she didn’t feel the same love for Piedras Quebradas. She didn’t mind helping her mother with the garden where they grew vegetables and herbs. But she hated when they castrated the pigs or cut off a chicken’s neck with a sharp axe. She felt like screaming every time her mother killed a chicken and the corpse twisted and shook, seeming almost to dance. “When you’re married and keep your own house, you’ll have to do as much, even if you have the help of your maids,” her mother had told her on one occasion, when she practically fainted at the sight of the bird’s carcass. “I can’t. I’m no good at
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