Nepantla: The Story of a Family

San Miguel Itzicuaro - 1965

My mother died on a beautiful day, one like any other in San Miguel Itzicuaro. Along the crooked cobblestone streets, the vendors carved mangos into flowers and speared jicama and cucumbers, sprinkling them with chile and salt before packing them into paper cups. Under the trees circling the plaza, the same families sat on the same benches their ancestors had, only older now. Across from the pink church that rose above the mercado, Don Ernesto Ortega sat where he always had under the massive guamúchil tree, his one leg stretched out before him like a declaration of endurance. The tree's thick, tangled branches provided shade that moved with the sun, and Ernesto, ever unbothered, tipped his hat low against the light. Decades ago, he had been the trusted mayordomo of my grandfather's hacienda, a man of stature among the workers and a figure of unwavering loyalty. Now, he was just a fixture of San Miguel Itzicuaro, reduced by time but not forgotten, his presence a reminder of lives lived harder and slower.

The stump of his missing leg spoke silently of the Revolution, though no one dared ask him about it anymore. It was said the injury had happened while he was protecting the Mateos' prized cattle during a raid, his body an offering to preserve the family's legacy. Others whispered that the leg had been stolen by the very land he had cultivated, that the earth itself had risen to claim its due. Whichever version was true, Don Ernesto never corrected anyone. What mattered, he often said, was that he was still here.

Sometimes, as children, we'd linger by his stone bench to hear him whistle tunes so old they seemed to summon the past itself. On certain afternoons, when the breeze swirled in just the right way, carrying the smell of roasted corn from the mercado, his voice would drop into a hushed, rhythmic cadence, and he'd tell us stories. Not just any stories—these were woven with threads of magic.

He once told me of the night he first met my grandfather, how the stars had hung lower in the sky, closer to the earth. "We weren't just working the land, niña," he'd said, his voice a mixture of reverence and warning. "We were working under it, above it. Your grandfather understood this. He taught me to listen to the whispers of the soil." He would pause then, his weathered hands brushing over his wooden crutch as if to silence himself. "But some whispers come with a price."

On the day my mother died, I saw him across the plaza, the same Don Ernesto Ortega who had greeted my father with respect and a firm hand as we receive our Domingos, when my sisters and I lined up for our spending money. His wide-brimmed hat cast a shadow that barely moved as the sunlight shifted, but something about him felt different. He looked at me as if he knew I had returned not just for the funeral but to remember, to uncover what was left of our lives in this shrinking town.

I approached him that day, hesitant. "Don Ernesto," I began, unsure if he'd recognize me, though I needn't have worried.

"Julia," he said, tipping his hat, his voice as steady as it had been in my childhood. "The plaza feels heavier with you here."

I nodded, knowing what he meant, though not quite ready to admit it. The air was thick, not just with memory but with the weight of the land itself, of the stories he had once told and those he had yet to share. And for a fleeting moment, as I sat beside him on the bench, I thought I saw the guamúchil tree's shadows stretch unnaturally long, reaching across the plaza as if to draw us closer to the past, pulling us into its embrace.

There was also relief when my mother died, even among the pain and the misery of how death from cancer is supposed to be. Not because of platitudes that claimed she was in a better place or because her suffering had finally ended, but because the weight of her silent sorrow had finally loosened its grip on the rest of us. We were all there: me and my two sisters and even Coronel, our old dog, who sat tightly in the corner as if trying to distance himself from the burden of companionship he had given my mother since I was four years old. In that room, thick with the smell of cinnamon, we stood witness as she took her final breaths, the last her body would ever produce.

Rocío cried, of course, but in our family, emotions were never shared openly. She stifled herself, her cries soft and controlled, like sighs pushed from her throat. Ana stood stoically beside her, her jaw tight and unyielding, while Manuela trembled. Her lips moved constantly, repeating in a low murmur, "Ya hermanita, ya..." She called my mother hermanita, though they weren't blood-related. It was one of those little ironies that seemed to cling to my mother's life: even in death, appearances mattered. Manuela's tremulous chant hung in the air like a question no one dared to answer.

Nothing, nothing at all, looked good. My mother, always dignified despite her silence, now looked like a tiny baby bird against the lined sheets of her carved Florentine bed. Her sticklike legs were drawn up to her chest; her skin sagged over the sharp hollows of her cheekbones, and her breathing—low and tired—seemed to carry the weight of a life long exhausted. Her thick black hair had fallen out months ago, and someone, likely Rocío, had smoothed the remaining strands with care. I loved her. I pitied her. But I could never fully understand her.

I lingered at her bedside, my gaze shifting between her still face and the fading light filtering through the lace curtains. In that moment, the world outside felt like a distant dream. San Miguel's cobblestones would still ring under the wheels of wooden carts, the mercado would still hum with chatter, and the scent of mangos carved into flowers would still drift along the plaza. But here, in this room, time felt different—thicker, slower, unyielding. It forced me to reckon with her choices, the ones that defined her life and, by extension, mine.

She had always fallen behind my father, running after whatever he wanted without a thought for her own needs. I didn't understand it then, and I barely understood it now. She could have stood up to him, demanded something—anything—not just from him, but from his family, who seemed determined to swallow her whole. Instead, she relented, bending herself to their will in ways that baffled me. My father, beautiful and dapper, with his stories of bullfighting and his stern letters from California, always seemed quietly disappointed in her. Those letters were my first glimpse into their unequal dynamic. They came with instructions, admonitions cloaked in civility, telling her to heed his sisters' advice, to act in ways that preserved appearances.

And yet, for all his faults, I felt I understood him better than I understood her. My father's absences were grand and dramatic, easy to condemn but easier still to romanticize. My mother's quiet suffering, her slow, humble steps in his shadow, was something far more complicated. She had allowed herself to be consumed by his orbit, by his family, by the endless effort to keep up appearances. I couldn't help but wonder if she had ever imagined another life for herself, or if she had long accepted that she was fated to live within the margins of his story.

The air in the room felt heavier now, as though her spirit lingered, unwilling to leave the space she had filled with so much unspoken grief. I looked at her face, still and pale, and wondered if I had ever truly known her. What dreams had she sacrificed for us, for him, for the sake of a harmony that never truly existed? What parts of her had been swallowed by the silence she carried?

The shadows in the room shifted, long fingers of light dancing across the walls, and for a moment, I thought I heard something—her voice, faint and far away, like a whisper carried on the breeze. It wasn't possible, of course, but the sensation lingered, and I felt an inexplicable pull to the window. The world outside was aglow in the dying light of day, the cobblestones shining like river stones. In the distance, the pink church bell tower seemed to pulse with an otherworldly glow, as though San Miguel itself mourned with us, or perhaps for us.

Coronel lifted his head then, his old eyes fixed on the corner of the room, where a faint shimmer caught my eye. It was nothing, I told myself—a trick of the light. But in that instant, I felt a warmth I hadn't expected, a fleeting sense of something larger than the grief in this room. For the first time, I wondered if my mother had finally found what she had spent her life quietly searching for.

And then the shimmer was gone, and it was just us again, gathered in this room filled with cinnamon and silence, watching the last light of the day fade through the lace curtains.