ADVERTISEMENT
Over the next few weeks, Shimena and Tlacael spent their afternoons working together with medicinal plants.
He taught her about the specific properties of desert herbs while she shared the preparation techniques she had learned from her grandmother.
One afternoon, while preparing an ointment to treat sunburns, Jimena dared to ask a personal question.
Did you have a family before you were captured? she asked gently, without looking up from her work.
Tlacael remained motionless for a long moment.
I had a wife, he finally said, his voice laden with a sadness that made Jimena’s heart clench.
Her name was Itzayana.
She died during an attack by the Mexican army on our village.
That’s why I became so reclusive in battle.
She had nothing left to lose.
Without thinking, she reached out and gently touched his hand.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
“She must have been a very special woman to inspire so much love.” “Love in the Desert.”
“She was,” he replied, not removing his hand.
“She was small, delicate, always smiling.”
The complete opposite of me,” he stopped abruptly, realizing what he was about to say.
The complete opposite of me,” Jimena added with a sad, but not bitter, smile.
I know exactly what kind of woman I am and what kind I am not.
“I’ve lived with that reality my whole life.”
Tlacael studied her with new intensity.
“Did your family treat you badly?” he asked directly.
“They treated me like a constant disappointment,” Jimena replied with brutal honesty.
” For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the fat, good-for-nothing daughter.
My only value was the last name I carried, and even that wasn’t enough to get me a husband.
She shrugged with an acceptance that had taken years of pain to develop.
That night, as they each retired to their separate rooms, as they had since their arrival, they both carried with them a new understanding.
They had begun to see each other not as strangers forced to live together, but as two wounded people who might find solace in each other’s company.
The months that followed brought subtle but profound changes to both the desert and the hearts of its inhabitants.
Jimena had established a small medicinal garden behind the cabin, where she grew the herbs best suited to the arid climate.
Her hands, once soft and cared for as befits a society lady, were now work-hardened and stained with dirt, but they had never felt more useful.
Jimena’s physical transformation was evident to anyone who had known her in her previous life.
Constant work under the desert sun had tanned her skin and strengthened her body.
She had lost weight naturally, not because of the strict diets her mother had imposed, but because of an active lifestyle and simple, nutritious food.
But more important than any physical change was the new light in her eyes.
For the first time in her life, she felt truly useful.
Apache warriors from nearby tribes had begun to come to her when they had wounds or illnesses that traditional healers could not treat.
Jimena had developed a reputation as a healer who combined ancestral knowledge with Mexican medicinal techniques, creating treatments more effective than either tradition alone.
“The white woman of the desert can heal what others cannot,” the warriors would say upon returning to their tribes.
And although some elders distrusted a Mexican woman, the results spoke for themselves.
Children with dangerous fevers recovered fully under her care.
Warriors with infected wounds returned to battle.
Women with chronic pain found relief for the first time in years.
Tlacael observed these changes with a mixture of pride and something deeper he dared not name.
The woman who had arrived months earlier as an imposition of the government had become an indispensable presence, not only in his life, but in the entire community.
With each passing day, he found new reasons to admire her strength, her compassion, her adaptability.
One moonlit night, while Jimena was preparing a tincture to treat an elderly Apache woman’s arthritis, Tlacael approached, carrying two cups of herbal tea he had learned to make under her tutelage.
The ritual of sharing tea at the end of the day had become their favorite time, when they talked about everything and nothing, while the desert turned silver in the moonlight.
Do you miss your old life? he asked, sitting on the wooden bench he had built especially for such moments.
It was a question he had wanted to ask for weeks, but had never found the right moment.
Jimena stopped grinding the herbs and gazed at the stars that glittered like diamonds in the endless sky.
“I miss my grandmother,” she replied thoughtfully.
She was the only person in my family who saw me as anything more than a disappointment, but the rest paused, searching for the right words.
No, I don’t miss feeling useless every day.
I don’t miss the pitying looks or the cruel comments.
Here, for the first time in my life, I feel I have a purpose.
Tlacael studied her profile in the moonlight.
Continue reading…
ADVERTISEMENT
