I spent my twenties in no rush to get pregnant. I had parlayed my college internship at People magazine into a job, and when our bureau closed, I hustled to make a freelance income. I worked while earning my MFA, and one of my freelance clients eventually offered me a salaried position. By the time I was 31, I was executive editor—and hadn’t written a word of my own work in years. I struggled with the decision to step back from the career I’d spent a decade building in order to write again. But

Marilinda Guzman was eighty-two years old, and the things her mother had never told her could fill the condo building that rose like a tall, sharp-elbowed gringa across the street from her own little house. Marilinda, her mother had never said, arranging the yellowed lace mantilla you will be happy with Roberto . Her mother had never curved a cool hand around Marilinda’s cheek and promised, Mijita your life will be swollen with love . Neither had she revealed, in solemn, confidential tones, Mari

The first time I breast-fed my daughter, I was surrounded by strangers. Someone had helped me slide free of my delivery gown, slick with my daughter’s newness. Someone else had helped me into a new gown. There were hands everywhere: first pressing my tender, flaccid abdomen; now sliding a new pad beneath my hips; now holding my newborn to my breast. The hands — blue-gloved, shiny — squeezed my flesh, guided it into her mouth. My husband, Adrian, stroked my hair. I didn’t know what to do with my own hands. I watched, like the most unnecessary stranger in the room.