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.

On the eve of the ten-year anniversary of Nanny’s death, my daughter recognized her own name for the first time. We were lying in bed and I was trying to feed her, but at five months old, she is endlessly fascinated with the world taking shape around her. She turns from my breast to watch the dance of evening shadows on the wall.

Somehow, a wild animal–a tacuache or bobcat, some thrashing taloned thing–had gotten trapped in Maria Vega’s belly; it tussled and clawed, ripping at her velveteen insides. She could do nothing as her bowels released. The smell, sharp and ripe, woke her younger brother, Guillermo, with whom she shared the twin-sized bed. “What is that?” he asked, moving away from her in the darkness.