When I told Antonio the news, in tones of incredulity bordering on joy, he slowly rubbed my arm with his thumb and said in a wondering voice: “But E-vie . . .” He had a sweet way of lengthening the syllables of my name. “I do not want to become a father by mistake. Of that I am sure.”

We were in my apartment, facing each other on the sofa, our arms outstretched along the top of it. He was twenty-nine. I was twenty-six. His tone was scaring me. Flippantly I reminded him we were at an age when some couples are pushing out their second or third child.

“Yes, I know.” He snorted. Antonio had escaped from such a family. “And I am not going to be one of them.”

We talked that night, I cried, we talked the next morning. We talked for days. To everything I said—that he could stay and do his research in America, that we could both move to Spain, that our parents would be excited once they got used to the idea, that we had both allowed it to happen, that I was not prepared to put an end to this life—Antonio gave the same reply: “I know. You may be right. But I do not want to become a father.” Sometimes it was “I am just beginning my career. I do not want to become a father.” Or “I cannot settle here and become a father.” It was as if the Antonio I knew had been replaced by an automaton. The accent I had once found sensual and charming was now a shield, a device to assert his otherness and keep me away. Woodenly he repeated himself, and in repeating himself he grew more and more distant. Had he wavered, or wept, or made propositions of his own, I might have felt different. I might have even been persuaded to abandon the pregnancy in exchange for becoming parents one day in our own time. But the more Antonio said “I do not want to become a father,” the more my defiance grew and the more insistent became the call of the life inside me.

“Never?” I pressed him on the last morning, at his kitchen table. “You never, ever want to have a child?”

He paused long enough to tell me what I needed to know.

“What you mean is, you don’t want to have a child with me.”

I waited for him to touch or contradict me. Then I stood up, tipped my coffee down the sink, walked out of his apartment, and began my life with Maddy.

•  •  •

Norma was waiting. Her gaze on my face was like a focusing of the sun’s warmth, but I was determined to keep my replies short and hold her interest by connecting my story to hers. There’s only so much a person wants to know about someone else’s child.