María lounged on the angled roof of her in-laws’ house in León, reveling in the small, dangerous freedoms she could find while ignoring the shrill summons of the Countess Olivares. Forced into city life two years prior and trapped under the scrutiny of her husband’s parents, María felt repelled by her husband Andrés, who returned from travels increasingly sodden and grasping, and obsessed over her failure to conceive. She hid her copper hair beneath veils to appease the countess’s fixation on “modesty,” even as she secretly rejoiced each month she bled.

Dragged to the market to serve as the countess’s eyes and arm, María endured the foul streets and the old woman’s constant barbs about fertility. The countess, a collector of gossip, pried into others’ affairs while María chafed at the life prescribed to her, rejecting the expectation of motherhood and the feeling of being besieged by Andrés’s unwanted advances.

Amid the market stalls, María spotted a veiled widow in heavy gray garments whose presence jolted her into a vivid memory of meeting a similarly uncanny widow a decade earlier. The sight left her light-headed, recalling a gloved hand and the urgent command to run home. Determined to learn more, María questioned the merchant the widow had approached and was relieved to hear confirmation: the woman was known locally as “the widow.” He did not know her residence but told María the widow owned an apothecary down a nearby lane.

Pressed by the countess’s calls, María contrived a diversion. She steered the Countess Olivares toward Baroness Artiz, another gossip, who launched into scandal about señor Riva’s son jilting his fiancée for her sister. Using the distraction, María requested permission to visit a nearby apothecary under the pretense of seeking help to conceive, touching her stomach to sell the lie.

With the baroness pulling the countess along to hear more details, the countess grudgingly allowed it, warning María not to be long. María ignored the warning, feeling freer than she had in years, and slipped away from the market to pursue the widow at the apothecary.