PART 1
“ You’d rather marry a sixty-year-old woman than find a decent girl! ”
That’s what my mother shouted at me in the middle of the yard, in front of my uncles, the neighbors, and even the gas delivery man.
My name is Efraín, I’m twenty years old, I’m six feet tall, and I grew up on a small ranch in Guanajuato where everyone knows everything before you’ve even had the chance to live it. At my age, most of my friends were thinking about motorcycles, beer, and girls from school. Me? I had become the town’s favorite piece of gossip because I was going to marry Doña Celia.
That’s what everyone called her—not because she was a grandmother, but because she carried authority. She dressed with elegance, spoke gently, and looked at people as if she truly understood them. She had money, yes, but she never used it to make others feel small by showing off expensive things. I met her while welding a fence at a house she had bought on the outskirts of town. I burned my hand from being clumsy, and while everyone else laughed, she was the only one who approached me with water, ointment, and a calm presence that completely disarmed me.
From that day on, she treated me differently.
She lent me business books I could barely understand. She helped me pronounce English words without making me feel foolish. She spoke to me about small investments, about saving, about thinking ahead. No one my age had ever made me see that far. With her, for the first time, I felt like my life could be bigger than the workshop, the debts, and the dry land of my home.
And yes, I fell in love.
Not with her dresses. Not with her house. Not with her money.
I fell in love with the way she listened to me as if I truly mattered.
When I told my family, they almost threw me out.
“That woman has you bewitched,” my aunt said.
“What you want is a mother, not a wife,” my cousin snapped.
“She’s going to use you and throw you away,” my father said, hurt.
But I stood firm. I fought for her. I defended her in front of everyone. And even though the entire town labeled me ambitious, crazy, or a freeloader, I didn’t back down.
The wedding took place at an old hacienda, lit with candles, decorated in white, with musicians playing as if it were a celebration for powerful people. There were too many men dressed in black, too many radios in their ears, too much security for what should have been a simple wedding. I noticed it, yes—but I was so blinded by what I felt that I chose not to question it.
That night, when we were finally alone in a large bedroom, Celia closed the door with trembling hands. Then she placed a thick envelope and a set of keys on the table.
“It’s your wedding gift,” he told me. “One million pesos and a truck.”
I gave a nervous smile and pushed the envelope back.
—I don’t need any of that. With you, I’ve already won.
Then she looked at me in a way I had never seen before. Sad. Like she was about to break.
— Son… I mean, Efraín… before this goes any further, I have to tell you something.
A chill ran through me.
Celia slowly removed her shawl. And when my eyes landed on her left shoulder, I froze.
There was a dark, round birthmark with uneven edges.
The same.
In the exact same place.
The same mark my mother had always had on her collarbone.
I lifted my hand, trembling.
—That mark… why do you have it?
Celia closed her eyes and took a step back.
The air grew heavy. The room no longer felt like a suite—it felt like a trap.
“Because I can no longer remain silent,” she whispered.
And when she opened her mouth to reveal the truth, I realized that I wasn’t ready for what was about to come…
