That night was unlike any other night she could remember.
My mother cooked white rice.
Real rice.
The aroma filled the house.
My sisters looked at the pot as if it were a treasure.
When we sat down at the table, nobody spoke.
All we could hear was the sound of the spoons.
It was a simple meal.
But for us it was a banquet.
Before eating, my mother said in a low voice:
—This is thanks to your father.
And we all observed a moment of silence.
After that night, many things began to change.
With some of the money, my mother bought a small used sewing machine.
She had always known how to sew, but she had never had her own machine.
She started by mending clothes for the neighbors.
Then they started bringing him more orders.
School uniforms.
Dresses.
Curtains.
Little by little, the small room in our house became a sewing workshop.
I helped out after school.
My sisters folded the fabric and delivered the orders.
Uncle Antonio also started visiting us more often.
She was bringing fruit from the market.
Sometimes bread.
Or he would just come to sit and chat.
Over time, he ceased to seem like a lonely man.
She felt like part of our family again.
The years passed.
They were not easy.
But we no longer felt that constant fear of hunger.
My mother worked late every night with the sewing machine.
The sound of the needle going up and down became the music of our house.
I grew up.
I finished high school.
Then I found a job in a small mechanic’s workshop in Guadalajara.
It was hard work.
But he reminded me of my father.
Perhaps that’s why I never complained.
My sisters grew up too.
One of them became a teacher.
The other one started working in a small clinic.
Over time, our life ceased to be a daily struggle.
One day, many years later, I returned to Uncle Antonio’s old house.
I was already an adult man.
The neighborhood had changed.
The dirt roads were now paved.
There were new shops.
New houses.
But Uncle Antonio’s house remained the same.
The wooden door.
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