Señora Rodríguez reached into her purse with her left hand searching for a Kleenex and grabbed a half-licked lollipop. "The drops!" she shouted, "I forgot to give Carlitos his drops," and, sighing, she clasped her hands together before reaching into her purse again, this time with her right hand, and took out a comb, which reminded Señora Rodríguez that she had to dye her hair because she was going to have a party the following Saturday. "How time flies, it seems like only yesterday my niece Laurita was born, and now she's about to turn fifteen. It's too bad her mother died and that shameless brother of mine went, in less than a year, and remarried, that ..." And saying this, she went back to groping through her purse without any luck. Something became entangled in her fingers, and she pulled out the sandalwood rosary that her mother-in-law had brought her from Rome, with a papal blessing. "What could the good lady, may she rest in peace, have been thinking – but she did not like me at all, as if her son were going to be her mama's boy forever. And me so foolish: Yes ma'am, no ma'am, while she told me what her son should eat, what time he should go to bed, and I don't know how many other things." Señora Rodríguez put her rosary away and pulled out a crumpled paper. "The phone bill!" Señora Rodríguez shouted and ran to her car and headed for the nearest phone company office. "That's all I need, to have my phone disconnected and be cut off from the world; I hope I get there on time. It's my only source of pleasure besides TV," groaned Señora Rodríguez while she parked her car in a no-parking space. She was about to get out of the car when she heard, "Your license, please." Señora Rodríguez plunged her hand into her purse once again and after taking out some matches, a lipstick, a recipe for bread pudding, a pen without ink and some ancho chiles, she finally found the Kleenex and blew her nose with a loud blast. "Your license, please," repeated the officer. Señora Rodríguez put her dirty Kleenex away and continued searching; her fingers stuck to Susanita's gum. "It's just too much that this kid is so sloppy," Señora Rodríguez complained. "When will she learn not to leave her gum in my purse, what's the officer going to say?" After many tries, Señora Rodríguez was able to pull out Carlitos's report card full of Fs, the rubber bands for Susanita's ponytail and a ten-thousand-peso bill, with which the officer was satisfied. Then Señora Rodríguez remembered that she didn't have a license because she had not passed her driver's exam. When she took the exam she couldn't find her glasses. Naturally, she was carrying the same purse, a gift for her thirtieth birthday from her mother-in-law.

Multiverse

The day I turned one year old, I woke up wet. In their bedroom my parents were snoring after a night of partying three houses down from city hall, where Don Manuel was discussing the new economic program, not with his ministers, but with Columba, his wife, who listened to him, thinking to herself that in a few months she would no longer be the first lady and probably not even a lady, which tormented her, even though deep inside she thanked God, something she had not been able to do in public since Don Manuel had become president. At the stroke of six o'clock in the morning I let out my first scream, feeling abandoned in that house in the same neighborhood in the same city where we all live. The light shone on me from my mama's nightstand. I knew that from that point it would be at least fifteen minutes until I was taken out of my crib, during which time my dad would growl, pulling the blanket up to his eyes and Mama would yawn without waking up completely and Don Manuel would put on a robe to go to the bathroom and Doña Columba would not do anything except dream, probably about her new life. When Mama arrived with my nice dry diapers and my warm bottle and, before changing my diapers, gave me a kiss that tickled my nose, Don Manuel was already phoning his secretary and Doña Columba and Papa were turning over in their respective beds in the same city. However, in London, where it was seven hours later, the queen was peering out discreetly from a balcony in Buckingham Palace and watching an old man off in the distance who wasn't an old man but a disguised guard making his daily rounds as always.

Just like every night, Papa and Mama shook the bed and sighed for a while until they fell asleep, just like Don Manuel and Doña Columba and also the queen and the prince consort. My parents, however, had my sister, who took over my crib, but I, fortunately, could already get out by myself and climb on the bed in another room in the same house in the same city that my sister and I began our lives in and where Don Manuel was finishing his term many kilometers outside of London, where the queen didn't begin or finish anything, since her reign was for life. Therefore, now that I am about to turn twenty, the queen continues to be the queen even though all the rest have changed, for although Papa and Mama continue to sigh during the night, each one does it on their own, just like Don Manuel and his wife: he in Paris and she in London, where the same queen peers out from the same balcony and sees the same old man who no longer needs to dye his hair gray but continues to guard the same queen that Doña Columba admires while she looks at pictures from twenty years ago, when I was a baby and she was the first lady and met the same queen who now doesn't know her because she is no longer the first lady and certainly not the last, because since the term ended she decided to literally unmask herself and, after having surgery by the best plastic surgeon, she told Don Manuel: "Thanks for everything" and she hit the road and that's what she's still doing.

Also in London, but at number 76 in the Roman District of Mexico City, my grandparents live, my Mama's parents, and in the Naples District my Papa's parents do not live because they're dead, but that's where they lived when I was in the crib, wet, and Don Manuel was in power and Mama woke up at six in the morning to give me my bottle and at the corner of our house there was corn on the cob being sold from a little cart. At that same corner the Rosas used to live, who were five in all: the papa, the mama, Memo, Paty, and Petra, except Petra lived in the service room and would come down daily to clean and buy groceries and...