Two Cries

Seville, Saturday 30 March 1985. Amparo Jiménez's waters broke at six in the morning on the kitchen tiles in Las Letanías, and Rafael hadn't come home.

She watched the puddle spread between her bare feet and under the table. It was warm. It was clearer than she'd have thought. She didn't cry out. She took the mop from under the sink, got down on her knees with difficulty, her belly out in front of her like a crate someone had strapped to her, and she wiped it up. She had turned eighteen in January. She already knew that in this flat, whatever you didn't wipe up yourself stayed on the floor.

The bed on the other side of the partition wall was empty. Rafael had gone out the night before with his wages from the docks in his shirt pocket, saying he was going for a beer at Manolo's. There was only ever one beer at Manolo's, and it was always the first.