I brushed her hair, dry and brittle now after spending so long soaked dark with sweat. The fever had broken at last, and her skin was cool, but still, she did not wake. Five days. It seemed impossible to comprehend that she lay on the brink of death, with each day seeming to take her further away from me. And I had never prayed so desperately. My mother cared for the children now – they could not see her like this – and a wet nurse had been found for Mateo.
I almost wished she still cried out about the snake, seeing it on the bed, feeling it constricting her; at least then she had seemed present, however troubled, while I tried to cool her burning skin with a sponge and cold water. Now, only the rise and fall of her chest told me she was still here.
A sharp rap on the door startled me. M
