It was almost two in the morning when Lorena tiptoed back home a little tipsy, with her cowboy boots already off. She would be getting only four hours of sleep, but the singing and the dancing—it was hard to quit it. She liked the smell of beer and the attention of the drunks. She liked belting out the rancheras everyone knew and could sing along to, and then hushing the crowds with one of her own that inebriates had no choice but to listen to. She liked tumbling off the stage and onto the dance floor when it got very late and no one cared if she sang good or not.
Too tired for the bedtime routine, she slid into bed naked, with tequila still on her breath. Her husband, Hector, didn’t notice, he was knocked out and looked dead in the bedsheets. But she knew better, she knew Hector went cold in his sleep, that his breathing was shallow, that he went soft and limp into his dreams, never stiff or dead. She needed to be sure, however. It was a compulsion she’d developed as a child and an older sister that persisted with even more gravity when she became a mother. Still a little drunk, Lorena stuck her index finger into Hector’s nose, which he promptly grabbed and pulled out more forcefully than necessary. And he didn’t speak, but in his eyes Lorena saw the many cuss words crossing his mind—he was used to it and fed up with it. He was mad but too tired to do anything about it, and after a few moments, he was asleep again.
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