Main Dishes

PART 1 “In this house, if one person fails, the youngest one pays,” my dad said as he took off his belt in front of everyone. I was six years old the first time I understood that rule. It didn’t matter if Luis skipped elementary school, if Marisol stole money from my mom to go…

PART 1 “Dad, if I don’t wake up tomorrow, listen to Pancho… he knows what they did to me.” I stood frozen beside the hospital bed, my daughter’s hand in mine, my heart pounding as if it threatened to break my ribs. My little girl, Sofia, was barely seven years old. Her voice no longer…

PART 1 —Laura, I need you to come to my house and feed Canela… and don’t go into Emiliano’s room, okay? He’s grounded. That last sentence was the one that left me frozen. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was grading math tests for my second-grade students when my cell phone rang. The name Mariana,…

PART 1 “Ma’am, we found your son dead in a neighborhood on the outskirts of town… we need you to come and identify the body.” The agent’s voice sounded cold, as if he were reading from a shopping list. I stood there in the middle of my kitchen, my coffee cup trembling in my fingers….

PART 1 “Your daughter threw up in the van, so we let her out on the road; we weren’t going to let her ruin the other kids’ trip.” That’s what my mom told me one Tuesday at 11:37 in the morning, while I was in a work meeting, with my computer open and my heart…

PART 1 “Don’t serve these girls shrimp, they cost us enough just for being born women!” Doña Refugio’s voice echoed throughout the seafood restaurant, just as the waiter was about to place a steaming plate in front of my daughters. I was sitting at the last table, next to the bathroom door, with my two…

PART 1 “Take this one hundred thousand pesos and get out of here with the child right now, before my son comes downstairs and beats you to death.” Mariana froze, holding the bottle in one hand and her feverish baby slumped on her shoulder. It was one in the morning in a cramped house in…

PART 1 “If you don’t sign those papers, Ana Lucía, don’t complain later about what happens to this house.” That’s what Miguel told me the night I understood that ten years of marriage don’t guarantee you know the person sleeping next to you. We lived in a quiet neighborhood in Puebla, in a modest two-story…

PART 1 —Your husband is not alone… there is a girl in your living room, drinking wine from your glasses. That was the first thing the doorman said to Elisa when he saw her enter the building early, with a dusty suitcase and three old paintings wrapped in a blanket. Elisa froze. Not because she…

PART 1 “If you’re so keen to keep playing the boss, then learn to swallow what you deserve, you stubborn old woman.” That was the last thing I heard before I felt the boiling broth pouring over my face. My name is Mercedes Ramírez, I am seventy-four years old, and for almost my entire life…