The mournful sound of funeral trumpets blended with the pounding rain on the old tin roof. The courtyard reeked of damp earth and candle wax. At the center, a golden coffin rested across two wooden chairs, its glow flickering in the trembling candlelight. Faces gathered around were pale and silent, lips pressed tight against the tremor of grief. They had come to bid farewell to Elena, the young daughter-in-law who had died after giving birth prematurely.

She was only twenty-five. From the day she entered her husband’s home, Elena had treated her in-laws as her own parents. She laughed easily, rose early, carried water from the well, and never once complained about the wind or the layer of dust that settled every evening. Doña Helena, her mother-in-law, would often touch Elena’s cheek and say she was a blessing from God. That blessing had lasted less than a year.

On the fateful night, Elena doubled over, both hands clutching her belly, whispering prayers into ragged breaths. Luis ran barefoot through the rain, screaming for help. The hospital lights were cold, blue-white; footsteps echoed down long corridors; a door slammed shut. The baby never cried. Elena never woke again.

The courtyard that had once held her laughter now held only rain and the faint hiss of candles. Luis stood beneath her portraitElena with braided hair and a smile that could soften the worldreaching up as if warmth could return through touch. His fingers found only the cold, slippery glass wet from windblown rain.

When it was time to carry her away, eight young men from the village stepped forward. They slid their hands beneath the coffin, braced their backs, and heaved. Nothing. They tried again, muscles straining, boots grinding against the bricks. Still, it would not move.

“It’s like it’s nailed to the ground,” someone whispered.

An old man crossed himself and muttered: “She’s still sorrowful. She cannot leave.”

The murmurs spread and then fell silent as the village shaman stepped forward. He didn’t need to raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Open the coffin,” he said. “She still has something to say.”

The lid gave way. The hinges sighed softly. And then the impossible happened. Two tears slid down Elena’s face. They clung to her lashes before falling to her skin, shining fragilely in the dim light. Her half-closed eyes, wet and luminous, stared into a place no one else could see.

Doña Helena’s legs buckled. She fell to her knees, clutching Elena’s hand, her voice breaking, as if a single more word would shatter her completely: “Elena… don’t cry anymore. If there is anything left unsaid, speak it now, daughter. Speak before you go.”

The courtyard froze. Even the rain seemed to falter at the edges. The candles steadied, as though listening.

A raw sob tore the silence apart. Luis collapsed, hands over his face, shoulders shaking violently. Doña Helena’s gaze fixed on himpiercing, aching, trembling. “Luis… what is it? Did you hear her?”

He lifted his head. His eyes were swollen and red, his lips trembling. The words scraped his throat like gravel.

“It was my fault,” he said. “She left with a broken heart.”

Breaths caught. Someone began to weep uncontrollably.

Luis pressed his forehead to the coffin lid and let the truth pour out, because there was nowhere left to hide it.

“She knew everything. She knew I betrayed her. She didn’t scream. She didn’t curse me. She just clutched her belly and cried into the pillow all night. I promised I’d end it. I swore it. But I had already broken something that could never be repaired. The pain began before dawn, and by evening she was gone.”

His voice splintered, and the splintering cut into every heart that heard it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, then shouted, as if volume could reach the dead: “I’m sorry! Forgive me, Elena. I was a coward!”

Doña Helena bent over the coffin, her tears indistinguishable from the rain. “My God,” she moaned, “why did you have to suffer so? Forgive me, child. Forgive me.”

Wind slipped through the courtyard, lifting the cloth draped over the coffin’s edge. The trumpets sank into a deep, droning grief. Candle wax pooled, glistening like cold honey.

Luis laid both palms flat against the lid. “You can hate me. You can be angry. You can turn your face away forever. But please… please let us carry you to your rest. Don’t stay here with me. Don’t bind yourself to my sin.”

The coffin shuddered, barelylike a breath just released.

The shaman closed his eyes and nodded once. “She has let go.”

This time, the eight young men stepped forward. Their hands touched the wood. The coffin lifted easily, as if it had been waiting for permission. The trumpets rose again into the rain. Heads bowed. Crosses were traced. The procession slipped from the courtyardquiet feet, black umbrellas, a long line of loss flowing into the street.

Luis did not follow. He sank onto the soaked bricks, knees sprawled, clothes clinging. Rain gathered into a small stream across the courtyard, flowing into the dark rectangle where the coffin had rested. He stared into that black shape as though he wanted it to swallow him whole.

The rain did not relent. It drummed against the tiles, against his shoulders, against the hollow that grief had carved into his chest. Luis no longer felt the cold. He only felt the weight of silence pressing downsilence where once Elena’s voice had lived, where once her laughter had lit the courtyard like dawn.

He closed his eyes and saw her againstanding in the kitchen, flour dust on her cheeks, humming softly while shaping dough with her delicate hands. He remembered how she always left a portion aside for him, smiling as though every small act was love itself. And he, blinded by vanity and selfish desire, had thrown it away for a fleeting temptation.

Each memory returned now as punishment. The way Elena leaned against the doorway, waiting for him at dusk. The way her eyes shone when she told him about the baby, her voice trembling with joy. Those same eyes had filled with silent tears the night she discovered his betrayal. He had seen it. He had pretended not to. That silence had been sharper than any screamand it had cut her life short.

The courtyard emptied. The trumpets grew faint in the distance, replaced by the weeping of the sky. Only Luis remained, kneeling in his disgrace. For the first time, he understood what it meant to destroy something eternalnot with violence, but with neglect, with cowardice, with betrayal.

Days would pass, months, years. The house would crumble, the rain would wear down stone, but her absence would never erode. Each night he would wake drenched in sweat, hearing phantom sobs, seeing her lashes wet with tears that had fallen after death. No prayer could erase it. No time could heal it.

Because some wounds are carved not into flesh, but into the soul. And the soul remembers forever.