Chapter 23: The Thirtieth Day

At ten o'clock on Thursday morning Lorena sat down at the head of the long table in Zapopan.

She had come straight from the hospital with a bruise across her shoulder and a paper bag of vitamins.

The white roses were in the glass bowl.

They were fresh, and the stems were cut crooked, the way an amateur cuts them.

Her father sat on her left with his hat on his knee.

Renata sat on her right in a wheelchair, in a borrowed coat, pale and grinning.

Consuelo sat very straight at the far end.

The lawyer stood by the window with the file.

Ignacio stood against the wall.

He had put himself there, and he had not been asked to sit.

"Today is the thirtieth day," the lawyer said.

"Señora Barrera, you may sign, or you may let it pass. Either choice is yours alone."

"I know," Lorena said.

He laid a single page in front of her.

It was short.

It said that the second spouse ended the marriage and that the house in Zapopan was hers.

It said the sum was hers, and the Mendiola loan was cancelled in full.

Her father made a small sound when he read the last line, and she put her hand over his.

She picked up the pen.

She looked once at Ignacio.

He was white to the lips.

He did not move, because he had given up the right to move.

Lorena signed.

She wrote Lorena Mendiola in her own hand, the signature she put on her drawings.

The pen lifted.

It was done.

"So," Renata said into the silence. "You're nobody's wife."

"I'm nobody's wife," Lorena said, and laughed, and wiped her eyes.

Consuelo cleared her throat.

She rose from her chair, and the room turned to watch.

"Lorena," she said.

"Señora."

"I called you a chair being kept warm, in front of three hundred people."

She did not look away.

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