A strange uneasiness passed through her.
She remembered waking there once.
Or believed she remembered it.
There had been a lamp above her. A cold cloth on her forehead. Someone saying, “You are safe.”
But when had that happened?
During her first pregnancy?
Her second?
Before either of them?
The memory dissolved whenever she tried to hold it.
“Esperanza?” Lucía asked.
She blinked.
“Yes?”
“You went somewhere far away.”
“I was only thinking.”
“About what?”
“I do not know.”
Lucía leaned closer.
“That is a troubling answer.”
Esperanza looked down at Miguel. The child’s eyes had opened, dark and trusting.
“There are pieces missing,” she said quietly.
“Pieces of what?”
“My memory.”
Lucía’s hand stopped beside the bread plate.
“What do you mean?”
Esperanza searched for words.
“There are mornings when I wake and feel as though I have forgotten a dream. Not an ordinary dream. Something important. I can almost see a room, or hear a voice, but then it vanishes.”
