Tita's Suspected Pregnancy

Tita’s suspected pregnancy turns her secret consummation with Pedro into an uncertain question about what may follow. She has not confirmed that she is pregnant, has not told Pedro, and faces the prospect of explaining the possibility without knowing how he will respond or what solution there might be.

The Suspicion

When Tita and Pedro consummate their love, pregnancy does not occur to her. The possibility surfaces afterward, and it unsettles her: the thought hardly brings a laugh to her lips. The evidence establishes a fear and an unresolved question, not a confirmed pregnancy.

What Tita Has Not Told Pedro

Tita has kept the suspicion from Pedro. She plans to tell him that night but does not know how to begin or what his reaction will be. Nor can she see a solution to what she calls a huge problem. Her uncertainty therefore involves both the possible pregnancy and the consequences of disclosing it to the man with whom she has secretly been intimate.

The Kings’ Day Gathering

The conversation she anticipates is set against preparations for guests coming to share Three Kings’ bread. Tita makes cocoa-butter lip ointment because she wants her lips to look soft and shiny for the gathering, not because she expects to laugh. Her childhood chapped lips once cracked and bled when she laughed; now, she reflects, she has little reason to laugh, and the prospect of pregnancy deepens that absence of ease. Turning her attention to the practical task of making the ointment lets her set aside, for a while, the question she does not know how to answer.