First I hear the dry breathing of Miguelito Barrios. I hear it as I walk toward his bedroom, behind his mother. When I go in, I see a lump covered in blankets in the shadows of a room that smells like medication and disinfectant. When he sees me, he has a fit of coughing. And the foreign sound of the coughing reminds me of my father, in the house opposite, also lying down, accompanied by Miss Marta, who sits in a chair by the bed, fixing her red fingernails. Thank you, rasps Miguelito Barrios’s dry voice. I just wince at him, give him a measured smile. I don’t know what to say on these occasions. Even less when it’s Miguelito Barrios, looking at me with sadness, trying to want to tell me something, something that hurts him as much as or even more than his coughing, which erupts unexpectedly, shaking his lungs and his body and the blankets on the bed that cover the future remains of Miguelito Barrios. But he doesn’t say anything. I begin to cut his hair. The blond dry tips fall onto a blue smock I lay on top of the covers. Outside, the sounds of the work team can be heard, finishing off the job. It starts to get hot. I wonder if Miguelito Barrios will last until the end of the year. Then I think of my father and the summer, and then of Miss Marta and the summer. Miguelito Barrios grabs my arm. He’s nervous. His hands are clammy, he’s sweating. Don’t say anything, I tell him. Don’t worry. And these words hurt him more. He lets out a small whimper. He mumbles the beginnings of an explanation, the beginning of a plea for forgiveness. I impose my healthy, powerful voice over his, to erase his presence. Miguel, don’t worry, I say, so much time has passed. I brush his hair, with a part to the side. I prepare him for the final goodbye. Then I leave the Barrios’ house, wondering if it’s right to forgive a dying man. I cross into the shade of the chinaberry trees. The work team finishes loading their tools into the municipal trucks. The cane field no longer exists, they’ve cleared it completely, and where the tracks once were, now there’s a new road, a link road, which looks more like a closed wound. It’s a road that looks like the memory of a wound in the earth that won’t heal.