, but before he could complete the gesture, she started toward him with such ferocity that he stepped back in surprise. With that hesitation, he was lost, because she knew then who was the stronger. Meanwhile, Concha Díaz had set her baby in a corner and picked up a heavy clay pot, with the clear intention of breaking it across his skull. Vargas realized he was at a disadvantage, and left the house swearing and cursing. All Agua Santa learned what had happened, because he himself told the girls in the whorehouse, then they told everyone that Vargas couldn’t cut the mustard anymore and that his bragging about being such a stud was pure swagger with nothing to back it up.
    Things changed after that. Concha Díaz recovered rapidly, and while Antonia was out working she tended the children and the garden and the house. Tomás Vargas swallowed his pride and humbly returned to his hammock—without a companion. He made up for this affront by mistreating the children and telling in the tavern that, like mules, all women really understand is the stick, but at home he never tried to punish them again. When he was drunk he shouted the joys of bigamy to the four winds, and for several Sundays the priest would have to