Don Tomás, 70, was a wealthy farmer in a rural town in Oaxaca.
He had had his first wife, Doña Rosa, who died ten years earlier, leaving him three married daughters.
Despite his advanced age, Don Tomás still dreamed of having a son who would carry on his last name and continue the family line, a wish that remained unfulfilled for him.
So he decided to remarry.
His choice was Marisol, a 20-year-old daughter of a poor family from the same town.
Marisol was beautiful and fresh as spring, but poverty had hit her hard.
Her parents, needing money to pay for their youngest son’s medical treatment, agreed to give her away in exchange for a large sum of money.
Although she didn’t want to, Marisol agreed to the marriage out of love for her family.
On the eve of the wedding, with tears in her eyes, she told her mother:
“I just hope he treats me well… I will do my duty.”
The wedding was simple but striking, because Don Tomás wanted the entire town to know he was still “strong” and ready to father a child.
The neighbors murmured and criticized the large age difference, but he didn’t care.
He smiled with satisfaction, excitedly preparing for the wedding night, confident that Marisol would soon be pregnant.
Although resigned, she tried to appear happy to fulfill her role.
The wedding night arrived.
Don Tomás, elegantly dressed, drank some medicinal liquor that, he said, would make him feel young again.
He took Marisol’s hand and led her to the bedroom, his eyes full of anticipation. She, nervous, forced a smile, afraid of disappointing him.
The atmosphere became intimate.
Don Tomás whispered endearments to her when suddenly, his face contracted, his breathing labored.
He let go of Marisol’s hand, placed the other on his chest, and fell heavily onto the bed.
“Don Tomás! What’s wrong with him?” Marisol cried, her eyes wide with terror.
She tried to hold him, but his body was already rigid, drenched in sweat.
A hoarse moan escaped his throat, shaking the young woman.
The image of the liquor he had drunk minutes before flashed through her mind: what he had trusted to “rejuvenate” him had turned into a silent poison.
Desperate, Marisol called for help. Don Tomás’s daughters and other relatives burst into the room, finding the old man motionless and the young bride crying, lost in the confusion.
That night was a chaos of screams, running, and crying.
They took Don Tomás to the hospital, but the doctors could only confirm the worst: he had suffered a sudden heart attack due to exertion and age.
The news spread throughout the town.
People, already murmuring about the unequal marriage, now spoke louder.
Some felt sorry for Marisol, others mocked:
“He didn’t even manage to give her a son… fate is just.”
Marisol remained silent, her gaze lost.
She remembered his words: “I will do my duty.” But that duty never began; it all ended in a tragedy no one had foreseen.
After the funeral, the money received from the wedding was enough to pay her family’s debts and her brother’s treatment.
But in return, Marisol faced a cruel fate: a widow at twenty, forever marked as “Don Tomás’s second wife.”
Their wedding night, which was supposed to be the beginning of an engagement filled with pressures and expectations, ended up becoming the last night of a man’s life… and the beginning of the heavy cross a young woman would have to bear for the rest of her days.
