Once, as we were leaving the hospital, she took my hand and said to me in a soft voice:

She could hardly eat anything.

I moistened her lips with water.

I tucked in her blankets.

I read newspaper headlines out loud so she could feel that the world was still entering through her door.

One night she grabbed my wrist with a strength I didn’t know she still had.

“Forgive me.”

“For what?”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“For not paying you.”

Something inside me broke.

“You don’t owe me anything, Doña Carmen.”

She barely shook her head.

“Yes, I do. But it’s not money that you’re going to receive.”

I didn’t understand those words.

Two days later, when I arrived, the neighbor across the street was standing at the door with red eyes.