\nNews 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\u2019s 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\u2019s infrastructure\u2014such as it was\u2014had 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn 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\u2014shacks of cinder block with corrugated tin roofs\u2014remained 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nI worked as a gardener on the estate of Don Eugenio \u2018El Diablo\u2019 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\u2019 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\u2019s 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\u2019s biggest cement firm, including the local factory. Maybe it is the second biggest. The point is, he had connections.\n<\/p>\n
\nOn 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\u2014the casualty reports, the estimated trillions of pesos in damage, the opposition party\u2019s criticism of the government\u2019s relief efforts\u2014and 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\u2014green\u2014was 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 \u201cunknown origin.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe 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, \u201cHey Juan, what do you make of this?\u201d 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAll plants breathe,\u201d I said. Still, I was perturbed.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat 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, \u201cMaybe it is a sign.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOf what?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut your mother just smiled.\n<\/p>\n
\nNo 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\u2014I think it was \u00a1Alarma!\u2014published an article claiming one had given birth through a vagina-like gash in its side, many, including my boss, started referring to them as \u001fpanochas, a vulgar word I do not like to say.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cImpossible,\u201d I said to your mother. \u201cPlants do not give birth like mammals.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe tabloids make things up,\u201d your mother agreed. \u201cBut maybe they are not making this up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMy 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\u2019 family\u2014his blond, serious wife and his two adult children\u2014lived mostly in Texas and hadn\u2019t been present for the earthquake. It seemed unlikely they would return now. But my boss seldom left the estate. \u201cHe\u2019s afraid of being arrested,\u201d Lety whispered. \u201cHe\u2019s afraid of being assassinated,\u201d Carmen replied. Both seemed possible. One did not earn the nickname El Diablo without making enemies.\n<\/p>\n
\nAfter 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. \u201cJuanito,\u201d he said, calling me by the diminutive of my name even though I am over fifty, \u201cCome look at this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nHe 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s skin. A noise began coming from the tubes, a sort of whistling, like air sucked through teeth. The man in the video\u2014an army medic, maybe\u2014began to massage the abscess.\n<\/p>\n
\nI understood immediately what was happening, for when your mother gave birth to our Angel, Do\u00f1a Tonantzin kneaded your mother\u2019s 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe 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\u2014the mother, I remember thinking\u2014in 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWell?\u201d my boss said once the video ended. \u201cWhat do you think?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI have never seen anything like it,\u201d I replied.\n<\/p>\n
\nOf 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.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat 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\u2019t stop thinking about the madre; its thin, anguished cries echoed in my head. Maybe I hoped the rushing water would drown them out.\n<\/p>\n
\nNot 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\u2014as 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\u2019m not sure what I was thinking. Maybe that I\u2019d 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\u2019t have anything to drink, so I just sat there thinking sad thoughts.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnyway, I don\u2019t 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\u2019s young niece caught dengue fever and died. My boss prepared to go on a trip.\n<\/p>\n
\nBefore leaving, he asked me if I knew how the baby madres\u2014he called them panochitas\u2014grew into adults.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo, Don Eugenio,\u201d I said politely.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe panochita feeds on the corpse of its mother,\u201d he said, grinning beneath his bushy mustache. \u201cThen it picks a spot and burrows underground. A few hours later, presto! A new panocha emerges.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nAt the vigil for Carmen\u2019s niece\u2014it was Martes de Carnival, and the vigil was held at Lety\u2019s because no one in the Ramirez family had a house that still stood\u2014Carmen grabbed my arm and said, \u201cThe madres could have saved her!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat are you talking about?\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDon\u2019t you know?\u201d Carmen\u2019s face was streaked with tears. \u201cThere is a place, like a special club, where the madres are kept. The fresas go there and breath oxygen from the plant\u2019s tubes, and it makes them healthy and strong.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI pictured a facility, like a fancy private hospital in a telenovela. A room full of gurneys, and on the gurneys, bodies. Bodies of fresas: rich white people, some sleek, some fat, each connected to a madre by its tubes. Tubes in their mouths and up their nostrils. Tubes inserted under their skin. Pumping in magic oxygen, making them young and healthy.\n<\/p>\n
\nExcept everyone knew that plants grow in the ground, in soil, and I could not picture soil in a hospital. \u201cRumors,\u201d I said. But I could tell that Carmen didn\u2019t believe me; nor did your mother, because as she listened, she touched her medal and her face assumed the same distant expression she wore whenever the subject of the madres came up.\n<\/p>\n
\nThat spring, the President announced he was cancer-free, even though the newspapers had prepared obituaries for him months earlier. My boss went on more and more trips. Each time he returned home, he seemed younger and more vigorous. He lost weight, and the little container of diabetes medication disappeared from his breakfast table. Even his hair grew back. I swear it! The bald spot on the back of his head closed in on itself until it disappeared. \u201cDon Eugenio,\u201d I would say, griping my pruning shears. \u201cYou look well!\u201d \u201cI feel well, Juanito!\u201d he would cry, and clap me on my back. Once or twice he even brought women into the estate. At least, this is what Carmen and Lety told me.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn June, rumors began to circulate that there was a trade in the madres. That Carlos Slim had one, and so did Vladimir Putin, and Elon Musk.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn July, the ground in La Barranca finally dried out; the rain that should have fallen during those weeks never came. We could have started to rebuild. But most of my neighbors were too sick to lift a shovel. Besides, there was so much rubble and garbage in the ravine; where would we start? As we climbed the stairs together one morning, me to go to work, and he to wait for a job on a crew, Lety\u2019s son Horacio said, \u201cI wish the ravine would close shut like a wound, and never open up again.\u201d This made me sad, for Horacio was a good boy with his whole life ahead of him. He was the same age Angel would have been. I tried not to think about Angel at work, but sometimes I pictured him trembling on his cot, his blood poisoned with mercury, and later, in his little coffin, and my head would fill with black thoughts. The doctors never said so, but everybody knew the mercury came from the cement factory.\n<\/p>\n
\nNot long after that conversation\u2014a few days, maybe\u2014I arrived at work to find my boss waiting for me.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cJuanito,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m receiving a very special delivery at the end of the week. I need you to prepare the garden. Take out everything. It must be just soil, which you must amend so it has this precise balance.\u201d He handed me a piece of paper. On it was written a formula specifying so much acid, so much alkaline.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMust everything be removed?\u201d I said, for the thought of destroying the garden I had labored over so tenderly filled me with horror.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYes,\u201d my boss said. \u201cEvery part of the ground must be suitable.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nCarmen, who reads \u00a1Alarma! from cover to cover every week, had told me a few days earlier that once a baby madre chooses a spot and takes root, it cannot be moved. I had taken this claim with a grain of salt, as I took everything from the tabloids. Many of the stories they reported about the madres were shocking and horrific. One story claimed that the Sinaloa Cartel kept a stable of madres in a soccer arena, and they fed their enemies to the babies alive. The babies were said to grow into monstrous madres with a taste for human blood. I now know that this claim is false\u2014at least regarding the victims being alive, as the baby madres have no taste for living flesh. Nevertheless, these stories lingered in my mind as I undertook the grim task assigned to me.\n<\/p>\n
\nI recruited a crew of six men from La Barranca, including my friend Miguel, who was Carmen\u2019s husband, and Horacio. We ripped out the giant poinsettias, the bougainvillea hedge, the hibiscus bushes, and the stands of oleander; the yucca, the agave, and the other desert plants; a rare Wood\u2019s cycad my boss had told me cost over 100,000 American dollars; the kitchen garden, which I had planted that winter with tomatoes, cucumbers, chilies, and herbs. We chopped down an avocado tree, two mango trees, four guavas, and the flowering jacaranda where my boss took his morning coffee, and we dug out their roots. I put more than two dozen orchids, many of which I had propagated from pups, into the garbage myself. None of the men questioned why we had to do such a terrible thing; although we did not talk about it, I think they understood. On the fifth day we mixed sulfur, peat moss, and sand into seven truckloads of topsoil and spread it over the wasteland we had created. By the time we finished, it was dark.\n<\/p>\n
\nMy boss told me to stay behind and to choose one other to stay with me. I wanted Miguel, for he was always joking around and would lighten the mood. But I chose Horacio instead. I thought if he did a good job, my boss might hire him as my apprentice. Don Eugenio paid the other men and said his driver would take them to the bottom of the ravine the long way, by the road, so they wouldn\u2019t have to descend the stairs in the dark. I must have been distracted, because I didn\u2019t notice the bodyguards getting into the van with them.\n<\/p>\n
\nHoracio and I waited at the gate with a forklift, smoking and bouncing on the balls of our feet because of the cold and maybe our nerves. At some point Horacio mentioned seeing the bodyguards getting into the van with Miguel and the others, and a new layer of dread fell over me. \u201cThey are in their beds,\u201d I said, not quite believing it myself.\n<\/p>\n
\nAfter a long time, a truck approached, its headlights unlit. I unlocked the gate and watched as a man jumped down from the cab and slid open the back of the truck.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe first things that struck me was the smell: a sweet and meaty aroma that both turned my stomach and caused me to salivate. Then I heard the thin, whistling cries that were familiar to me from the video, except that these sounded strangulated, as if coming from crushed straws. I went to the back of the truck and looked.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe madre was about two meters tall and grossly pregnant. Its skin was gray, and I do not think the dim light was the only reason for it. Someone had secured its tubes to its body with surgical tape; that was why its cries sounded so strange. The protuberance hadn\u2019t yet developed into an abscess, but it was very large, and it was clear the madre was about to give birth.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDo I have to sign?\u201d I asked.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo,\u201d the driver said. He was a young man\u2014barely out of his teens. I remember he would not look at me.\n<\/p>\n
\nI drove the forklift to the back of the truck, stuck its blades into the pallet on which the madre sat in a large pot, and backed up. The driver didn\u2019t wait around; he left without even closing the back of the truck.\n<\/p>\n
\nHoracio stared at me, pale in the forklift\u2019s headlight.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs it sick?\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
\nThis madre did seem sick, at least compared to the one in the video. Stunted, too. Perhaps because it had been forced to grow inside a pot instead of in the earth, or perhaps because its tubes were taped down and it couldn\u2019t breathe properly. But regardless of whether it was healthy or unhealthy, I knew it did not have long to live.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is dying,\u201d I said. \u201cBut first it must give birth. And we must help it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI drove the forklift into the garden. My boss was waiting for us, wearing a silk robe and drinking something from a crystal goblet. Maybe it was champagne.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy panocha,\u201d he cried. \u201cIsn\u2019t it beautiful?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI lowered the pallet to the ground. Horacio started to pull the tape off the madre\u2019s tubes.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDon\u2019t bother,\u201d Don Eugenio said. He drained the glass and tossed it to the ground, where it landed with a soft thud. \u201cIt will soon be dead.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is in pain,\u201d I said, answering before Horacio could, because I could tell he was upset and I didn\u2019t want him to say something that would endanger his chances of being hired. Isn\u2019t it funny I worried about this? I still did not understand that our lives were balanced on the edge of a knife.\n<\/p>\n
\nDon Eugenio\u2019s smile didn\u2019t falter. \u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel it too!\u201d He grabbed one of the tubes Horacio had freed and shoved it into his mouth. I watched, horrified, as Don Eugenio sucked on it, and my horror only intensified when I looked down and saw his erection poking against the silk of his robe. I put a calming hand on Horacio\u2019s arm, trying, in truth, to calm myself.\n<\/p>\n
\nThen things started to happen very quickly. The protuberance in the madre\u2019s side bulged and split into the pink and yellow abscess I had seen in the video. The sweet, meaty aroma intensified and the madre\u2019s whistling grew high-pitched and anguished.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhat do we do, Jefe?\u201d Horacio said, addressing me, not my boss.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe help it.\u201d I began to massage the slick abscess, and my thoughts travelled back to the evening my Angel was born. I could feel the baby beneath my hands, struggling to free itself. \u201cShhh,\u201d I remember saying, \u201cIt will be okay. This time I will protect you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI do not know if I was speaking to the baby madre or to Angel.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the meantime, Don Eugenio was stroking his erection, growing more and more excited. \u201cYes!\u201d he groaned, his words distorted by the tube in his mouth. \u201cSplit it apart! Split the panocha apart!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nIt was disgusting. A sacrilege.\n<\/p>\n
\nOne of the madre\u2019s tubes wrapped around my forearm and began to squeeze it the way your mother squeezed my hand on the day of Angel\u2019s birth, and on the day of your birth, too. The baby was so close now. The abscess split wider, and I could see it, as pale and fresh as a globule of frog jelly. I reached inside and pulled it out, feeling the madre spasm and tremble from inside.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOh God!\u2019 Don Eugenio cried out in ecstasy. He collapsed to the ground, the tube falling from his lips.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe tube that had wrapped itself around my arm and squeezed now hung lifeless. The madre was dead. I held its warm and writhing baby in my hands.\n<\/p>\n
\nA baby I had sworn to protect.\n<\/p>\n
\nBracing myself against the forklift, I swung my leg and kicked Don Eugenio in the head.\n<\/p>\n
\nHoracio looked stunned, but he is a smart boy and he followed suit, kicking Don Eugenio in the ribs and the balls. If anyone heard Don Eugenio\u2019s cries, nobody came, and after a few more kicks, he stopped yelling.\n<\/p>\n
\nI considered finishing him off. But seeing him defenseless, curled into a ball and whimpering like a beaten dog, quelled my bloodlust. Nor is Horacio much of a killer, although he is prepared, of course, to make necessary sacrifices, just as we all are.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCome,\u201d I said to Horacio. \u201cWe must bring the little madre home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIn the delirium that followed\u2014the panic over what to do with the baby, the people\u2019s need to see and touch it, the rising anxiety over the men and why they hadn\u2019t returned, and the chaos when Don Eugenio found us\u2014your mother was the one with the cool head.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut I am getting ahead of myself.\n<\/p>\n
\nI was surprised Don Eugenio didn\u2019t send his bodyguards after us, although now I know they were busy executing my crew and hiding their bodies. Still, Don Eugenio could have brought the police, or even the military; he had that power. Maybe he didn\u2019t want the authorities to know about the madre, or maybe he was just crazy. Whatever the reason, he came by himself, armed of course. He must have taken the stairs, for had he come by the road it would have taken a long time. Several of us\u2014me, your mother, Horacio, Carmen, and some other family members of the missing men\u2014had crowded into Lety\u2019s house. The electricity, even more sporadic since the earthquake, was out, and the house was lit with candles. Almost the entire community was gathered outside, waiting to see what would happen. We must have been easy to find.\n<\/p>\n
\nDon Eugenio announced his arrival by firing off a burst into the air.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhere is Juan?\u201d He cried. He sounded like a wild dog.\n<\/p>\n
\nI looked at Horacio and some of the other men\u2014Carmen\u2019s cousin Victor, and my cousin Raul\u2014hoping they would understand the only thing that mattered was protecting the little madre. We had put it into a plastic basin, the kind we wash dishes in. Its skin, which had been as fresh as a new leaf half an hour before, was now wrinkled and gray, and it seemed lethargic, too, less wiggly than it had been when I carried it in my arms down the long and treacherous stairs.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI am in here, Don Eugenio,\u201d I called. \u201cAnd I have the baby. If you want it, come inside and get it.\u201d I had no intention of giving him the baby, of course, but I wanted to lure him into the house where his rifle would be of little use.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe crowd shifted to make way for Don Eugenio. He was still wearing his robe: it was burgundy with yellow paisleys, very expensive looking, but now torn and dirty from the beating Horacio and I had given him. As he stepped inside, the crowd of people behind him surged forward, and those of us in front pressed forward too, like a tide going in opposite directions, and Don Eugenio was trapped between us. People began to shout: Where is my son, Oscar Lopez? Where is my husband, Fernando Ortiz? Don Eugenio fired his rifle\u2014pop, pop, pop\u2014but it was angled down, and in the crush of bodies he could not lift it. People screamed and one or two people were even shot in the foot, but nobody ran. We just kept crushing Don Eugenio, demanding that he answer for the missing men, which he did not do. Horacio and Gustavo Reyes got the rifle off him, and someone else tied his hands. After a moment, when we tired of his threats, we gagged him, and maybe we beat him a little too. But finally, Don Eugenio was subdued. Then I looked to your mother, unsure of what to do next.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe must bring the little madre to the waterfall,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\nThen she pointed at Don Eugenio.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cAnd we must bring him, too.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nIt must have looked like D\u00eda de la Candelaria, for we walked in procession holding candles. But instead of bringing dolls of the baby Jesus to the cathedral to be blessed, we brought the little madre to the stinking, polluted heart of the ravine. And we dragged El Diablo with us.\n<\/p>\n
\nI remember feeling sure I wouldn\u2019t find the key when we reached the gate, even though I always kept it in the front right pocket of my jeans. But when Horacio took the basin and I slid my hand into my pocket, there it was. I fitted it into the lock, swung open the gate, and everyone crowded through.\n<\/p>\n
\nThere were about fifty of us: old and young, friends and enemies, people I\u2019d known for my entire life, or for theirs. We spread out along the bank of the pool so there would be room for everyone, stepping carefully over the garbage and wrinkling our noses against the smell of shit and gasoline.\n<\/p>\n
\nVictor Lopez and Raul Ortiz held Don Eugenio between them. I\u2019d never much cared for either of these men because they drank too much and fought with their wives in public. But I had recruited their boys to work on my crew, so I felt they were entitled to play a role in whatever was to come. Once everyone had found their place and the chattering of the crowd quieted to a murmur, Victor yanked down Don Eugenio\u2019s gag and said, \u201cWhere is my son, cabr\u00f3n?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLet me go!\u201d Don Eugenio moaned. His face shone with blood. \u201cI will give everyone here a suitcase of money.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThen we knew for certain that the missing men were dead.\n<\/p>\n
\nDid you know that I dream of these men every night\u2014of Miguel, Rogelio, Oscar, Fernando, and Gabriel? In my dream, they are kneeling before a pit with their hands on their heads, their faces white with terror. I run back and forth, saying, Get up, Miguel! Run, Gabriel! But I am like a ghost; they can neither see nor hear me.\n<\/p>\n
\nVictor and Raul began to beat Don Eugenio again, knocking him to the ground and kicking him. I think they would have killed him, but Horacio and Gustavo stopped them. Maybe they were afraid of Don Eugenio, or maybe they knew your mother had something else in mind. I couldn\u2019t do anything, neither help beat Don Eugenio nor help save him, for I was holding the little madre. Plus\u2014I am not ashamed to admit it\u2014I was crying. Many of us were. Horacio and Gustavo pulled Don Eugenio to his feet, and Horacio replaced the gag over his bloody mouth. Don Eugenio was punch drunk, barely clinging to consciousness. Then it was quiet. Everyone was waiting to see what would happen.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHusband,\u201d your mother said. \u201cPut the little madre on the ground.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI set the basin down and the baby slid over its side. A gray blob. It crawled toward the edge of the water. Mist from the waterfall glazed its skin; I wonder if it felt cool and good. Still, it moved slowly, and I could tell it was suffering.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere is something wrong with it,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo,\u201d your mother said. \u201cIt only needs to eat.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThen, finally, I understood.\n<\/p>\n
\nI took the pruning shears from my belt.\n<\/p>\n
\nSome part of me wanted to use them, to repay Don Eugenio for what he did to the men and for what he did to my Angel, for everyone knew the mercury came from the cement factory. But it was as if I had turned to stone. Now I think it was good I could not move, for my act would have been one of vengeance, not devotion.\n<\/p>\n
\nYour mother made the sign of the cross and touched her medal of the Virgin. Then she stepped forward and took the shears. Her expression was serene.\n<\/p>\n
\nOnly then was I released from my paralysis. I was released from my hatred for Don Eugenio, too. It was like I had had a fever, but now it was broken. I went behind Don Eugenio, took his lolling head in my hands, tilted it back, and bared his throat. He could have been anyone\u2014but still, I am glad it was him.\n<\/p>\n
\nYour mother drew back her arm and plunged the shears into Don Eugenio\u2019s neck.\n<\/p>\n
\nAt first it seemed like she hadn\u2019t done it hard enough. Don Eugenio still struggled feebly, and his eyes were wide above his gag. But then a dark stream spurted from his neck, and he buckled to his knees.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cCollect the blood,\u201d your mother said.\n<\/p>\n
\nIt only took a few moments for Don Eugenio to die. Carmen and Lety stripped the body, and Victor, Raul, Horacio, and Gustavo dragged it to the side of the pool near the baby. I had the idea of planting Don Eugenio upright in the ground so he would resemble its mother, but we had no shovel. We had rope, though, so we tied Don Eugenio\u2019s body to a primavera tree, one that had not blossomed in many years. As we knotted the ropes, I pictured its branches heavy with yellow flowers. We put the basin of blood beside the tree, withdrew, and waited.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe night was chilly. I put my arm around your mother, thinking she might be cold or upset by what happened\u2014but she was calm, and warmth radiated from her like a blanket. After twenty minutes or so, the baby began inching toward the tree. It climbed up the body of Don Eugenio and began to feed.\n<\/p>\n
\nA great cheer went up. The little madre had accepted our sacrifice! Everyone hugged and kissed, and many people wept tears of joy.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut although we were ecstatic, it had been a very long night. One by one people began returning to their homes until only your mother and I remained. Finally I fell asleep. When your mother woke me, it was dawn.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLook, Juan,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe rope lay coiled on the ground, and the basin that had held Don Eugenio\u2019s blood was empty. There was no trace of the body. The little madre had eaten well.\n<\/p>\n
\nBut where was it? I rose to my feet in a panic, thinking someone had taken it. Then your mother pointed to a nub pushing out of the ground a few meters from the tree. It looked shiny and healthy.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe expected the police to come that day\u2014if not the police, then Don Eugenio\u2019s bodyguards. We put a lookout at the top of the stairs, and Gustavo, who could shoot, kept Don Eugenio\u2019s rifle at the ready. We were, of course, prepared to defend our Madre to the death. But no one ever came\u2014not that day, nor in the days that followed. As I said, Don Eugenio had many enemies, and it is possible that more people celebrated his disappearance than lamented it. But I think it is more than that. La Barranca has always been mostly invisible to those on the outside, like a stain one has grown accustomed to ignoring.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn the weeks after our sacrifice, groups of us returned to the waterfall and took away the garbage. Some of the women decorated the earth around our Madre with votives and wreaths of flowers, and I planted ferns and calla lilies on the banks. Soon our Madre was the size of a child, with many fresh and glistening tubes. When you were born, shortly after the second anniversary of the earthquake, people said it was a miracle. Your mother was 54\u2014not as old as Sarah when she bore Isaac, but still very old to have a child. Yet many miraculous things have happened since we devoted our community to our Madre. It still astonishes me to see vegetables growing right here, on the banks of a river once so polluted that drinking from it could be fatal.\n<\/p>\n
\nOf course, there are those who find their way into La Barranca. Perhaps they have heard rumors of a hidden shrine where the sick can be healed, or perhaps they are just unlucky. And yet, it is an honor to take part in our Madre\u2019s rebirth, so maybe they aren\u2019t so unlucky after all. Maybe they live on, contributing part of their essence to each new Madre. I am grateful to all of them, even to Don Eugenio.\n<\/p>\n
\nOne day, Angelita, when your mother has grown too old to fulfill her sacred duties, you will be called upon to step into her role. Each of us must play our part in ensuring that our Madre is fed. But for now, my darling, splash and play with your friends in the pool beside the waterfall, safe beneath the jacaranda and the blossoming primavera.\n<\/p>\n
Jennifer DeLeskie (she\/her\/they) is a writer based in Tiohti\u00e0:ke (Montr\u00e9al), on the traditional and unceded land of the Kanien?keh\u00e1 people. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Exile Quarterly, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review, Marrow Magazine, and Pensive Journal. Jennifer is the recipient of the 2025 Imagination Unbound Fellowship, which supports an English language writer in attending Sheree Ren\u00e9e Thomas’s master class, “Writing the Imagination,” at the Under the Volcano residency in Tepoztlan, Mexico.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20191],"tags":[20193],"class_list":["post-140853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-55-spring-2025","tag-the-colored-lens-55-spring-2025","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/108127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140854,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140853\/revisions\/140854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}