When I protested, she smiled.
“You don’t actually need it.”
I stared at her.
“I’ve been sewing since before you were born.”
“And that’s exactly what I mean.”
She walked away.
Neftalí found me sitting beside the machine that night.
He didn’t say anything.
He just sat beside me.
After a while, he reached over and squeezed my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
I looked at him.
“Are you happy?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
That silence should have warned me.
Instead, I kissed his cheek.
“Then that’s enough.”
I wish I could go back to that moment.
I wish I had asked him what he was afraid to say.
Because months later, he was dead.
The funeral took place under a gray sky.
Rain fell so hard that the cemetery workers had difficulty lowering the coffin.
I stood there in a black dress, my shoes filling with muddy water, staring at the wooden box that contained my only child.
A mother should never have to bury her son.
No matter how old that son is.
No matter how successful he became.
No matter how much money he left behind.
A mother sees the little boy who once slept against her chest.
