I am sixty-three years old. At this age you think you’ve seen enough of life to not be surprised by anything. I thought so too. I thought that after raising my daughter alone, burying my husband too young, and working all my life tirelessly, all I had left was a quiet old age, surrounded by love.
At least, that’s what I imagined.
From the outside, many people said that I was a lucky woman. My husband died early, yes, but my daughter Mariana came out well. She went to school, got a job in the city, and married a man who seemed responsible. Whenever someone in the village asked me about her, I replied with pride.
“My daughter lives in the capital. He’s doing well.”
He lived in a small house in a town in Oaxaca. It wasn’t big or fancy, but it was my home. Thirty years living within those walls make every corner have a memory. The lemon tree in the yard was planted by my husband the first year of marriage. We fixed the kitchen together when Mariana was still a child.
I was there all my life.
But Mariana insisted.
Every time we spoke on the phone he told me the same thing:
“Mom, come live with us in Mexico City. I don’t like to think you’re alone over there.”
I always answered that it was fine. That he had neighbors, that he knew everyone, that the town was quiet. But she wouldn’t give up.
“Mom, we can also help you. Javier and I are going to give you ten thousand pesos a month. That way you don’t have to worry about anything.”
Ten thousand pesos.
In the village, with that amount you live without problems. He pays for electricity, buys food, even has enough to save some.
At first I refused several times. It wasn’t just the house. It was all it meant to leave her. The patio where my husband sat to drink coffee in the mornings. The chair where he would lie down after work.
But one day Mariana told me something that left me thinking all night.
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