For the first time in a long time, the children had a real home. Tomás started going to the village school. At first, it was difficult for him because he was older than the other children his age and felt ashamed of not being able to read well. But he was eager to learn. And the teacher, a young woman named Sofía, who had come from the city, saw something special in him. She gave him extra lessons after regular school hours, lent him books, and taught him not only to read and write, but also to understand that knowledge was the only tool that no one could ever take away from him.
Tomás clung to those words like a shipwrecked sailor. He clings to a piece of wood in the middle of the ocean. Lupita also went to school, although she was more restless than her brother. She preferred playing in the yard, making up stories with the other girls, and singing songs she invented while helping her mother wash clothes in the stream. But she had an incredible memory and learned everything by heart effortlessly. Carlitos, still little, spent his days playing near the house, chasing chickens and building towers with stones that he would then knock down laughing.
Catalina found work sewing clothes for the families in the village. It wasn’t easy work, and the earnings were modest, but it was dignified. She no longer had to beg. She no longer had to lower her head when she walked through the streets. She no longer had to endure the lecherous stares of men or the insults of envious women. Now, when people saw her pass by, some greeted her respectfully, others still looked at her with suspicion, because in small towns, people don’t forget easily.
And there were those who thought Catalina had been too lucky, or perhaps she had done something wrong to earn that reward. But Catalina no longer cared about the whispers. She had learned that other people’s opinions didn’t put food on the table or protect her children from the cold. The only thing that mattered was moving forward, one day at a time, building a new life on the ruins of the old one. However, not everything was peaceful. Catalina continued to have nightmares.
