Later, at her laptop, recalling Estela’s blank look, Antonia Googles the Spanish for giving birth, dar a luz. Is it not used in Mexico? According to one of the websites, aliviarse is the working-class term. Dar a luz was used originally to refer to the Virgin Mary giving birth to the light of the world, a euphemism the upper classes appropriated, a more polite way of referring to a lady’s parturition. Antonia had often bragged to Sam about the poetry of her native language, the beautiful way, for example, that Spanish had of referring to giving birth: dar a luz, “give to the light.” That
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