News of the madre plants began spreading that winter, shortly after the earthquake, when many of us in La Barranca were still living in tents. There was so much illness then: parasites that started in the belly and moved to the brain or the eyes if you were unlucky, diarrhea that could kill a child in a few hours, lesions that became infected and never dried out. Much of the city’s waste had always ended up in La Barranca, which sits at the lowest point of the city; as everyone knows, shit runs downhill. But the earthquake made it worse, because the city’s infrastructure—such as it was—had crumbled along with the buildings that ringed the outer barrios, buildings we had once aspired to live in. Then unseasonal rains had come, turning our footpaths into rivers of shit and mud. The smell was unbearable, even for us who had grown up accustomed to the scent of raw sewage. We no longer had doors to shut against it.

In some ways we recovered from the earthquake faster than others. Nothing in La Barranca was rebuilt, of course; aside from the tents and a few deliveries of water, we received no help from the government. Our homes—shacks of cinder block with corrugated tin roofs—remained in ruins, impossible to repair, and the stairs fastened to the steep side of the ravine connecting La Barranca to the city now held on by just a few pins. Yet we continued to climb the stairs, for we had no choice, and when the risk of tremors subsided, those of us who could move back into our ruined homes did. What I am trying to say is that while the rest of the city was still walking around with stunned expressions, we in La Barranca got on with it.

I worked as a gardener on the estate of Don Eugenio ‘El Diablo’ Garza Garcia. The job paid almost nothing, but it was better than breathing poisonous dust in the cement factory, or searching for work on a crew every morning and returning home empty handed every evening. My boss’ garden was an oasis surrounded by high walls, and I was left more or less alone. Within three days of the earthquake, I was picking shards of glass out of the bougainvillea and wiping away the thick layer of grit the tremor had shaken from the walls and deposited on the spiny, sword-like leaves of the agave. The power, of course, had been out across the city since the earthquake, yet the generators on my boss’s estate ran day and night. Among other things, Don Eugenio had been the mayor of the city, the governor of the state, and, after failing to be anointed heir to the president, the secretary of the environment. His family still owns the world’s biggest cement firm, including the local factory. Maybe it is the second biggest. The point is, he had connections.

On my second or third day back, my boss left his iPad open on the little iron table under the jacaranda where he took his morning coffee. I paused to glance at the home page of El Sol—the casualty reports, the estimated trillions of pesos in damage, the opposition party’s criticism of the government’s relief efforts—and a small article caught my eye. A farmer had discovered some strange plants growing outside of Santa Rosa, near the epicentre of the earthquake. The accompanying photo showed a plant that at first resembled a saguaro, but on closer inspection was different in several ways. The color—green—was too lurid and shiny, and instead of vertical ribs and needles, the plant was covered in knob-like nipples from which transparent tubes hung. A botanist quoted in the article said the plants were of “unknown origin.”

The plants interested me because I am a gardener. They interested my boss too, because the following day, from his spot under the jacaranda, he said, “Hey Juan, what do you make of this?” and showed me a headline on his iPad: Strange Plants Breathe Through Tubes. The article had the same picture from the day before. Now I was able to look at it more closely.

“All plants breathe,” I said. Still, I was perturbed.

That night I told your mother about the plants. When she heard what I had to say, she touched the medal of the Virgin she wears around her neck and said, “Maybe it is a sign.”

“Of what?” I asked.

But your mother just smiled.

No official name was given to the plants because, according to my boss, who sought me out for conversation more frequently in the days after the earthquake, scientists could not agree to what class or even to what phylum they belonged. El Sol referred to them as Los Cardones Santa Rosa, or as Santa Rositas, but when one of the tabloids—I think it was ¡Alarma!—published an article claiming one had given birth through a vagina-like gash in its side, many, including my boss, started referring to them as panochas, a vulgar word I do not like to say.

“Impossible,” I said to your mother. “Plants do not give birth like mammals.”

“The tabloids make things up,” your mother agreed. “But maybe they are not making this up.”

My boss had two bodyguards, a driver, and a boy who took care of the pool. Two women from La Barranca, Lety and Carmen, did the shopping, cooking, and cleaning, and sometimes your mother helped them on laundry day. My boss’ family—his blond, serious wife and his two adult children—lived mostly in Texas and hadn’t been present for the earthquake. It seemed unlikely they would return now. But my boss seldom left the estate. “He’s afraid of being arrested,” Lety whispered. “He’s afraid of being assassinated,” Carmen replied. Both seemed possible. One did not earn the nickname El Diablo without making enemies.

After a week or so, El Sol stopped publishing articles about the plants. I thought it must have been a hoax until my boss summoned me one morning as I was cutting back the oleanders. “Juanito,” he said, calling me by the diminutive of my name even though I am over fifty, “Come look at this.”

He showed me a video on his iPad. In it, a man wearing white coveralls and a face shield approached one of the plants. I had never seen one so clearly before and I watched with interest. The plant’s skin was so glossy it might have been plastic, like one of those fake cactuses outside of the El Taco Feliz on Hidalgo. But this was no plastic decoration. Its skin rippled like it was shivering, and it coiled and uncoiled its many tubes as if it were clenching them into fists. There was a protuberance on the plant’s side beneath one of its arms. As I watched, the protuberance grew and split open into a long abscess that glistened pink and yellow against the shiny green of the plant’s skin. A noise began coming from the tubes, a sort of whistling, like air sucked through teeth. The man in the video—an army medic, maybe—began to massage the abscess.

I understood immediately what was happening, for when your mother gave birth to our Angel, Doña Tonantzin kneaded your mother’s perineum with cooking oil to make it pliant and to help the baby come. I thought, That is what this medic is doing. The abscess widened, and the whistling of the tubes intensified. Now I could see something pushing out of the abscess, pale, green, and gelatinous.

The medic reached his gloved hand into the abscess and pulled out a slippery, comma-shaped creature, about the size of a small watermelon. He dropped it into a clear plastic box on the ground nearby and closed the lid. The camera zoomed in. The baby wriggled like a hooked fish. I could see the plant—the mother, I remember thinking—in the corner of the frame. The gash on its side, once taut, was wrinkled, and a milky substance dripped from it. Somehow, I felt certain it was dead.

“Well?” my boss said once the video ended. “What do you think?”

“I have never seen anything like it,” I replied.

Of course, I told Carmen and Lety about the video, and in the evening, I told your mother. It was then, I think, that she began calling the plants madres, and soon this is what others in La Barranca called them too.

That night, after a few sleepless hours tossing and turning, I wandered down to the waterfall to think. It was a clear night with a full, luminous moon, but even if it had been pitch black, I could have navigated the treacherous footpath easily, for I went to the waterfall often when I was troubled. I couldn’t stop thinking about the madre; its thin, anguished cries echoed in my head. Maybe I hoped the rushing water would drown them out.

Not many people know there is a waterfall in La Barranca. When I was a child, it was a magical place, surrounded by jacaranda, plum, and primavera trees. I used to swim in its pool with my cousins; we played Tarzan and Cheetah, taking turns being the bad guy—as if we knew what a bad guy was! But 25 years ago, the cement factory began dumping wastewater into the river and it was no longer safe to swim there. Then the site filled up with garbage: old furniture, smashed-up electronics, even dead dogs. Finally, someone put a fence around the pool and padlocked it shut. Many years ago, I cut the padlock and replaced it with my own. I was a little drunk and I’m not sure what I was thinking. Maybe that I’d try to clean it up. But there was so much garbage, and the water smelled so bad, that I never bothered. That night, I sat on my broken plastic chair, closed my eyes, and replayed the video in my head. I felt the madre had suffered and I felt sorry for it. Then my thoughts turned to Angel, to the day he was born and to the day he died. I wanted to get drunk, but I didn’t have anything to drink, so I just sat there thinking sad thoughts.

Anyway, I don’t know how my boss got that video but, like I said, he had connections. For a few days I could think of little else. Gradually, however, I was able to put the video to the back of my mind. I assumed that once the government finished studying the plants, they would share their findings and it would all make sense. But in the meantime, life went on. Carmen’s young niece caught dengue fever and died. My boss prepared to go on a trip.

Before leaving, he asked me if I knew how the baby madres—he called them panochitas—grew into adults.

“No, Don Eugenio,” I said politely.

“The panochita feeds on the corpse of its mother,” he said, grinning beneath his bushy mustache. “Then it picks a spot and burrows underground. A few hours later, presto! A new panocha emerges.”

Adlaid Dunlop was at chores when the soldiers came. That time of morning was the pigs, feeding them and cleaning the pens. With her arms and nose straining at a couple of overripe slop pails, she turned her head toward the road for a sniff of fresh air and espied the greycoats marching into her mountain village of Fifty Lashings, gunmetal swaying at their shoulders.

She ran into the house. “Mama, soldiers headed this way. Where’s Daddy?”

“He and Willy went to help switch the point on the Ralliths’ plow. Supposed to be back for supper.”

“You think they’re looking for war refusers?” asked Adlaid.

“Most likely, if they’re seeking anything besides our food. Henry!” her mother called to Adlaid’s nine-year-old brother, “Fetch some wood for the stove.” Her mother chopped some potatoes for the pot. “Maybe they’ll leave the rest alone and move on.”

But upon their arrival, the soldiers moved across the farmstead taking inventory of stores, animals, and people. Finished that, they crowded into the sitting room on the first floor of the Dunlop home, leaving their rifles propped against the plank walls.

“We’ll need our one part of ten,” said the lieutenant, a young man with cloudy gray eyes. He handed Adlaid’s mother a sheaf of scrip, useless for buying anything outside the cities. “The trip through the mountains depleted us, so thank you for your service to your country. Speaking of which, you told my sergeant you haven’t seen your husband in how long?”

“Since strawberry season,” said her mother. “He fixes tools and travels round. Never came home. We’ve been on our own since and now getting ready for winter. Might as well be a widow.” Her mother produced a tear, which Adlaid found a bit overwrought.

The lieutenant said, “Your mountain men play at war dodging and have no fellowship with their countrymen. I’m not one for wrath though. If Mr. Dunlop were to appear, we’d just induct him and move on.”

Her mother nodded. “I sure wish that fickle man did love his country.”

Adlaid rolled her eyes, just slightly.

“We stay overlong, and you might find these men eating into your winter stores.” Then, lower, the lieutenant added, “And maybe finding things they shouldn’t. That what doesn’t belong here.” Her mother’s eyes widened, but she remained silent and looked after the stewpot.

Adlaid’s mother served cider to the soldiers in their own tin cups. Her little brother Henry watched wide-eyed, hanging close to his mother except to fetch and refill cups. Adlaid had imagined soldiers joking, laughing, maybe telling dirty tales when women weren’t around, but hardly a word passed these men’s lips. Each sipped his cider, stiff-backed, gazes cast at the floor. A grey-haired corporal with an empty cup snapped his fingers at Henry or attempted so; the sound was more fingertips rubbing. Adlaid grabbed the pitcher from the boy’s trembling hand, filled the cup, and pushed it back at the corporal. A slosh hit his cuff, drawing a scowl, but Adlaid turned her back and walked to the door.

She put on her overcoat and work boots. The corporal followed, too closely and said, “Where you going, girl?”

Adlaid’s mother’s hands fluttered toward her chest. The sergeant cleared his throat. The corporal looked at the floorboards and shuffled aside. The lieutenant looked up and asked Adlaid, “So where are you off to?”

“I got to feed the pigs we still have,” said Adlaid. After a moment, she added, “and the ones you took will be hungry, too.”

The lieutenant turned a faint smile. “Considerate of you.” He gestured at the door. “Don’t take a chill. If you happen to find your daddy, tell him to come on in. The war wants fighting, even from mountain men who want to hide from it.” He turned to Adlaid’s mother, a grin pulling lips from teeth, “I’m afraid I forgot to tell you that this cider is splendid. You make it with apples from that orchard I saw coming up the road?”

Her mother issued some terse but polite answer as Adlaid opened the door. A step over the threshold, Adlaid slipped a hand into her coat pocket, and her fingers came to rest against a coin, an iron viaticum her mother had given her the year she’d first bled. She’d retrieved it earlier from behind a wallboard in her room just before the sergeant had knocked at the door. The viaticum had been long ago blackened with a mixture of beeswax and linseed oil to protect it from rust. According to her mother, all viatica coins had crossed the oceans on the ships that had borne all their Yaghda race to this country, clenched in the fists of Yaghda women in the hold. From the coin flowed memories of Dunlop homelife: flour-caked pieces of chicken, crackling and adance in the fry-pot; her daddy’s cheek, rasping against hers as he tucked her in; stripes of fire across her backside and her eyes stinging with salt tears, but her face sticky and sweet with an apple pie ill-gotten.

Adlaid pushed her mind free of the iron’s reverie, and turned back once toward her mother’s sitting room, toward unspeaking men and unwashed bodies in a closed space. She stepped outside and pulled tight the door.

Children rarely deal in the abstract, and you are no exception. You know Love in the way Mother runs her fingers through your braided locks, and you know Beauty through her, too—hair smooth and black as the river at night, skin bronze like the fields of sand that stretch as far as the eye can see.

“When I grow up, Mother,” you declare, “I would like to be as you are.”

You remember only bits and pieces of Father, fragments that, when slotted together, never quite make a coherent whole. But you never do try very hard, for there is little to desire outside the life Mother has crafted for you. Mornings, you feed the chickens and tend your garden. There is lemongrass, of course, and peppers and snow peas and scallions. But it is the flowers you care for. Mother points to each of them in turn.

“Sun Lily. Empress’s Thistle. Blue Mayapple… If you sing for them, they will sing for you.”

When you are old enough, Mother teaches you your characters. But you already know Horse and Jar and Empress’s Thistle, just as you know Love and Beauty. You know how they taste, you know how they sound, you know how they feel to the touch.

But Mother only smiles away your objections and says, “To capture a moment in words is to preserve it in resin.”

Paper and brush, stick and stone. Around and around you go. Your wrist hurts; you develop a crick in your neck. You have not the patience for these exercises of tedium. But you weather them all for Mother… and the trips that are promised at the close of each. Your lesson of the day over, Mother takes you to the edge of the forest, where a great banyan stands. Again and again, you climb its knotted limbs, lose your grip, and scrape your knees against the tree’s rough bark. But you are a daring child, with limitless energy, and it is not long before you manage to scale the first juncture.

You live with Mother in a cottage on the outskirts of a small village. Visitors rarely grace your doorstep. But it is neither fear nor scorn that deters villagers, merchants, and travelers alike; there is simply nothing to gain from venturing this far west, where the road eventually gives way to legions of shifting sand.

And yet, he comes. He, with his long, black locks and skin like white jade.

The first time you see his footprints in the dirt, you do not know what to do with yourself. For you know little of boys and even less of men. But you know flowers, and he picks them for you, white ones that perfume the room you share with Mother.

“Like honey,” you say.

“Like honey,” Mother agrees.

And you find, suddenly, that you have little need for anything else. The flowers in Mother’s garden pale in comparison, and as for the great banyan—you feel certain your conquest of it has finally come to an end. So you scrub the dirt from beneath your fingers; you spend hours oiling your knees to a shine; you avoid the sun like the plague.

Your wedding is a joyous occasion. Mother braids your hair and drapes you in robes red as the blood that spills from the pig they slaughter in your honor. That night, you lie beside him in that grand, old house of his and, long after he has drifted off, relive again and again your sweet love making. You knew what to do, then. Knew the way a body can come undone.

Mother came with you to live in this grand, old house. It is some consolation. The place is like a maze. There are more rooms than you ever could have thought possible, and you spend the first few days losing your way to the kitchen, thinking wistfully of the little cottage and the little life Mother spun for you.

But there is a pleasure, too—a certain thrill, of slipping from one echoing hall to the next, knowing all the while that this is yours.

It is a mild winter. The snow, when it arrives, does not remain for long. At breakfast, you serve Husband first, then pour cups of tea for Mother and yourself. You wait, patiently, for Husband to raise the cup to his lips, and only then do you inquire, “Have you seen my mother?”

Steam turns his eyes opaque. “She is out there, in the garden.”

You are seconds from taking your first sip of tea when Husband speaks once more. “You are fortunate not to have taken after her.”

When the steam clears, you follow the direction of his gaze out the window, and gasp. For you find that he is quite right; with her thin, scraggly hair, pockmarked skin, and dark, sunken eyes, Mother is a hideous sight. How in the world did you fail to notice? Heat creeps up your neck and floods your cheeks. How long have you been sharing your home with a monster?

At dinner that evening, Mother recounts a chance meeting in the garden with a curious squirrel.

“I thought they’d all gone to sleep for the winter. You should have seen him!” Mother chuckles. “I swear, he was as intelligent as any human child. He had such shen.”

“You shouldn’t laugh quite so much,” you blurt out. “Your teeth are rotting where they hang.”

Mother falls still. Husband brings a bowl of steaming rice to his lips. In the quiet that follows, you sigh your relief.

The midwife prescribes you a diet of bitter teas and broths.

“Nothing cold,” she warns, “unless you wish to be barren as the sand fields to the west.”

You grimace as the last spoonful of soup slides down your throat. You can feel Mother’s eyes on you. You wish she wouldn’t. She holds a hand over her lips. She has taken to doing so on the few occasions you speak.

“What?” Husband interrupts. “Mother, I cannot understand you. You must speak up.”

Mother wishes to tell us that the flowers have bloomed before their time, you think of saying. Instead, you fix your gaze on the opposite wall and reply, “It is nothing, Husband. It is nothing worth repeating.”