They rejected the pregnant widow, but the grandmother who took her in had a secret.

Chapter 2

The days that followed settled into a rhythm I hadn’t known I needed.

I woke with the first light, when the mountain still smelled of damp earth from the night and birds were just beginning to stir in the tejocote tree. Nana Concha was always already awake, stoking the fire with her quiet, unhurried movements. The smell of coffee simmering in the clay pot filled the small house and drifted through the half-open door.

We ate breakfast together without much talking. It wasn’t uncomfortable silence. It was the silence of two people who no longer needed words to feel accompanied.

After breakfast, Nana Concha began teaching me.

She showed me the herbs in the garden — which ones were for what, how to prepare tea for pregnancy pains, which leaf to place on the belly when the baby was positioned wrong, how to make a steam bath with hierba santa to ease the exhaustion of the final months.

She spoke with the calm authority of someone who’d learned from her own grandmother, and her grandmother before that. Knowledge the Montiels had never wanted to acknowledge because it came wrapped in Zapotec words and brown hands.

I listened carefully. I learned.