What’s a Girl To Do?
Maria Guadalupe Rosario Garcia was a typical teenage girl who lived in Dolores Hidalgo, Mexico. She enjoyed talking on the phone to her friends, wearing sexy clothes, eating pizza, and shopping. “I’m late to school,” Maria remarked to her mother. “No breakfast. I’ve been gaining weight.”
A week later Maria’s father noticed her weight gain and mentioned it to his wife; quickly they feared for their daughter. That night they sat down after cena to discuss her weight gain.
Her father started, “How have you been feeling lately, Maria?”
“I feel great. Something has come over me. Like a glow within. Verdad.”
Maria’s parents looked at each other.
“Now Maria, we love you more than Mexico itself. You’re our only daughter.”
Her mother smiled and took Maria’s hand.
Maria’s father was more direct. “Are you in trouble, Maria?”
“What trouble?” Maria asked with her face scrunched up.
With a raised voice her father asked, “What is that American saying... Are you putting the cart before the horse, daughter?”
Maria felt confused and leaned back in her chair.
“There’s no shame darling,” her mother said.
“Mother and father, what are you talking about?”
Maria’s mother took her hand, “Well now, you’ve been gaining weight and there might be another reason.”
Maria pulled her hand away from her mother. “I’m not pregnant.” Then she laughed and said, “That’s impossible. It would have to be a miracle. And before you ask that, I haven’t been visited by the Virgin of Guadalupe.”
Both parents leaned forward like they were in a heavy wind. Maria’s mother swallowed and tried to smile. She looked sheepishly at her husband. “Did you miss, ah… your period?”
“I’ve missed a period or two before. I thought it was because of my weight or something like that.”
“Or something like that!?” her father shouted and then tried to compose himself.
Maria stood and began to cry, “I’m not pregnant, I’m a virgin.” She stormed out of the room.
Her parents sat in silence, until finally her father broke the silence and said, “I trust our daughter and believe her. If she says she is a virgin, then she is a virgin.”
Maria’s mother knew better. Some things you can’t hide from a woman.
Weeks later, Maria had gotten heavier and heavier. To disprove her parents’ grave concern that she was pregnant and show that there was not a giant tumor growing in her stomach, they went to see Doctor Leon, the family physician. Some tests were done and, with her parents at her side, Maria was pronounced pregnant. Maria sat there shocked. She just couldn’t be pregnant. When she asked for another test, the doctor looked to her parents, who nodded and said, “To be totally sure.” The doctor would have the tests sent out. The next day, the second test came back: Pregnant. Maria went into a deep depression. It just wasn’t possible. She knew she was a virgin.
When Maria appeared in the doctor’s office with her parents yet again and asked to have an examination to see if her hymen had been broken, the poor doctor shook his head and reluctantly agreed. The doctor told Maria she was in denial, and she was indeed pregnant and there was nothing she could do. He said maybe she was ashamed of her condition. Maria listened, but kept insisting that she never had sex.
Maria’s mother and father sat in the doctor’s office ashamed and sad how their daughter had lied about something impossible. After the examination Maria and her parents met with Doctor Leon. He said, after pausing to rub his chin, her hymen was intact. Maria was a virgin.
Maria’s parents looked confused.
“So you’re saying she is not pregnant?” Maria’s father asked.
“No, Maria is pregnant.” Doctor Leon said.
“That is possible, doctor?”
Doctor Leon said it is possible she could be pregnant and still be a virgin. When Maria’s father asked how that could be true, the doctor immediately started talking in medical terms and Latin words finally concluded with the word parthenogenesis.
Maria and her parents drove home in silence. She was still expecting a child and her parents were happy for that. Maria was terrified. She was pregnant and didn’t know how. Maybe she had been given a drug and raped while she was knocked out? Maybe she had been impregnated by space aliens. So in the days to follow, Maria had some explaining to do to her girlfriends and relatives who either thought she was blessed, unlucky or… most didn’t know what to think.
While Maria was still at school several curious things happened. Word got around that if you rubbed her stomach you got higher scores on exams. She thought it was a crazy idea but let the “believers” rub her stomach. It seemed harmless enough. The girls all laughed about it. Their scores were higher.
But the real turning point came weeks later when Maria was at home, too pregnant to go to school. Her mother answered the door and there stood a poor woman in rags clutching two dirty-faced children in shabby clothes. When Maria’s mother asked what they wanted, the woman said, “We want to be blessed by the mother of God.”
Maria’s mother laughed thinking it was a marvelous hoax, but the woman’s tattered clothes and the children’s filthy faces were too real not to be true. When she summoned Maria, the poor woman fell to her knees and began reciting a Hail Mary. Then she asked to be blessed and delivered up from her poverty. Maria didn’t know what to do; she just felt sad for the poor woman and her children. She laid hands on the woman’s shoulders and said her misery would be relieved. Maria didn’t say how. Her mother brought some tortillas and some fruit for the woman. From her pocket, Maria gave some coins to the poor woman—and that was Maria’s biggest mistake.
Maria and her mother sat at the kitchen table and felt sorry for the woman, but what could they really do? Her mother agreed that compassion for the poor was all Maria could offer. Maybe, because of her pregnancy, she felt more compassion to help people.
The poor woman went down into the village, bought a lottery ticket with the money Maria gave her, and won 10,000 pesos. She ran screaming down the street, claiming it was a miracle. The very next day people began to stop by and see Maria and ask for everything under the sun. Maria’s parents became scared and called in the parish priest for advice and understanding.
Padre Guerro was a man grounded in common sense. He had never seen a miracle and reserved such capability to the saints only. Miracles and virgin births do not come to parish priests in small Mexican villages.
“Now Maria, your pregnancy is not your fault. Uh, I mean to say, you have to tell people you cannot do miracles.”
“But Padre Guerro, I feel I must help people.”
“Maria, please child, it is natural the state you’re in to feel more kindness for mankind. A woman with child is a marvelous feeling I am told. But you can’t do miracles and you must tell people that or…”
“I’ve tried. People won’t listen.”
“Yes, I know, darling. Sometimes it is the fertile imagination of the Mexican people to blame.”
“What can I do when they won’t listen?”
“It’s the same problem I have as a priest.”
“How’s that Father?”
“Uh, yes… as I said, the fertile imagination. The Mexican people, some Mexican people, still believed in ghosts, demons and unicorns. And no matter what you tell them they want to believe otherwise.”
“Father, what can I do?”
“As I said, denounce any miracles and after the child is born all this will become a distant memory.” He then hugged Maria and touched her stomach and said, “How along are you?”
“Six months.”
When Father Guerro got back to the church, there was an anonymous gift of 10,000 pesos taped to the church door in an envelope. A note thanking Maria mentioned the name of a rooster in a cock fight. And Sunday’s collection was unusually large. But Father Guerro was too much of a realist and saw only coincidence. A week later, Father Guerro had a wild dream about rampaging crowds through his little church, bleeding stigmata, virgin births and the end of the world. He awoke breathing heavy, confused and dazed from his dreams. The same dreams came back the next night. Three days later, after much prayer and fasting Father Guerro phoned the Bishop in Mexico City and told him of Maria, his dreams and his fears.
“So Father Guerro, this girl, this Maria Rodgriquez…”
“Maria Garcia, your Excellency.”
“Yes, Garcia. Tell me about her? You met with the girl?”
“Yes. She is a normal young woman. She is pregnant.”
“And we don’t know who the father is?”
“No. She claims she is a virgin.”
“Don’t they all? And there are miracles?”
“Well, I’d call them co-incidents.”
“Have you seen any other signs?”
“No.”
“No, perhaps there is something in the water causing all this?”
“How’s that?”
“Green mold in the corn of the tortillas you eat?”
“Perhaps, your Excellency.”
“Maybe the beer is contaminated. Maybe it came in contact with some copper. Then the metal leaches an acid that goes to the brain?”
“I wouldn’t know, your Excellency.”
“Well Father, keep me informed. We want to keep this whole affair localized, if you know what I mean. You and I both know the Mexican imagination and to what great lengths it can grow to. Sometimes our Mexican imagination comes before a clear reason.”
Father Guerro hung up and felt relieved he had told the Bishop. The next day, he heard people in her little village explaining all unusual luck, like finding lost keys, a man giving up alcohol or another lottery winner, as a Maria Garcia miracle. In quick time Maria and her parents and their house were besieged by people from around Mexico. They stole any “relic” to include the hose, an old broom and mop, even stones from the Garcia wall around their house. They tried to dig up plants in front of their house. Some of the items showed up for sale on eBay. Their telephone line was cut and sold for 100 pesos a meter. Stories of miracles went mega viral on the internet. Finally, the police had to stand by and watch the house for fear zealots would take it apart. A sonogram of the baby was leaked to tabloids and an expert radiologist found strange shadows and shapes in the developing baby.
Maria and her parents were petrified of what was happening. Again, they called Father Guerro for help. He arranged to pick up Maria and her parents in the dark of night and drive them to safety. They were to take no cell phone or laptop computer. No luggage. They only could leave with the clothes on their backs.
Driving with Maria and her parents hiding in the backseat, Father Guerro said, “This is all for the best. This whole insane matter is out of control. People around here will believe anything. No matter how outrageous or outlandish. If you ask me they’re all paranoid.”
Maria started to say something.
“Quiet. The car might be bugged,” Father Guerro said in a loud whisper.
“But where are you taking us?” Maria’s sobbing mother asked.
He looked around the interior of the car. In a loud fake voice he said, “I’m driving you to Vera Cruz. Yeah, Vera Cruz. We’re going to Vera Cruz.” Then he said in a hushed whisper, “San Miguel.”
But Father Guerro’s midnight drive was found out and quickly people began accusing the church of hiding her and using all her miracles for their benefit. Just before Sunday Mass, Father Guerro was called to the phone. It was the Bishop again.
“Yes, Excellency.”
“Father Guerro, I called a higher authority and they will be in touch. Apparently this whole affair needs to be cornered and caged. I know the phone might be tapped so that is all.” He hung up.
After Mass, Father Guerro got another phone call and it was the Vatican and they said the Jesuits, the priests called in by the Holy Sea in any case of insurrection of the faith or theology, were flying in to study the situation. That’s when Father Guerro knew the whole affair was completely and hopelessly out of control and, he hated to say it, in the hands of God now. A day later, a helicopter landed next to the church and a black robed Jesuit priest got out wearing sunglasses carrying a large suitcase with the Papal seal.
A pagan group showed up and cursed the church and house where Maria lived and demanded it be torn down. They protested that it was all a giant hoax perpetrated by the Catholic Church to gain converts. There was no Maria. She was not pregnant and could do no miracles. Posters began showing up around the village declaring the child to be the Antichrist, saying it should be killed. The dream merchants from Hollywood came calling, throwing money around for an exclusive interview and pictures of the birth. On every corner in the city men were now saying they were the father. The newspapers ran an article titled: Is it the end of the world or is this woman pregnant with the divine Savior?
All the while in hiding Maria and her parents read the papers and watched television in horror. In a desperate moment, Maria felt she should kill herself and the baby and end it all. How could she possibly live a normal life after this? Why had God done all this to her? Why her?
The turmoil continued and went from the bizarre to the macabre. Word spread that Maria was going to be flown to Stonehenge to have the child in a Druid ceremony and the Pope was going to be there at the birth. There were rumors the Jesuit priest would be in the delivery room and if the boy looked like the devil the baby would be strangled to death with a rosary bead. Hollywood came calling again, throwing even more money at her with book offers and movie deals. Every woman movie star in Hollywood clamored for the part. How could they not?
The whole affair reached a fever pitch in her ninth month when Maria went into labor and was rushed to the hospital followed overhead by helicopters, airplanes, spy satellites, and a caravan of vehicles. Soldiers were stationed along the route in case antichrist forces tried to intercept the car and kill Maria and her child. Outside the small hospital, there were more cameras and satellite trucks than Mexico had ever seen. Every television station in Latin America was there. Thousands of people stood outside the hospital praying and chanting, waiting for the Rapture or the end of the world, or something biblical to happen.
As Maria rested in her bed in the hospital waiting to give birth to her child, around her were her parents, Father Guerro, and the Jesuit priest with sunglasses and a cell phone next to his ear in direct contact with the Vatican. Next to him a Mexican public official ready to whisk the baby away to an undisclosed place. A law had been hurried through Congress and signed by the President giving them authority to take Maria and the child away for the “peace and tranquility of Mexico and the world.”
The morning of the birth, it was a misty day and when the sun rose there was a complete arching rainbow that filled the sky. There was not a doubt in any person’s mind that soon the earth and the heavens would be forever changed with the birth of this child. The Second Coming was upon them.
It was an easy delivery. When the child was lifted from the womb and spanked, the Jesuit priest lowered his sunglasses, looked very closely at the child, smiled, and whispered in the phone, “Girl.” In minutes, his helicopter was in the air and he was flying to a little town in Spain that reported a series of miracles from a bubbling spring.
Minutes later, a hospital spokesperson came out and stood in front of a forest of microphones and cameras, flashes going nonstop, reporters and photographers pushing and shoving, shouting questions before anything was said. The spokesperson took a deep breath, the room hushed in silence awaiting words everyone was sure would spiral the world out of control. Only the faint chanting of the worshipers outside could be heard.
“At 7:11am Maria Guadalupa Rosario Garcia gave birth to a baby… girl.”
A collective groan went up from the reporters and they began breaking down equipment and packing up. The Second Coming was over and done. The hospital spokesman wished everyone would now just go home and leave the family and mother alone so they could enjoy this happy event. In an hour, it was old news and forgotten.
Maria and her daughter Christina lived in complete obscurity again. Maria finished high school and did make some money by signing movie rights and book deals that, of course, never came to be written. She lived at home with her parents, had a part-time job at a convenience store, and all was happy. Maria’s mother made a scrapbook of all the outlandish news stories, letters to the editors, and copies of the Antichrist posters. She even saved the sonogram.
The day after her third birthday party, Maria found Christina on the floor scribbling on a piece of paper. The small girl smiled up at her mother and handed Maria the small paper.
“What is this darling?”
Maria looked at the note and it was addressed to the Pope and written in Latin.