he gift that gave me back my life
I still remember the smell of the chocolate-winning almond cake that I carried in my hands that afternoon. It was my daughter Elena’s forty-threeth birthday, and I had saved for three months from my pension to buy her that French dessert she liked so much since she was young.
It cost two thousand two hundred pesos. For many it was not a fortune, but for me it meant delayed medicines, simple meals and several weekends without going out. Still, I paid happy. Because a mother, when she loves, sometimes convinces herself that any sacrifice is worth it if in the end she gets a smile.
The taxi left me in front of my daughter’s mansion in Marina Vallarta: three white floors, huge windows, an infinite pool facing the sea and a black gate that looked more like a hotel than home. Five years earlier, I had put eight hundred thousand pesos of my savings for the hitch. “It’s only while we stabilized, Mom,” Elena had said crying with emotion. “We’ll go back to you.”
He never returned a single weight.
I settled in my turquoise dress, the only new one I had bought in years, and pressed against my chest a silver box. Inside he was wearing a pearl necklace that had belonged to my mother. Three generations of women, I thought. My grandmother, my mother, me… and now Elena.
I ringed the doorbell with a smile.
When Elena opened the door, my illusion broke down before I could say a word. He didn’t smile. He didn’t hug me. He didn’t even look up from the cell phone.
“Ah… is that you?” he muttered, stepping aside as if I were a delivery girl.
I swallowed saliva.
Happy birthday, my girl. I brought you your favorite cake and a special gift.
Elena let out a long, tired sigh, as if my presence were a nuisance.
Put it in the kitchen. I’m on a call.
I went in slow. The kitchen had Italian marble, also paid for by me when they remodeled the house. From the window I saw my grandchildren, Diego and Mateo, playing in the pool with their instructor. They didn’t see me. Or maybe yes, but they had already been taught not to interrupt “the important things.”
I left the cake on the counter. The silver box weighed on me in my hand as if there were no pearls inside, but whole years of sacrifice.
Fifteen minutes later, Elena came in. It was flawless: dyed hair, perfect nails, magazine makeup. All paid, in one way or another, for the beauty clinic that I had financed eight years ago with a loan on my department.
“Then,” he said, opening a bottle of mineral water, “did you come alone to leave the cake or do you also plan to stay for dinner?
The coldness cut my chest.
I thought we could have a while together. We haven’t seen each other in almost two months.
“I have plans with Marcelo,” he replied without looking at me. We’re going to dinner alone.
Marcelo, her third husband, was an elegant man, with an easy smile and mysterious business. I always talked about millionaire investments, but every emergency ended up paying for it myself. The last, just three weeks before: sixty thousand pesos for an urgent import that, according to him, “could not wait”.
“I understand,” I said. Maybe tomorrow we can have lunch.
Elena left the bottle on the bar with a dry blow.
“Mom, we need to talk.
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