Elena Knows

by Claudia Piñeiro

That afternoon your daughter told me that if I had an abortion I’d hear a baby crying in my head for the rest of my life, but she hadn’t had an abortion, she didn’t know, she was repeating what someone else had told her, maybe a man, maybe not, but someone who thought they knew. I’d have liked to talk to your daughter before she died to tell her what I’ve heard in my head every day of my life since then, since that day she dragged me dizzy and vomiting to your house.

People like your daughter, who didn’t even know me, your daughter who didn’t have the nerve to become a mother herself but who treated my body as if it were hers to use, just like you, today, you didn’t come here to settle a debt but to commit the same crime all over again twenty years later. You came here to use my body.

They could’ve told you a dozen times what it feels like to have Parkinson’s, in precise, graphic words, sparing no details, but you only knew the truth once the disease was inside your body. You can imagine the pain, the guilt, the shame, the humiliation. But you only know something once you’ve experienced it in your life, life is our greatest test.