A Full Belly

About the book

With A Full Belly, acclaimed author Graciela Bialet returns with an intense and compelling coming-of-age novel revisiting the world of her beloved novel El jamón del sánguche.

Fifteen-year-old Marianella is facing an unexpected pregnancy and too many questions. As she tries to start over far away from it all, she’ll have a breakthrough: the discovery of her talent for cooking, a growing community on social media, and the chance to forge her own path.

Written in a perfectly authentic teenage voice and driven by a fast-paced, irresistible narrative, A Full Belly tackles issues that resonate with young readers today—teenage pregnancy, social media, identity, and what the future might hold—in a heartwarming story about making mistakes, reinventing oneself, and discovering that you can always come up with a new recipe for life.

Excerpt

NOT JUST THE HAM IN THE SANDWICH

When I think back on my past life, what never fails to give me a warm, tingling feeling in the pit of my stomach are the memories I have of Cecilia. Friendships may drift or even fade away, but the trail of memories they leave behind lights up an unerasable path of smiles, so distant yet so certain that the evidence doesn’t even matter; it’s enough that those shared moments endure, like photographs etched on the skin.

It makes me laugh when I remember how Ceci used to feel like “the ham in the sandwich” (that’s what she said), because she was caught in the middle of her parents’ fights, as if between two slices of bread: one from her dad and the other from her mom, and sometimes she was afraid they’d end up devouring her. But her parents were the best, especially after they got divorced (because they were pretty unhappy together). Each of them, on their own, was having a great time. They adored Ceci, and it was wonderful that she had two homes (three, counting her grandma Abulinda’s) with all kinds of family around her: a half-brother, stepsiblings, and now, also, a few biological siblings she’d found after some research (Regina even told me she gets along pretty well with some of them.) That sandwich of life must be delicious, with so many ingredients and people to meet (and maybe love—why not?). As tasty as that breaded sandwich we invented once, back when we still had each other.

We used to buy two crustless sandwiches (with ham and cheese, or beef and hard-boiled egg, when we were lucky). Not counting calories was cool! We would dip them on both sides in beaten egg seasoned with a tablespoon of mustard. The next step was frying them in a pan greased with butter, flipping them over, until the bread was crispy and golden, and the cheese was oozing out from the sides. Finally, we smeared them with ketchup and GULP! It was so blissful, it was almost disgusting!

We were the perfect pair when it came to calorie-laden temptations. On the surface, our lives seemed ordinary. But behind closed doors, each home and each family was a very different world. Ceci had many homes, but she fit into all of them—they were messy, blended households, but places where everyone could be honest about who they were.

In contrast, my picture-perfect family was only impeccable for the photos—with a father, a mother, and two loving little girls—but away from the camera flashes, we were the worst of the underworld. A violent father, a “distracted” mother (is it easier to always look the other way?), a “scaredy-cat” daughter (my sister Tatiana), and another daughter who was a runaway (me), and who, to top it all off, got pregnant as a teenager!

It was quite a surprise. Especially for me.

When my period didn’t come that month, I wasn’t surprised, because my cycles had never been very regular, ever since I turned eleven and “hit puberty,” as my ridiculous grandmother used to say.

I had asked my mother to take me to the doctor, but she kept telling me it wasn’t necessary, that the bleeding was normal, that I had simply “become a woman.” I already knew that! I’d seen it on TV and in a video at school with my sex education teacher—even what it was like to have sex and the whole baby-making thing. But when I started getting my period, I was really scared, because sometimes I’d felt a discharge and a tingling sensation when that pervert who claimed to be my grandfather touched me down there, and other times it would burn and get irritated. So, after I “became a woman,” I thought (with that silly 11-year-old mind of mine) that maybe at any moment a baby, or a critter, or something could pop out of my butt, but I couldn’t tell my mom because I was embarrassed, and I certainly couldn't tell my dad either. I needed to talk to a female doctor in private, and I didn’t manage to do so until I was about thirteen, after that night when that pervert crept up to my bed, stealthy as a cat, and I finally found the courage to scream, “Stop it!,” and say that I had grown up and now I was the one who was going to cut him to pieces with a knife if he touched me there again, and I started screaming, “It hurts, it hurts…,” waking everyone up in the house. And the creep sneaked out into the shadows just in time before my dad showed up to ask if I needed him to make me some herbal tea or if I’d just had another nightmare.

All that screaming did the trick, because that perv never dared to come near me or look me in the eye again. If only I had known earlier that screaming like a madwoman would send the monster's shadows scurrying down the hallways!

After that, I went to see the gynecologist two more times. She had advised me to keep an eye out for any symptoms and monitor my menstrual cycles, especially given the stress I’d been under—and I hadn’t even told her half of what my “wonderful” life was really like. I downloaded an app that tracked my cycle, but I was never regular… So, when it took longer than usual for my period to start, I thought I’d have to go back to the doctor—especially now that, at fifteen, I was “sexually active” (as a sign in her office put it). But pregnancy never even crossed my mind, since Sebas and I always used protection (in fact, when I bought my first contraceptive ovules online, instead of inserting them into my vagina, I took them like pills, and we almost choked to death: me from “oral ovulation”—since they got stuck in my throat, as if I were trying to swallow a piece of chalk—and Sebastián from laughter, when he read the instructions on the package insert.)

I definitely should have gone to the doctor sooner. But it was too late. I took two tests, and the doctor did a third. They all came back positive. It felt like I’d been punched right in the chest. “Fifteen weeks pregnant,” she said after the ultrasound. It was like being hit by a truck. Fifteen! I couldn’t react. I was alone. All three times, for all three tests, I had been alone. It was a bad dream, one of those that keep repeating over and over, and you want to wake up to tell your brain to think otherwise, to try out a different idea, but you don’t wake up, and you don’t stop going round and round in the same scene—an endless merry-go-round.

As I left the clinic, my feet felt as heavy as an elephant’s feet. A cold sweat rose from my stomach to my throat, and I managed to turn around. Bent over double, I threw up on the concrete, right next to the sidewalk. I didn’t know what to do. Or where to go. A man asked me if I needed help, and I threw up again—this time all over his shoes. Two people dragged me back inside the clinic and handed me a glass of water. I threw up again. When I was taken into the emergency room, someone said, “She’s a minor; we should call a family member,” so I got up and bolted out of there. I ran down the street quite a long stretch until I reached a square where I lay down on the grass, motionless as a lizard, waiting for the warmth to return to my body and revive me. Once I’d somewhat recovered, I called Sebastián’s number and hung up. I decided to send him an urgent text message asking him to meet me.

It took him half an hour to get there. He asked me why I looked so pale, if I was sick. And I blurted it all out! He stood there as stiff as the statue of the national hero in the square. And so, with our elbows leaning on our knees, we sat in silence for a long time.

“But we used condoms…” he repeated fifteen times, and I shrugged, not knowing how it had happened, or what to say.

Holding hands, we walked for a while, and then we each headed home to see if we could come up with a solution.

That night I locked myself up in the garage so I wouldn’t have to see anyone, and only when I thought everyone was asleep did I try to go up to my room. Suddenly, I felt something smash against the wall. My father had just hurled a lamp from his bedroom into the hallway and was screaming at the top of his lungs, cursing his luck over some expense or credit card that had maxed out. At that moment, I knew the best thing I could do was leave that hellhole once and for all, and now I had the perfect reason. […]

 

 

Translated by Lucía Ronco - Edited by Marita Propato