“Promise me,” she said.
I don’t know why, but I promised.
From that moment forward, I kept going to her house every week, sometimes twice when my schedule allowed it, even though she never gave me the two hundred pesos she had originally promised. At first, I thought she simply forgot—that in the fog of aging and illness, she had forgotten to transfer money or set aside cash.
Later, as weeks turned into months, I imagined she might be waiting to gather several weeks together to pay me all at once. I told myself this story because it made the situation feel less uncomfortable, less like I was working for free, less like I was supporting someone I didn’t know.
Eventually, I understood the truth with the kind of clarity that comes from paying attention: she simply had nothing to pay me with.
One afternoon, while I was making her some chicken broth—a task that had gradually become part of my routine, something I did without being asked—I gathered the courage and said what I had been thinking for weeks:
