Spring broke without warning into the hills of Zacatécas. In a matter of days the meadows turned a fresh green, and Graciela's tulips in the courtyard of the Hilltop Hotel burst into a spectacular bloom. The eye-catching patches of reds and yellows didn't escape the travelers' attention out on the highway, but few stopped to stay the night.

The once stylish hotel had fallen into disrepair. Layers of peeling paint disfigured the walls, the red bricks in the Spanish arches began to loosen and crumble, the wrought-iron fence was rusting away. Graciela did her best to improve the surroundings. She had dug up the ground inside the gate, in front of the rooms, and a larger area beyond the parking place. She bordered the plots with rocks she brought home one at a time from the hillside, then filled the plots with flower seeds and tulip and daffodil bulbs she bought at the village market from her own meager savings.

She took mop and pail every other day and washed the tile corridors, aired the fourteen rooms, dusted the carved oak furniture. Still strong at fifty-seven, she worked fast and with precision, mindful of the creatures around her. She simply chased the spiders out of the way and tried not to alarm the wasps in the bathrooms. With the arrival of spring, she'd even removed the screen from the small windows to let the insects come and go as they pleased.

His interest in the business lost, the owner of the hotel had the phone and the television in the office disconnected, but Graciela didn't mind. She was content to live the simple life of her Zapotec forebears who had wandered from Oaxaca to the valley of Zacatécas a long time ago. All she wanted was a roof over her head, food on the table, clothing and school supplies for her grandson Manuelito.

Instructed to keep the gas and electricity low, she took her showers cold and went to bed early. When Manuelito was on his way to school down in the village, she combed her graying black hair into a braid and coiled it around her head without the aid of a mirror. She put on her only skirt and one of the two blouses she owned, slipped her callused feet into her sandals fashioned from rubber tires, and began her day.

Once through with the cleaning, she turned her attention to her plants. She trimmed the bougainvillea shrubs, pulled the weeds from the flower beds, loosened the earth around the primavera trees, already bursting with large yellow flowers she admired so much. The sun warmed her back, the song of nesting swallows filled the air. Bees buzzed about, Manuelito's rooster called out from his cage. From time to time she straightened up to rest her eyes on the valley where the village nestled among old trees, and on the hills beyond where the deer roamed, rabbits hopped about and wild flowers grew.

To be happy, she needed nothing but her small grandson and the blessings of nature around her. She taught Manuelito to respect all living things. "Don't disturb the birds while they're nesting, son," she told the boy. "The nests are their home, and we must respect that." "Even the homes of snakes and wasps, Grandma?" the boy asked with a touch of doubt in his voice. "Yes, even those," Graciela said. "We must protect every living thing, except for the flies. The flies can ruin our food."

People took her for an eccentric--she visited the village only when she had errands to run. "It's the hotel," she used to say when questioned about her solitary life. "Anyone can come in at any moment, and if I'm not there, I lose my job." And since the scarcity of money had always been understood in Mal Paso, the explanation silenced the questions. While she gathered her gardening tools, she felt the familiar feeling of sadness coming. She longed to go to her favorite sanctuary in the hills, but the position of the sun told her that Manuelito would be home from school in less than an hour. She opened the folding chair she kept near the garden beyond the parking place and sat down to rest.

When sadness came, she used to lock the iron gate and walked down to the valley and climbed up the hill on the other side, picking her way through the narrow ravines. Once the village was below her, she would settle in the grass and gaze down at the blue dome of the church, the cobbled streets and adobe houses partly visible under the canopy of tall trees. She would think of her dead husband, of her son who went north in search of work years ago and never came back, of her son's wife who had left Mal Paso with another man, leaving baby Manuelito behind.

There on the hillside she let her thoughts revolve around the past, and when she could no longer bear the weight of the twin torment of sorrow and resentment, she let the tears wash them out from her body and soul. She talked to the tamarisk shrub beside her while she wept, and to the bellflowers in the grass. The tamarisk whispered to her in the breeze, "It's all right, take your time," and the bellflowers nodded their agreement. The gentle wind dried away the tears and once more her strength returned and she walked back down the ravines and up to the hotel on the other side, ready to go on with life. To send her grandson to school, to cook for him, to protect and to love him.

As the members of her family disappeared from around her, Graciela learned to channel her sentiments away from people and toward the silent plants and the creatures of nature she could always rely on. The swallows always came back in spring, and the sun had always brought things back to life as she had expected. She believed in no faith, Zapotec or Christian. She believed only in nature, and she loved no one but Manuelito. Still innocent, still hers.

The small hand tugging at the sleeve of her blouse gave her a start.

"Didn't you hear me, Grandma? I called you three times. There's a gringa at the office."

With Manuelito following behind, Graciela crossed the courtyard. The stranger stood in front of the office door, her pale hand shielding her eyes from the sun. The light fell on her short, sandy hair, on her skirt of many colors. At her feet lay a suitcase and a travel bag. If she indeed was American, gestures will have to do, but the woman surprised Graciela with a heavily accented but fluent Spanish.

"My name is Linda, easy for you to pronounce," she said. "What's yours?"

"Graciela Contreras."

Graciela judged her somewhere between thirty and forty. Her features were pleasant but plain, heavy makeup broadened the smallish gray eyes.

"I just came from Guadalajara," the woman named Linda went on. "From the bus I saw all these beautiful flowers and asked the driver to stop. Besides, I'm tired. You have a room, don't you? I see no guests around."

Graciela said she had fourteen empty rooms.

"Oh, good, I can even have a choice, right? What a nice view you have here with those hills around and the church with the blue dome...what's the name of that village down there?"

"Mal Paso."

"You own this place, Graciela?"

"No. I only take care of it."

"And where's the owner?"

"He lives in Zacatécas, the capital."

"How come he lets this nice place go to seed?" the woman shook her head.

"Listen, you have hot water? I like my showers hot."

"I'll turn on the water heater right away."

"Thanks. What's your name, little boy?" she smiled at Manuelito.

The boy told her his name.

"And how old are you?"

"Eight. Want to see my rooster?"

"But of course. I'll be with you in a minute."

Manuelito went to let the rooster, a gift from his teacher, out of the cage. He walked the bird on a string around the courtyard before school and after, to keep him in shape for the cockfights he hoped to sign up for some day. Graciela didn't approve of cockfights, but as long as the rooster kept Manuelito happy, she consented.

Friendly as the stranger appeared to be, she talked too much. Graciela asked for how long she was planning to stay. She was in no hurry, the woman said, she wanted to have a rest before going on to Chihuahua, but eventually she would have to go home to Texas, and could she have that room over there, it has a nice view to the hills, what number was that?

Number five, Graciela said. The guest paid for three nights in advance. Graciela gave her the key, towels and soap, turned on the water heater in the utility room and retreated to her kitchen next to the office before the guest would start yet another lengthy conversation. About to put the tortilla soup on the stove, she heard a scream. She stepped outside. The door of room number five flung open and Linda ran into the courtyard, wrapped in a pink bathrobe.

"There are...what do you call them...there's a bunch of bees in the bathroom," she cried.

"They're wasps, not bees. But they won't hurt you," Graciela called back. "If you move about quietly, they won't hurt you."

"How can you say that? Do something, would you?"

With broom in hand, Graciela entered the bathroom. She chased the wasps out the window and scraped off their nest with the stick end of the broom. A few dived at her, but did not sting. She collected the nest from the floor, took it outside and found Linda sitting on the ground next to the strip of flower bed. She was cry-ing.

"No reason to cry," Graciela said. "They are gone."

"Oh, it's not that...not really."

"Then what is it," Graciela looked at her. She had little tolerance for crying in company.

"I don't know...I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"You mean here at the Hilltop?"

Linda wiped her face with the sleeve of her robe. "Oh, that's what this place is called? The name on the sign is hard to read." The corners of her mouth turned down again. "What I mean is, I don't know why I came to Mexico."

Graciela glanced around. The bees were gathering nectar, the birds were building their nests, the ants were busy with sustaining an entire society. Everything was in purposeful motion without giving it a second thought. She narrowed her slanted Zapotec eyes with contempt.

"Then why didn't you stay home?"

"Oh, never mind. I'm sorry...I don't know what came over me."

Graciela returned to the kitchen to feed her grandson and herself. In the afternoon she heard Linda having a chat with the boy, asking questions about school and his rooster. The next morning she emerged from her room in a bathing suit, spread a beach towel on a sunny spot beside the flower beds and lay down with a book. Sometime before noon she took off for the village, but soon came back. From the kitchen window Graciela watched her coming through the iron gate, her feet dusty, the makeup around her eyes smeared by sweat.

"Anybody home?" she called at the door.

Graciela dropped the pot she was scrubbing and stepped outside.

"I must ask you to put a screen on the bathroom window," Linda said. "I want to keep it open, but then the wasps will come back."

"All right, I'll put a screen on the window."

"Thank you. I'd also like to mention another thing. It takes fifteen minutes to walk down to Mal Paso, and twenty back. I checked the time. And there's this sharp curve at the river before you reach the village, and there's no...there's no..."

"Walkway?"

"Yes, that's it. There's no walkway on the bridge for pedestrians. I mean, aren't you worried about Manuelito? Making the trip twice a day on this busy highway? It's dangerous. A car might hit him."

"No car will hit him. He can take care of himself."

Linda contemplated this in silence.

"You're a strong woman, Graciela. You seem to have no worries."

Graciela stepped back to the kitchen and sat down at the table.

"So far I never met anyone without problems," Linda said in the doorway. "I'm an interior decorator and I used to have great plans doing just that and now I'm dressing windows in Dallas, Texas. May I sit with you for a while?"

Smiling her friendly smile, she came inside and took a chair at the table.

"Do you know what dressing windows means, Graciela? No? Well, you put the best pieces of furniture in the store window if it is a furniture business, or the best dress on a...how do you say this...oh well. You put the best dress on a doll, if it's a clothing shop."

"But they pay you, don't they?"

"Of course they do, but that's not the point. The point is, I'm not doing what I want to do. Besides, I would also like to have a family."

"Then why don't you find yourself a husband?"

Graciela grabbed the fly swatter and smashed a fly on the wall.

"It's not that easy," Linda said, staring with disgust at the yellow guts on the white surface.

Graciela wiped the spot with a piece of newspaper and threw it into the garbage can. Linda got up and went for the door.

"I didn't mean to keep you," she said. "See you later."

The next morning she came to remind Graciela of the bathroom screen and told her of a boyfriend in Guadalajara, an American she just broke up with, and of another in Chihuahua, a married Mexican she'd met in Dallas.

"So, you learned Spanish from him?"

"Well, I already knew some when I met him. In Texas many people speak Spanish. Anyway, this Mexican friend of mine pays me a visit when he comes to Dallas once a year or so, or we meet in Chihuahua, but that's about it. I'm very much alone."

At this her voice broke, but Graciela felt no pity for her. In nature the weak perish, she thought, a just solution for those who can't cope.

"You're so lucky, Graciela," Linda sighed. "You have your grandson, a nice, bright boy."

"Nerves," Graciela said. "I think your nerves are in a bad shape. Go to the hills. Stop in a meadow and watch life around you. If you keep quiet, you might see a deer."

"I have no patience for that type of thing," Linda shook her head. "I'm a city girl, my mind is on other things. Not that my plans turn out right. In fact, they rarely do."

"Maybe you make the wrong plans. Let me get the stepladder. I'm going to nail the screen back in your bathroom."

Later in the day Manuelito fastened a piece of cardboard to the iron gate and began target-practicing with darts he had fashioned himself from bits of iron scraps and wooden sticks. Linda joined him in the game. In the laundry room Graciela listened to the darts hit the target, the counting of the scores, the bursts of laughter. She stepped into the courtyard. The American woman took her grandson's hand and called to her from the gate.

"Would you let Manuelito come with me? I'm going down to the village for some ice cream. We'll be back before dark."

"Please, Grandma," the boy pleaded.

And indeed, they were back before dark. Manuelito told stories about Linda's chats with the villagers in her funny Spanish, about the two cones of ice cream they had bought, strawberry first, then chocolate with vanilla.

When the three days were over Linda paid for five more, including the evening meals she asked Graciela to prepare for her as well. While they ate at the kitchen table, guest and grandson kept up a lively conversation. Linda taught the boy how to say in English "how are you, I'm fine," and the boy corrected Linda's Spanish pronunciation. The lessons were punctuated by laughter. Graciela watched them in silence.

Linda always slept late. Around ten she emerged from her room in her bathing suit and lay down with her book. At twelve o'clock she returned to her room to change, then went down the hill to accompany Manuelito on his way home from school. After lunch she helped the boy with his math assignments, and later in the afternoon she took him down to Mal Paso for some ice cream, by now an everyday routine.

On a warm night Graciela sat in her folding chair at her garden, admiring the stars. Linda brought a chair from the kitchen and took a seat beside her.

"How time flies," she sighed. "This is already the second week of my stay. I'll have to skip my visit to Chihuahua. I must get back to work."

Graciela nodded in agreement.

"Except there's no one to go home to. My parents live very far from Texas, we don't see each other much. That reminds me. I don't mean to pry, but can you tell me what happened to Manuelito's parents?"

"They went away a long time ago."

"Yes, Manuelito told me. But where are they now? Are they still alive?"

"I don't know what happened to them."

"You have any relatives?"

"Some live in Aguascalientes. We lost contact years ago."

"That's bad news. What if the owner decides to sell this place?"

"I'll find another job."

"And what if you get sick?"

"I won't get sick."

"I hope not, but you never know, it can happen to anybody. You should plan ahead, just in case."

The daffodils in bloom, Graciela took a deep breath of the fragrant air.

"I could help, you know," Linda said, taking a deep breath herself. "I thought about this for some time now, but I was afraid I would hurt your feelings. I know you love Manuelito, but I would be happy to adopt him. If you let me, that is."

A sudden fright paralyzed Graciela's tongue.

"He would have a good life with me," Linda went on. "I talked with his teacher the other day. Manuelito is a bright boy, he deserves a good education. I like him very much, and I know he likes me."

A dizzy sensation in Graciela's head made her grab the edge of the chair with both hands, to keep herself steady. Her Spanish given bounce and flow by her growing enthusiasm, Linda chatted on.

"If you say yes, we could begin the legal process in the capital of Zacatécas, and I would go to the authorities in Dallas the minute I get home. If everything goes well, I can come back for Manuelito by June. You could visit us at any time, or we could come to see you once a year or so. I would send pictures of him, and I would also--"

"To take someone else's child is not your answer," Graciela found her voice with effort.

"Of course not, if the circumstances are favorable for the child. But if something happens to you, Manuelito would be at the mercy of strangers. Why don't we ask him and see what he thinks?"

"He's in bed, asleep."

"I don't mean right now. I mean tomorrow, after school. If he says yes, you can still reconsider."

What a pitiful woman, Graciela thought. Instead of letting nature teach her how to make do with what she had, she was a torment to herself and a threat to others. The night, so peaceful a while ago, was now filled with danger.

"I told you, your nerves are bad. I have some herbs. They grow in the hills, I gather them myself. Some of them are good for the nerves."

"Oh, Graciela...how can you talk about herbs at this crucial moment in our lives?"

"You make a tea of them, and a cupful in the morning calms you down for the entire day."

"So, your answer is no."

"That's right. My answer is no."

A cool breeze swept over the courtyard.

"Couldn't we ask Manuelito tomorrow?" Linda said, rubbing her bare arms.

Graciela took another deep breath. The woman couldn't take no for an answer.

"All right, we'll ask Manuelito tomorrow. In any case, you need a good night sleep. I can make you a cup of tea before you go to bed."

"Look, if your brew is a kind of drug, I don't want it. I tried marijuana once or twice, but I don't really care for drugs."

"It's not a drug. It's a healing herb."

"I read somewhere that Indians in Mexico can cure almost anything. Is that true or just a tale?"

"No, they can't cure everything, but nerve problems are easy to fix."

"What kind of Indian are you?"

"Zapotec."

"Oh, from Oaxaca?"

"No. I was born here in Mal Paso. My forebears were from Oaxaca."

"The Zapotecs were a peaceful tribe, I heard. At least they didn't tear out the hearts of innocent people."

"No, that they didn't do."

"Well, why not...I can try your tea tomorrow morning. But please don't knock if you don't hear me walk about."

"I'll wait till you wake up."

Before she retired for the night, Graciela pulled a chair close to her grandson's bed and watched him sleep for a long time.

At five in the morning she woke to an intense headache. She searched for the aspirin, but found the bottle empty. She took a shower, dipped a bandanna in cold water and tied it around her head.

She dressed, drew the curtains apart in the kitchen and began to prepare Manuelito's favorite meal. First she refried the beans she cooked the day before, then made a sauce from fresh tomatoes, chile and garlic, pounding on the mixture in the stone molcajete until it was smooth and creamy. She fried four large poblano peppers, stuffed them with cheese, dipped them in flour and eggs and fried them again. Finally she poured the sauce over the peppers, put the covered pot aside and toasted a few tortillas for breakfast. Her head still ached, but the pain was not as sharp as before.

Once Manuelito was off to school, she began rummaging through a kitchen drawer filled with dried herbs, each plastic bag labeled with the name of its content in her own handwriting.

The heat was on the rise, the plastic bags kept slipping from her sweaty palms. She removed the bandanna from her head, patted her palms dry and laid out two bags on the kitchen table.

She put a small pot of water on the stove, shook out a few bean-shaped dark berries from one bag and dropped them into the pot. When the water came to a boil, she opened the other bag and added two teaspoonfuls of crushed yellow leaves to the brew, turned the gas low and sat down to watch the clock on the wall.

After ten minutes she poured a cupful of tea through a sieve, added some sugar and carried the cup on a tray to room number five.

The curtains on the only window were drawn. She put an ear to the door and heard the sound of shuffling feet. She was about to knock when she heard a different kind of noise, the heartrending noise of sobbing.

So she knew...she knew she won't get her way. But, at long last, she did learn to cry in private. The room was Linda's sanctuary, just as the hill above Mal Paso was hers. The only difference was that in Linda's haven there was no gentle breeze to dry away the tears, above her head she saw no comforting sky.

She lifted the cup from the tray and poured the lethal brew on the ground. She waited until the dust absorbed the last drop of it, then returned to her quarters to collect the laundry.

In the washroom she soaked Manuelito's shirts and pants in the stone washbasin, once in a while throwing a glance in the direction of Linda's room. "I gave you a second chance," she said out loud. "Now I expect you to return the favor. You'll have to leave."

Back from school, Manuelito found his grandmother sitting in her folding chair at her garden, talking to her flowers.

"Grow," she was saying. "Grow and show her and everybody else how to exist without doing harm to anyone."

The boy stepped closer. "What are you talking about, Grandma?"

Startled, Graciela rose from the chair. She put an arm around the boy's shoulders, led him to the kitchen and poured him a tall glass of fresh lemonade. Over the rim of the glass Manuelito kept glancing at room number five, the curtain on the window still drawn. He put the empty glass on the table.

"Where's Linda, Grandma?"

"She left with the morning bus. She had to go home."

"That's not true. Besides, she wouldn't go without saying goodbye to me first," the boy's voice choked with tearful sorrow.

"Look, you have no reason to cry, Manuelito. Let's eat. I made chiles rellenos for you today, the best you ever had."

"You sent her away, didn't you, Grandma?"

She stepped forward to embrace the child, but he backed away from her and darted outside. "Wait," she called out, but he was already at the gate. She hurried after him, her heart pounding. The boy was already out on the highway, getting smaller and smaller as he ran down the hill toward the village.

The moment he disappeared around the bend of the river, a shooting pain struck Graciela's right temple. The road before her began to spin, her arms and legs went numb. She stumbled toward the iron gate for support, but before she could reach it, a dark curtain clouded her vision. The sun, still high in the after-noon sky, shot a flash through the black blur and left a brilliant golden speck in the back of her eyes, the last beautiful thing she saw of the world before she fell to the ground.