I stopped going to my other jobs.
My supervisor at the bookstore was understanding when I called and explained the situation. My professor in my evening biology class allowed me to submit work late. Life, it seemed, had suddenly become about this moment—about sitting with Carmen and bearing witness to her leaving.
One night she grabbed my wrist with a strength I didn’t know she still possessed, her bony fingers suddenly powerful, suddenly insistent.
“Forgive me,” she said.
“For what?” I asked, though I suspected I knew.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“For not paying you.”
Something inside me broke—the kind of breaking that comes when you realize that someone has been carrying shame about something you never felt was shameful.
“You don’t owe me anything, Doña Carmen,” I said. “You don’t owe me anything at all.”
She barely shook her head.
“Yes, I do. But it’s not money that you’re going to receive.”
