Ingratitude

Tears rolled down her cheeks like pearls slipping loose from a necklace, she couldn't believe such ingratitude.

Sitting by the window, her life began to parade before her half-closed eyes.

She saw herself arriving at this house, she was only 15, she came from a village of adobe huts, dirt streets, no drinking water, no electricity, no schools, and very few inhabitants.

She remembered the terror she felt facing the city, with houses as tall as mountains, cars that raced by at the speed of the wind.

That night, for the first time, she slept in a bed with a mattress, sheets, a blanket.

The lady of the house, luckily, was very patient, she taught her to write, to read, and everything she needed to know to run the household. The gentleman was rarely home, and when he came he devoted himself to his children, who to him were the most important thing.

Many times she thought about leaving the house, getting married, and having her own family, but she didn't know what it was that kept her in that house, the affection of the children, and the good treatment from her employers.

Time passed, without noticing she kept on staying, and she came to feel like part of the family, or so she believed.

The children grew up, studied, graduated, got married.

When in turn they had children, she cared for them as if they were her own grandchildren, but... unfortunately the lady of the house fell ill, and she cared for her until the very end.

A few months later the children met with their father to inform him that they had found her a very good nursing home and that she would be compensated. She waited anxiously for the gentleman's answer.

He was pale, his eyes bulging out of their sockets. He looked at them and in a hoarse voice said, "I never thought I had raised such monsters. When you come to your senses, and think that your own children could pay you back in the same coin, come back. I'll be here, this place is one I earned and it belongs to me. Get out."

She stayed in the house caring for him and thought about how she could put the family back together. The one she owed so much to. She wondered where she would go if she had to leave the house. Her eyes clouded over and she felt her life had passed in vain.

Suddenly she saw what she had never dared to think, that she had always been in love with the gentleman.