Chapter 9
"My mother thought all the kids were given bad medicine by Communist doctors," Maria said. "She and my aunts and uncles thought we'd have deformed babies. She got a shitty doctor to sterilize me, then got some old woman to bless me so I couldn't have any children."
"She called that a blessing, huh?" Julia said, pouring tea for both of them. "Any chance the medicine part was true?"
"I don't know." Maria rubbed her jaws and the constant ache there. "My husband and I both had genetic screenings, and nothing seems to be wrong with my eggs or any other part of me besides my fallopian tubes. The eggs just don't work. I mean, doctors can put them together with my husband's sperm, but it doesn't take no matter what we try."
Julia held the tea up to her nose, breathing deeply.
"I'm g
