Claudia Piñeiro

Aires from Retiro Station to the General Paz Highway, n

She’d bought it one summer in Mar del Pla

She also didn’t want to give them to the church and then have to see Rita’s green sweater someday turning the corner keeping somebody else warm.

It was his mother’s idea, Elena suspects, which is why it said friend and not boyfriend, because the hairdresser, just like me, hates the sound of the word boyfriend to describe her over forty-year-old son.

If it had been her who’d died, Rita would have been an orphan. What name does she have now that she’s childless?

she feels no one else knows she exists. But they do exist, they pass in front of her, they move away, so many pairs of feet. And Elena keeping to the lane that only she can see. Someone cras

Rita’s forty-four, El

But what about me; what are you asking from me?

But what about me; what are you asking from me?

I’m not talking about my mother, said Rita, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle any more.