All of Mama’s toughness had evaporated, though, when she found herself halfway through the tenth month of her pregnancy, wondering if it would ever end. Seven years earlier, Rudy had been born right on schedule. But three lost babies followed my brother, none of them managing to remain inside my mother’s womb for longer than a few months. Now I had come along and refused to leave. Before she went to see the witch, Mama tried all kinds of things her country relatives told her to do to get the baby to come. My grandmother advised her to eat hot peppers with every meal, claiming that the heat
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