There was nothing in his house that belonged to me except a few clothes and an old pillow I always slept with.
As I was dragging my suitcase out the door, Héctor threw a pillow at me sarcastically: “Take it and wash it. I’m sure it’ll fall apart.” I grabbed the pillow with a heavy heart. It was really old; the cover was faded, yellowish, and torn.
It was a pillow I brought from my mother’s house in a small town in Oaxaca when I was studying there, and I kept it when I became his wife because I had trouble sleeping without it.
He complained often, but I stopped her. I left that house in silence.
I returned to my rented room and sat stunned, staring at the pillow. Thinking about his sarcastic words, I decided to take off the pillowcase to wash it, at least to make it clean and so I could sleep soundly that night, free from painful memories.
Unzipping the pillowcase, I felt something strange. Inside the soft, cotton fluff was something lumpy. I reached in and froze. It was a small paper package, carefully wrapped in a nylon bag.
I opened it with trembling hands. Inside was a stack of 500-peso bills and a sheet of paper folded in four.
I opened the card. My mother’s familiar, shaky, uncertain handwriting appeared: “Child, this is the money I saved for you in case of emergency. I hid it in your pillow because I was afraid you’d be too proud to accept it. Whatever happens, don’t suffer for a man, my dear. I love you.”
The Best Birthing School
My tears streamed onto the yellowed paper. I remembered that on my wedding day, my mother had given me a pillow and told me it was very soft so I could sleep well.
