At twenty-four, you should not feel this old.
But grief ages people in strange ways. So does hunger. So does being left alone in a world that treats a pregnant widow like bad weather—something inconvenient, something to be avoided, something people pity just enough to talk about and not enough to help. Three months ago, your husband Tomás was alive, laughing, sun-browned, and full of plans. Then came the accident no one explained clearly, the closed coffin, the quiet lies, and the sudden way the town stopped looking at you like a person and started looking at you like a warning.
Now here you are.
Kneeling in a patch of desert shade beside a half-conscious stranger who talks as if he knows your name before you’ve even said it.
You swallow hard.
“What do you mean?” you ask. “Who are you?”
The old man opens his eyes again, but only halfway. They are pale, deeply lined at the corners, and filled with the sort of weariness that makes age look less like years and more like burden. His breathing is shallow. Every inhale sounds borrowed.
Instead of answering, he shifts one trembling hand toward his chest.
