It was still before dawn when, tired of tossing and turning in bed, she got up and started packing things in a suitcase. The family’s building was centred around a large courtyard where children played, and the home where Bashia and Lavidia lived was at one end. Laba, her mother, had been restless all night, and when she saw light in her daughter’s living room window, she headed there and entered:

“Lavi, it’s not the end of the world. Many women are sterile.”

She didn’t answer and continued arranging her skirts and some shoes in the suitcase.

“Your sister could lend you some of her eggs. You could have a daughter who might even look more like you than her own.”

Lavidia looked at her mother sternly for a moment and then continued packing.

“Batro could lend his sperm and fertilise one of her eggs that would be implanted in your uterus, and...”

“And why would I want a daughter from my sister?” she interrupted, disdainful. “I already have my nieces. Or, if not, Bashia’s daughters. We live together, and we’re raising them together,” she got irritated. “The problem is not that I don’t have girls and want one at any cost. I already have many around me.”

“So what then? Do you have to have a red-haired daughter, or else you won’t want her?”

“It’s not about that, Laba,” she called her by her name like never before. “Although, of course, the colour of her hair would remind me all the time that she’s not my daughter.”

“Well, but if Batro is the father, as he is also red-haired, you have a chance of having a girl like that. Not as many, but...”

“Yes, of course, let him sleep with my sister or whoever, and then I end up with the girl. With another’s girl.”

“Well, it’s not the same. If in vitro fertilisation is done, you would be pregnant, the girl would grow inside you... It would be flesh of your flesh!”

“No, Laba!” she screamed. “It would be my sister’s flesh! Let her feed on what I eat, it doesn’t make her my daughter.”

“Alright. But at least you would give birth and breastfeed her... She wouldn’t be your daughter; she wouldn’t have your DNA, but...”

“Yes, sure, she would be ‘the daughter’ of the barren one.”

“Well, no one has to know. Only Ladia and I would know, and Bashia, logically, or... look, if you don’t trust your sister, you could go to an egg bank, and...”

“I would know, which is the worst of it all.”

“Well, what of it?”

“No,” she cut her off abruptly.

“Daughter, you’ve always been the same. A woman of extremes. Someone of all or nothing. But many women resort to that, and more and more.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied disdainfully. “You’re just like Bashia. Always with those damn sperm or egg banks.”

“Well, the important thing is to have daughters, right?”

“No, Mom. The important thing is to have daughters, yes, but my own daughters!” she looked at her, with eyes as cold as ice. “Other people’s daughters are not my daughters, even if I give birth to them, and giving birth to a girl doesn’t make me her mother. Don’t you understand?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

No. Laba didn’t understand. Lavidia didn’t get along entirely well with Ladia, her younger daughter, but she was sure there was something more. The girl was demanding, and she wouldn’t settle for a consolation prize.

At that moment, Bashia came out of one of the rooms. She already knew the news, as her friend had told her the night before. The conversation had been limited to a couple of sentences, as Lavidia didn’t want to talk about it. Bashia only responded with an affectionate hug, not wanting to deepen the wound, and let her go to bed. “Whatever you need, I’m in the next room,” she said.

As she saw the mother and daughter in that argument, she didn’t want to interfere. She just went out to pick up a bottle she had left warming in the kitchen, as one of her daughters wouldn’t stop crying. When she had it, she returned to her room. She didn’t want to interrupt that family scene, although, of course, she tried not to miss any details of the conversation from the other side of the door.

“Where are you going?” Laba finally asked. The mother assumed her daughter would hardly change her mind.

“I don’t know. Maybe north, to Grandma’s. I need to put some distance.”

“Are you going to cross the ocean to go there?”

“Most likely.”

“Well, you’ll need more than skirts if you’re going to that place.”

“I know, but I don’t have anything else. I suppose they’ll give me something when I arrive if I don’t die of cold before. Although, in the end... I don’t care anymore. I’m just worth for nothing.”

“Daughter! How can you say that?”

“Well, there you go, saying it,” she looked at her again and continued packing her things.

“Come on, the world doesn’t end just because you can’t be a mother. There are many other things to do!”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Helping others, for example. Many hands are needed everywhere to do a multitude of tasks. Like you’ve been doing until now.”

“Tasks that the rest of you don’t want to do because you prefer, naturally, to have daughters and be with them.”

The mother nodded, although she regretted doing so afterward.

“So, I would be like a servant,” Lavidia noted. “A second-class person, like men.”

Laba looked away, trying to find comfort for her daughter. In the end, she came up with:

“Let’s suppose the doctor lied to you, and I knew the truth. She would have told you that your problem is a simple obstruction and that a small intervention is needed. You would have undergone it gladly, and what they would have done is actually implant an egg from your sister fertilised with Batro’s semen.”

“From Batro?”

“Well, or from her husband. Or an egg from an egg bank. What does it matter! If, in addition, the girl had been red-haired...”

“Quite difficult, if only the father is.”

“Well, let’s suppose. The point is that you would have been the happiest mother in the world as soon as you gave birth because you would think it was your daughter. And more if she looked like you. Also, she would be my granddaughter!”

Lavidia looked at her mother condescendingly. After a few moments, she said:

“Laba, you’re just talking nonsense. Thanks for the attempt, anyway. If that had happened, it’s your conscience or your other daughter’s conscience. I would be happy, yes, and maybe you too. But the fact is that it’s not like that. The fact is that I know the truth! I know the truth, and nothing can compensate for knowing that I’m a barren woman, a useless woman, a failed woman, a woman who can’t fulfill herself, a woman who can’t achieve every woman’s dream and desire, which is to be a mother. The fact is that I have no eggs, and in that... in that, I’m like a man. Worse than a man. They can give life, and I can’t,” she shuddered. A tear rolled down her cheek and shattered on the table into tiny droplets.

Finally, the girl finished packing her things and headed to the storage room, where she planned to pick up some food.

“And what will happen to Batro now?” asked Laba.

“I’ll take him with me, despite everything. It’s not his fault, and I’m still his wife, after all. Nothing has changed for him, even if he can’t be a father. Well, actually, he can. He can have many daughters. The one who can’t it’s me.”