A large wooden crucifix was the only decoration on the white stucco walls, the graphic dying figure of Jesus a ghastly contrast to the room’s sterility. Because of the near darkness, it was at least ten degrees cooler than anywhere else in the house. And there she was. An ancient female relative—my cousins couldn’t even tell me whose—or the shell of one, lying on the bed to the left of the door, connected to a maze of medical tubes like the tentacles of a pale jellyfish. I could feel a current of anxiety running through my limbs. After a time, I decided I would steal quietly but quickly through the room, not looking over at the bed. I made it halfway across when a crackly voice emerged from the still, waxen figure under the white chenille bedspread.

“¡Ay Virgen! ¡Madre de Dios!” she yelled. I jumped and tore into the backyard, temporarily blinded by the summer sun, but grateful to be free. I avoided the room for the rest of that visit. Not because I thought I would disturb her—she was completely unaware of the youthful activity around her—but because I felt a reverence in the presence of one whom my cousin Inez told me was so near death. But also a fascination. I would occasionally peer through the slatted windows from the safety of the concrete courtyard, the sun on the back of my head reminding me that I was still outside the room, away from her spell.

But she was just the first: every year from then on there seemed to be a new old lady lying sentry in the rear chamber. To my cousins, these women barely existed. Each day they screeched through the room, bellowing to each other along the way. But it was easy for them. They didn’t have to worry about the old woman coming back to them after death: that honor was reserved for me.

Some last thoughts: In Gift of the Cuentista, Ann paints a picture of a young girl's struggle to know herself, to know her family, to be comfortable in her skin literally and figuratively, that burns itself into the mind's eye. In this passage alone, we taste, see and smell this small universe in which a little girl looks for home and finds out what a long, long trip it truly is.