My daughter said she would take me to live with her to take care of me and my son-in-law promised to give me ten thousand pesos every month. But exactly one year later, when I heard what they said about me in the kitchen… I understood that I was wrong.

“Mom… If something happens to you there, who’s going to help you?”

That question stuck in my head.

A month later I made the decision.

I sold the small piece of land behind the house. I left some money in the bank just in case. I put my clothes in two suitcases and closed the door of the house with a strange feeling in my chest.

I didn’t cry.

I thought I was starting a new stage.

The day I arrived at the bus terminal in the city, Mariana and her husband Javier were already waiting for me. Mariana ran to hug me tightly.

“Mom, now you are with us.”

The apartment where they lived was in a high-rise building, in a modern neighborhood of the city. To someone like me, who had spent his whole life in a small town, it seemed like another world.

Elevators, doorman, cameras, long corridors.

The apartment wasn’t huge, but it was nice. Everything was clean, tidy, with modern furniture that looked like something out of a magazine.

They had prepared a room for me.

A new bed, a small closet and a window from which you could see a park full of trees. I was excited to see it.

That night we had dinner together. Mariana cooked something simple and Javier opened a bottle of wine. They treated me so kindly that I thought I had made the right decision.

During the first weeks everything was quiet.

I got up early, as I always had. I would make breakfast before they went to work. Then he cleaned the apartment a little and went down to the park to walk.

There I met other ladies who also lived with their children. We sat down to talk on a bench while we watched the children and dogs go by.

At night, Mariana and Javier returned tired from work. We had dinner together, talked for a while and then each one went to rest.

I felt useful.

I liked to cook for them. I liked to have the house tidy when they returned. I thought that this way I was giving them back a little of everything they were doing for me.

The money also arrived on time.

Every month Mariana transferred the ten thousand pesos to my account. I hardly touched him. I didn’t need much.

But as the months went by, something began to change.

At first they were small details.