Once, as we were leaving the hospital, she took my hand and said to me in a soft voice:

The daughter was the first to go pale.

“This can’t be legal.”

“Yes, it is,” I said with a calmness I didn’t know I had. “Your mother had everything notarized three months ago. I went with her.”

It was true.

One afternoon she had asked me to take her to see “a lawyer” downtown. I thought it was just some routine paperwork.

It wasn’t.

The eldest son clenched his teeth.

“You manipulated a sick old woman.”

My blood boiled, but before I could respond, the neighbor across the street spoke from the doorway with a firm voice:

“The only thing that young man did was take care of her when none of you bothered to come see her.”

A heavy silence filled the room.

Doña Carmen’s children understood they had little to do there.

They left with the same hurry they had arrived with.

They didn’t even ask how her final days had been.

After the funeral, I returned to the house alone.

I sat at the table where I had served Doña Carmen so many meals.

I opened the letter again.