PART 1

“Sign the divorce papers. There’s no one left to stand by you.”

That’s what my husband told me as we stood beside my parents’ freshly covered graves, while the last pieces of earth were still falling over their coffins.

The sky was heavy and gray above San Andrés cemetery in Puebla, and I could barely stay upright. My parents had passed away just three days earlier in a highway accident on the Mexico–Puebla road. A truck had lost control and collided with their car as they were returning from visiting my aunt.

My seven-year-old daughter, Camila, held my hand tightly, her small fingers cold. She didn’t fully understand what had happened, but she knew her mother was breaking.

My name is Mariana Salazar, and that day I believed I had nothing left to lose.