Chapter 15: The Gate

"Ask the night nurse for the family lounge," I told Gael. "The one with a door. Give her a blanket."

"That's all?"

"That's all I've got at two in the morning."

He went, and I heard the low murmur of the nurse's voice and then Paulina's, thick with sleep.

I didn't go out to her.

I lay in the dark with my father's marrow working its way into my bones, and I let her be warm somewhere.

They let me out on the thirty-first day.

The hematologist said my new counts were rising "like a good student."

She said I needed a clean house, no crowds, and no stairs I could avoid.

My flat above the shop had stairs and a cat next door.

My grandmother's house in Saltillo had one floor, a patio, and a woman who scrubbed the kitchen twice a day.

"You're coming with me," Abuela said, and that was the whole discussion.

Her house was yellow, with a lemon tree in the yard and a hundred geraniums in cans.

She put me in the room with the iron bed and the crocheted blanket.

She hung my mask on a hook beside the door.

Paulina came too, three days later, in a taxi, with the suitcase.

Abuela stood on the step and looked at her for a long time.

"You can sleep in the sewing room," she said. "You can peel nopales. You can't call me Abuela until I've decided."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Señora is enough."

"Yes, señora."

"Well," said my grandmother, leaving her on the step. "At least she says yes quickly. Her father never did."

On Saturday, Gael drove down in the van.

He brought a box of paper samples I'd asked for and two bags of tamarind candy.

He also brought a flat cardboard carton tied with string.

Abuela inspected him from the doorway.

"The tall boy," she said. "You're thin. Come and eat."

"I've eaten, señora."

"Then eat again."

He ate again.

She sat across the table with her chin on her fist.

She asked him four questions about his mother, his debts and his intentions.

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