She peeled the banana and took a bite. I sat on the rock and invited her to do the same. As she ate, her crying stopped. I removed Cristóbal’s handkerchief from my back pocket and handed it to her.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong? Maybe I can help you.”

She took the handkerchief and blew her nose with it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m so stupid.”

“What happened, Mayra?” I tried my kindest tone.

“Don Tomás fired me. And it’s all my fault.” She started crying all over again.

I dared to place my hand on her back. “Calm down, now. I can’t understand you when you cry. Can you tell me why he fired you?”

“Because . . .” She covered her eyes with the handkerchief. “Because I’m expecting a child.”

I glanced at her stomach. I’d noticed a small bulge, but I thought it was because often times women of lower strata didn’t wear corsets. I recalled the loose dress she’d been wearing the day I met her. Perhaps she’d been trying to cover her growing stomach then. Her tearful visit to the curandera made sense now.

“I’m going to burn in hell,” she said.

“No, you’re not. Women have been having babies out of wedlock since the beginning of time.”

“Yes, but not with holy men!”

Holy men? She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Mayra, what are you talking about? Who is the father of your child?”

She dropped the banana peel on the ground as if she’d lost all her strength.

“Look, I just want to help you.” Hesitantly, I reached out for her arm. “But you have to tell me the whole truth. Who is the father of your child?”

She mumbled a name, but I couldn’t understand her or maybe I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“Who?”

“Father Alberto.”

My brother? I glanced at her stomach. She was having my brother’s son?

My nephew.

“Does he know?”

I knew the answer before she said it. Of course he knew. That was why he’d looked so disjointed yesterday in Vinces.

“Yes.”

“How long has this . . . this relationship been going on?”

She lowered her chin. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Of course not.”

“It started when I lived in Vinces, over a year ago, before I went to work for Don Tomás.”

I was stunned. My brother, The Priest, had been involved in an illicit affair with the lawyer’s maid for so long? I couldn’t say I was too surprised, though. I’d always thought it was unnatural to ask young men to be celibate for the rest of their lives, but Alberto had seemed so contented with his vocation, so motivated by intellectual pursuits rather than carnal ones. But apparently, I’d misjudged him. Or had he fallen in love with this girl?