One night, her own daughter, Lucia, woke from a nightmare. “Mami,” she whispered, “the sky is empty. There’s nothing up there watching over us.”
“Gracias,” she whispered. Not a prayer. An acknowledgment. pon el cielo a trabajar
And so had her daughter.
Day after day, Elena and Lucia hauled buckets up six flights of stairs. They caught condensation from the building’s old pipes. They set out jars when the fog rolled in thick from the coast. Neighbors laughed at first. You can’t farm fog, they said. You can’t eat a jar of mist. One night, her own daughter, Lucia, woke from a nightmare