K.Esquivel-LWFC

Trevino withdrew quickly to go brag to the
troops about what Tita had
said.
As soon as the sergeant was gone, Tita lay
down on her bed again.
She had no desire to be anywhere else1 her
belly was too swollen, and
she couldn't sit for very long.
Tita thought of the many times she had
germinated kernels or seeds of
rice, beans, or alfalfa, without giving any
thought to how it felt for
them to grow and change form so radically.
Now she admired the way
they opened their skin and allowed the water
to penetrate them fully,
until they were split asunder to make way for
new life. She imagined
the pride they felt as the tip of the first root
emerged from inside of
them, the humility with which they accepted
the loss of their previous
form, the bravery with which they showed the
world their new leaves.
Tita would love to be a simple seed, not to
have to explain to anyone
what was growing inside her, to show her
fertile belly to the world
without laying herself open to society's
disapproval. Seeds didn't
have that kind of problem, they didn't have a
mother to be afraid of or
a fear of those who would judge them. Tita
no longer had a mother but
she couldn't get rid of the feeling that any
minute some awful
punishment was going to descend on her
from the great beyond, courtesy
of Mama Elena.
That was a familiar feeling; it was like the
fear she felt when she was
cooking and didn't follow a recipe to the
letter. She was always sure
when she did it that Mama Elena would find
out and, instead of
congratulating her on her creativity, give her
a terrible
tongue-lashing for disobeying the rules. But
she couldn't resist the
temptation to violate the oh-so-rigid rules her
mother imposed in the
kitchen . . . and in life.
She stayed there resting for quite a while,
lying on the bed1 she only
got up when she heard Pedro singing a love
song beneath her window.
Tita sprang to the window and threw it open.
How could Pedro dare to
be so brazen! As soon as she saw him, she
knew the answer.
She could tell at a glance he was roaring
drunk. Juan, rj standing
next to him, was accompanying him on the
guitar.
to was in a panic1 she hoped that Rosaura
was already asleep-if she
wasn't, there was going to be trouble!
A furious Mama Elena came into her room
and said to her: "See what
you've done now? You and Pedro are
shameless. If you don't want blood
to flow in this house, go where you can't do
any harm to anybody,
before it's too late."
"The one who should be going is you. I'm
tired of your tormenting
me.
Leave me in peace once and for all!"
"Not until you behave like a good woman, or
a decent one at least!"