“It’s cheap,” he said, voice heavy with warning. “But there’s no future here.”
Teresa didn’t argue. She wasn’t buying a future. She was buying a chance.
The house felt less like shelter and more like a memory—loose planks, a door hanging crookedly, holes in the roof where sunlight poured in like silent judgment. Four-year-old Ana clung to her mother’s hand, eyes wide.
“Here, Mama?” she asked softly.
Teresa swallowed the lump in her throat and forced strength into her voice.
“Yes, my love. Here. We’ll fix it little by little.”
That first night, they slept on worn blankets spread across the dirt floor, listening to insects and distant animals calling into the dark. Little Rosa stirred restlessly in her sleep. Teresa lay awake, watching her daughters’ chests rise and fall, wondering whether a woman’s strength alone could truly hold up an entire life.
Before dawn, she tied Rosa to her back with a faded shawl, took the only tool she owned—a battered hoe—and stepped outside.
She worked as if every strike of the earth were a prayer. She patched holes with scrap wood, hammered nails with aching hands, cleared years of neglect inch by inch. Sweat soaked her clothes. Blisters split her palms. Still, she didn’t stop.
After a few days, neighbors began to appear—not to help, but to watch.
They leaned against the fence, arms crossed, observing the way people observe a slow, inevitable failure.
Doña Petra arrived first, her face hardened by decades of sun and disappointment.
