I sat beside Ofelia as she lay in her bed, turned her head to the window. “It’s already getting dark so soon.”
“Just a month and it will be getting a little lighter each day.”
“Well, hardly. Seems a long way off, in any case.” She turned her face. When she looked back at me, her eyes were red. If I’d followed the doctor’s schedule, I would have given her the prescriptions a half an hour before. I could tell that pain was building, her body stiffening against the bed. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch her hair, smooth it from her face. Part of me wanted to take a fistful of it and yank her head back, expose her throat. As if sensing this, Ofelia turned toward me and pushed her hair off her forehead so that it rose up on the pillow behind her.
I smiled in a way I hoped seemed gen
