LYDIA

My aunt gave me a birthday present. It wasn't even my birthday, but she does that, she gives presents when she sees you, not on the date, because most probably she won't be there on the exact date, but she always thinks of you whenever she sees the ideal present. She is not tall, rather short and fatter than thinner. She used to have a very nice figure, always fashionable my aunt. After her first divorce she was still young and glamourous. She would hang out with my cousin, twenty years younger than her, and his friends, many of who fell deeply in love with her. She didn't have a dull personality as her sisters did. She was charismatic, beautiful, wordly, she had read, and travelled, she was so beyond what many twenty year old girls were, that in comparison these boys were dazzled by her joy de vivre. But she was forced out of her sister's house by the husband, a typical hypocrite who disapproved of her "scandalous" conduct.

She had to find a job. And she did, quite successfully. She started out as a sales agent at a handcraft store and soon she had it under her charge. She was even commissioned to open a new store at Cancún, where the new frontiers were being opened. And there she went, all alone, by herself, to seek adventures and a completely new life.

And did she found one! She opened the new store and she made it flourish. She also dealt with the artisans directly and found out about many injustices. She decided to open up her own store, she already knew what was needed. She was again, successfull, she knew the ropes of the trade. And then it was love's turn to knock at her door. It came in the body of a 30 year old, when she was already 50. He was perfectly shaped, educated, cultivated, innocent and fresh in the artistic and commercial environment. They made a perfect couple. That is, until 11 years later, after living together, when she found out evidence of his sexual preferences, he was gay and it broke her heart. She sold store, flat, car and came back to the place she had ran away more than 20 years ago. Now she has a pristine and dinky house in a nice and clean neighbourhood in Metepec, away from her sisters, and not from a nephew who comes and visits her often. She is alone with her dog, her memories, her pieces of art and her photographs.

Now she wears typical Mexican clothes, always beautifully embroidered and in the best fabrics, she wears according turqoise and silver jewelry and she loves buying presents for the people she loves. I'm lucky, she loves me. We are fond of each other.