A greedy child. When the mayordomos bring bottles, he does not seek out Catalina’s eyes to see if he may accept the treat. He drinks. His throat burns. He coughs. But afterward a pleasant warmth spreads through his body and he feels free and wishes he were in an open field, running wild like a puppy or a suckling lamb.

Catalina watches him fixedly, sternly. Who is this strange creature she has handed over as a natural counterpart to the Cross? The bastard of a Caxlán from Jobel; the dishonor of a girl of her own race; Lorenzo’s hidden shame; her husband’s reproach; her own open wound. The open wound that never stops bleeding, that never scars over, because Domingo is always there. At midnight, when everyone else is resting, Catalina listens to the boy’s breathing. If it is calm she relaxes, but if it comes in quick pants she runs to conjure away the threat of fever, harm, illness. Before the weeping can begin, sweet words are already flowing from her.

Catalina does not sleep. She watches in the darkness. She dotes in the light. And now, at last, she is face to face with the thief who has stolen her nights, the thorn that punctures her repose. She wants to cry out in bitterness:, she was the mother of no one so that no one could tear her apart like that.

Domingo drinks from the mayordomos’ bottles. Why should he refuse a gift when all he does is take? He has never even asked. In Pedro Gonzalez Winiktón’s house, food is not divided into equal portions. If there is too little, the boy never knows. Catalina pretends not to be hungry, or to feel ill, and gives him her share. During the times of abundance she chooses the sweetest ears of corn, the tenderest pieces of meat, the lushest vegetables. Today, these renunciations demand their compensation. Catalina wants to weep, like a women who has been cheated, because nothing can give her back the child she herself has placed beyond her own reach.

Uselessly she stretches her hands toward him. The hands that helped him from Marcela’s belly and wiped away his original filth, hands that shaped him, day by day, with more patience than when they shaped the idols, and that can no longer add even the lightest touch, now that perfection has been achieved.

Because Domingo’s body is sacred, and only the sacramental madrinas have access to it. Troubled, awkward, they remove his wool jacket, his shirt, his coarse cotton breeches, his leather sandals. His best clothes, but they are not fine enough for the ceremony that is about to be consummated.

His cheeks inflamed by the liquor, Domingo gives himself over to the women’s ministrations. He is not cold; he is not afraid. Gently they stroke his Back, arms and thighs with pieces of cotton soaked in oil.