K.Esquivel-LWFC

One day Chencha went to Dr. John Brown to
have the stitches removed
where she had been torn when she was
raped, and Tita fixed the meal in
her place.
They thought they'd have no problem fooling
Mama Elena. When she got
back, Chencha served the meal and tasted it
as she always did, but when
Mama Elena was given some of it to eat, she
immediately detected a
bitter taste. Furious, she threw the tray on
the floor and ordered
Chencha out of the house, for having tried to
deceive her.
Chencha used that excuse to spend a few
days in town. She needed to
forget the whole business, the rape and
Mama Elena. Tita tried to
convince her not to pay her mother any mind;
she'd known her for years
and she knew pretty well how to manage her.
"Yes, child, but why should I want to add any
more bitterness to the
mole I've got! Let me go, don't make
trouble."
Tita held her and comforted her as she had
every night since her
return. She couldn't see any way to draw
Chencha out of her
depression, to dissuade her from the belief
that no one would marry her
after the violent attack she had suffered at
the hands of the
bandits.
"You know how men are. They all say they
won't eat off a plate that
isn't clean."
Seeing how desperate she was, Tita decided
to let her go. She knew
from experience that if Chencha stayed on
the ranch near her mother,
she would never be saved.
Only distance would allow her to heal. The
following day she sent
Chencha to the village with Nicholas.
Tita found she had to hire a cook. The cook
quit after three days.
She couldn't stand Mama Elena's demands
and her terrible manners. They
hired another, . I3 who only lasted two days,
and another, and
another, until there was no one in the village
who hadn't worked at
their house. The one who lasted the longest
was a deaf-mute: she put
up with it for fifteen days, but she left when
Mama Elena told her in
signs that she was an idiot.
After that, there was nothing Mama Elena
could do except eat what Tita
cooked, but she took every possible
precaution about it.
Besides insisting that Tita taste the food in
front of her, she always
had a glass of warm milk brought to her with
her meals, and she would
drink that before eating the food, to
counteract the effects of the
bitter poison that according to her was
dissolved in the food.
Sometimes these measures alone sufficed,
but occasionally she felt
sharp pains in her belly, and then she took,
in addition, a swig of
syrup of ipecac and another of squill onion as
a purgative. That did
not last long.
Mama Elena died within a month, wracked
by horrible pains accompanied