I looked at her for a long time.
My daughter.
The little girl for whom I sewed uniforms.
The girl for whom I sold my gold chain to pay for her school fees.
The woman who now spoke to me as if I were an obstacle with gray hair.
“We’re all going to die somewhere, Monica. But I don’t intend to die while I’m still alive just so you can have a new apartment.”
She froze.
The attorney informed them that the papers were contested, that a report would be filed for potential elder financial abuse, and that as long as I was hospitalized, no one could force me to sign anything.
Monica left, furious.
Arthur followed her.
Julian remained at the door.
“Mom…”
“No.”
“I…”
“Not today, Julian.”
He left, crying.
I felt no victory.
I felt exhausted.
Sometimes, a mother doesn’t want to win against her children. She wants to not have to defend herself from them.
The pathology result arrived a week later. There was malignancy, but it was encapsulated. I would need follow-ups, more tests, perhaps treatment, but the doctor smiled for the first time.
“We caught it at the limit, Mrs. Morales. If you had waited any longer, it would be a different story.”
I thought about my diapers.
About my yellow socks.
About my swollen belly, crying for help in the only way it could.
My body hadn’t deceived me.
It was screaming at me.
I returned home twenty days later.
Mrs. Socorro welcomed me with chicken soup, gelatin, and half the neighborhood gathered in my living room. The neighbors who used to whisper were now sweeping my sidewalk, watering my rosebushes, and leaving warm tortillas wrapped in napkins on my porch.
“You see,” Socorro told me. “In the end, you did have a creation.”
I looked at her, confused.
She pointed to my scar.
“You yourself. You were born again.”
I cried right there, in my loose robe with my belly bandaged.
My children took a while to return.
Monica sent messages I didn’t answer.
Arthur called to say “everything got out of control.”
Julian was the first one to knock on the door.
He arrived one afternoon, with a bag of oranges, swollen eyes, and no headphones.
“I’m not coming to ask for a quick forgiveness,” he said. “I’m coming to ask you to teach me how not to be a coward again.”
I let him in.
