Hector and I were married for five years. From the day I became his wife, I grew accustomed to his cold words and indifferent gaze.
Hector wasn’t violent or loud, but his indifference dried up my heart every day.
After our marriage, we moved to his parents’ house in Mexico City.
Every morning I got up early to cook, do the laundry, and clean.
Every night I waited for him to come home, just to hear what he would say.
“Yes, I ate.”
I often wondered if this marriage was anything different from a lease. I tried to build something, I tried to love, but all I was left with was an invisible void I couldn’t fill.
One day, Hector came home with a cold, impassive face.
He sat down across from me, handed me the divorce papers, and said dryly, “Sign them. I don’t want to waste your time or mine anymore.”
I froze, but wasn’t surprised. With tears in my eyes, I picked up my pen.
All the memories of waiting for him at the table and of nights alone with stomach aches suddenly returned like deep wounds.
After signing the contract, I packed my things.
He had nothing in the house except some clothes and an old pillow he always slept on.
As I left with my suitcase, Héctor mockingly tossed the pillow at me. “Take it and wash it. It’ll break anyway.”
I picked up the pillow and my heart sank. It was truly old. The cover was faded, with yellow stains and tears.
It was the pillow I’d taken from my mother’s house in a small town in Oaxaca when I went to university. I kept it, even after I married her, because I couldn’t sleep without it.
She complained often, but I kept it anyway. I left the house in silence.
I sat in my rented room, staring at the pillow, bewildered. I remembered his sarcastic words and decided to take off the pillowcase and wash it, so at least it would be clean and I could sleep peacefully that night without painful memories.
When I opened the pillowcase, I felt something strange. Something hard brushed against the soft cotton. I reached inside and froze. A small package, carefully wrapped in a nylon bag.
With trembling hands, I opened it. Inside was a wad of 500-peso bills, and a sheet of paper folded in quarters.
I opened it. My mother’s familiar handwriting appeared, trembling and uncertain.
“Daughter, this is money I’ve been saving for you in case you ever need it. I hid it in the pillowcase because I was afraid you’d be too proud to admit it. Whatever happens, never mourn a man, daughter.”
Long tears streamed down the yellowed paper. I remembered how my mother had given me that pillow on my wedding day because it was too soft and I couldn’t sleep well.
I laughed and said, “You’re getting old, Mom, what a strange thought.” We’ll be happy with Hector.
My mother simply smiled, a distant, sad look in her eyes. I pressed the pillow to my chest and felt my mother sitting next to me, stroking my hair and comforting me.
It turned out she’d always known how much her daughter would suffer if she chose the wrong man. It turned out he’d put money aside for me. Not much, but enough to keep me from despair.
That night I lay in my small, hard bed, the pillow pressed to my chest, tears soaking the sheets.
But this time I didn’t cry for Hector. I cried because I loved my mother.
I cried because I felt happy: at least I had a place to go back to, a mother who loved me, and a whole new world waiting for me.
The next morning I woke early, carefully folded my pillow, and packed it in my suitcase. I told myself I’d rent a smaller room, closer to work.
I would send my mother more money and live a life where I didn’t have to worry or wait for an indifferent message from anyone.
I smiled at my reflection.
From now on, this puffy-eyed woman would live for herself, for her elderly mother back home, and for all the unfulfilled dreams of her youth.
This marriage, this old pillow, this grin… it was all just the end of a sad chapter. And as for my life, there were still many new pages to be written with my own, far-reaching hands.
