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

Chapter 9

Year four brought loss.

Nana Concha got sick in the winter.

It started as a cough — nothing alarming at first. But it lingered, got worse, settled deep in her chest.

I made her rest, made her drink the same remedies she’d taught me to make. For a while, it seemed to help.

But then she got worse.

Her breathing became labored. Her appetite disappeared. She grew weak in a way I’d never seen.

I brought the doctor from town. He examined her, listened to her chest, and gave me a look that told me everything I needed to know.

“Her lungs,” he said quietly. “At her age… there’s only so much that can be done.”

I took care of her the way she’d taken care of me. I made her comfortable, sat with her, read to her, brought little Ernesto to see her every day.

She died on a Tuesday morning in early spring, with the window open and the sound of birds singing in the tejocote tree.

She went peacefully, in her sleep, in the house she’d built with her own hands.

Little Ernesto, who was four now, didn’t fully understand.

“Where did Nana go?” he kept asking.

“She went to be with your father,” I told him. “They’re together now.”

We buried her on the property, under the tejocote tree, in a spot she’d chosen years before.

The funeral was attended by more people than I expected — women from town, from other mountains, from the city. Women whose babies she’d delivered, whose illnesses she’d cured, whose lives she’d touched.

Doña Amparo came.

She stood at the back, didn’t speak to anyone, just watched as we laid Nana Concha to rest.

As people were leaving, she approached me.

“She was a good woman,” Doña Amparo said quietly. “Better than we deserved.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“Don Rosendo wanted to come,” she added. “But he didn’t think he’d be welcome.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

“He was her son,” I said finally. “He would have been welcome.”

Doña Amparo nodded, her eyes glistening.

“He knows that now,” she said. “He’s known it for a long time. But knowing and doing are different things.”

She left after that, and I stood under the tejocote tree for a long time, thinking about regret and missed chances and the ways we hurt the people we love.