The Hysterectomy Waltz by Merrill Joan Gerber

Author:Merrill Joan Gerber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Hysterectomy Waltz
ISBN: 9781938604201
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

Even though there were no visiting hours in the morning, Carmen Garcia’s priest got a special dispensation from the pope because he had to deliver tragic news in person: Carmen’s husband, Manuel, had been killed defending the honor of his mother. She had been in the butcher shop with her son and accused the butcher of leaning on the scale to increase the weight of the tripe she was buying to make menudo. The butcher had cursed her by calling her a dirty name, whereby her son, Carmen’s husband, felt obliged to defend her honor. Manuel pulled out his switchblade but the butcher pulled out his meat cleaver.

Carmen began to moan and scream that her tubes had been blown open for nothing. She shrieked and implored God for mercy until even the priest had to ask the nurse for an aspirin.

Finally a conference was held at the foot her of bed among the members of her husband’s family, who had also been permitted to visit, and it was decided that Manuel’s younger brother, Jesus, a high school dropout who had been thinking of joining the Army, would now marry the widow instead, thereby assuring that the operation hadn’t been in vain, that Manuel’s six children would have a father, and that a close genetic substitute for Manuel’s seed would be possible.

Carmen was coaxed to lay down her book of baby names and for the time being study Modern Bride Magazine in order that she might make a try this time around for some good china, crystal, and silver.

An hour later I was handed a bridal shower invitation. It suggested tactfully that a suitable tableware pattern would be registered in three of the best department stores in Beverly Hills. A postscript at the bottom of the invitation apologized for the fact that they could not also extend a wedding invitation to me since it had to be a small family affair for only one hundred and fifty people.

I felt a clear downward turn occur in my spirits, the start of an ugly depression, and I thought perhaps this might be the harbinger of the predicted period in which I would mourn for my uterus. To test it out: I purposely remembered how precious my three baby girls had been at birth, how their fontanels had pulsed, how gas pressure had turned up the corners of their tiny lips, how they had poked their fingers in my eyes when I leaned over them to change their diapers. Tears flooded my eyes as I remembered their first words, first poems, first poops in their potties.

It was all over for me. I would never feel life again in my womb. I would never hold an infant to my breast again. Not only did my roommate, Carmen, have a new honeymoon before her, she had the miracle of motherhood to experience ten times over. And what did I have? Gas pains.

Just then a gaggle of nurses, all aflutter and giggly, brought in a handmade black

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