On the metro ride home, Ana absentmindedly touched the gold chain. She reached her house in Iztapalapa as dusk fell. The smell of mole from her neighbor’s kitchen floated through the air. She went straight to her room, took off her uniform, and opened her nightstand drawer to put the chain away… and there was her silver chain, exactly where she had left it the night before.
Ana froze. “Oh no! What have I done?” she whispered. She took out the gold chain and compared them. They were similar in size, but the gold one was far finer, with the engraved Virgin and initials. Hers was plain. She had taken Doña Isabel’s chain by mistake. Her heart hammered in her chest. “She’s going to fire me… or worse, call the police,” she thought.
That night, Ana barely slept. She remembered her childhood. When she was five, her mother—a sweet woman named Isabel—fought constantly with her father. “You’re no good!” Don Roberto would scream when he came home drunk. One night, the argument was terrifying. Ana heard crying, blows, and then silence. The next day, her mother was gone. “She ran off with another man; she abandoned you,” her father had told her. “Forget her.”