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their departure; three days later they had left<br />
the ranch.<br />
Those memories were banished by Mama<br />
Elena's entry into the kitchen.<br />
Tita let the sausage she was holding fall to<br />
the floor.<br />
She suspected that her mother was able to<br />
read her thoughts.<br />
Behind Mama Elena came Chencha,<br />
weeping unconsolably.<br />
"Don't cry, child. It annoys me to see you<br />
cry. What has happened?"<br />
"Felipe has come back and he says he's<br />
dead!"<br />
"Who says? Who's dead?"<br />
"Well, the child!"<br />
"What child?" Tita demanded.<br />
"Well, what child do you think! Well, your<br />
nephew; whatever he ate, it<br />
didn't agree with him and so, he died!"<br />
Tita felt the household crashing down around<br />
her head. The blow, the<br />
sound of all the dishes breaking into a<br />
thousand pieces. She sprang to<br />
her feet.<br />
"Sit down and get back to work. I don't want<br />
any tears. Poor child, I<br />
hope the Good Lord has taken him in all his<br />
glory, but we can't give in<br />
to sorrow; there's work to do. First work,<br />
then do as you please,<br />
except crying, do you hear?"<br />
Tita felt a violent agitation take possession of<br />
her being: still<br />
fingering the sausage, she calmly met her<br />
mother's gaze and then,<br />
instead of obeying her order, she started to<br />
tear apart all the<br />
sausages she could reach, screaming wildly.<br />
"Here's what I do with your orders! I'm sick<br />
of them!<br />
I'm sick of obeying you!"<br />
Mama Elena went to her, picked up a<br />
wooden spoon, and smashed her<br />
across the face with it.<br />
"You did it, you killed Roberto!" screamed<br />
Tita, beside herself, and<br />
she ran from the room, wiping the blood that<br />
dripped from her nose.<br />
She took the pigeon and a pail full of worms<br />
and climbed up to the<br />
dovecote.<br />
Mama Elena ordered them to remove the<br />
ladder and let her stay up there<br />
overnight. Mama Elena and Chencha<br />
finished filling the sausages in<br />
silence. Mama Elena was always such a<br />
perfectionist and so careful to<br />
get all the air out of the sausage, no one<br />
could explain it when they<br />
discovered a week later that all the sausages<br />
in the cellar were<br />
swarming with worms.<br />
The next morning she ordered Chencha to<br />
get Tita down from the<br />
dovecote. Mama Elena couldn't do it<br />
because her one fear in life was<br />
heights. She couldn't bear the thought of<br />
having to climb up that<br />
ladder, twenty feet high, to get to the little<br />
door that would have to<br />
be opened in order to get in. She feigned a<br />
convenient pride, more
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