Así es la vida.

"...and a couple weeks ago I found this turtle outside....just right outside my door. In my yard. I didn't take it from anywhere else. And well, it was so cute and tiny, and so I brought it inside. And I gave it some water and a little rice to eat. We decided we would keep it as a pet. And then that woman, you know, the one who lives over there. Well she saw my kids playing with the turtle on Saturday and came over and demanded that I give her back her turtle. As if she can just claim any turtle she wants whenever she wants. Imagine. But I refused. And plus, she stole our rabbit last year...and there was a baby chicken too. So I told her, when I get my rabbit back, you can have your turtle. Well that made her angry, but at least she left. Well the next week the turtle started bleeding from its nose. A lot of blood just pouring from its little nose. So we gave it to away to that family, the one with all those kids." 

It's Monday morning, just a little after 9:00. I'm sitting on a plastic stool across from Señora Elizabeth, my back leaning tentatively against a wooden post. She sits on the edge of the bed, one of her sons sprawled out next to her doing his math homework. Her oldest daughter across the room cooking breakfast. Two dogs wander in from the dirt yard, and she momentarily interrupts her story to chase them out, a piece of cane in hand. I take advantage of this distraction and lift my hat to wipe the sweat from my forehead. The morning is hot, more so than usual. The sun torturing us with its premature arrival, making the climb up the dirt hills to the house more strenuous than normal. 

"Ya bueno..." She searches for her place in the story and launches in again. I fix my attention on her rapidly moving mouth. Search for extra clues in her thin hands and arched eyebrows. And while I wish she would slow down and drop whatever grudge she holds against the letter "s," I've mastered the art of looking like I understand perfectly - the expert combination of attentive nods, light chuckles, and murmurs of agreement. "Ah, claro. Si, yo veo." 

She finishes her story, one that takes fifteen minutes to tell, and I have a two minute outline. And I wonder what I missed. What details she found important that I lost. And I have questions. Why is she telling me this story? Am I supposed to focus on the feud with the neighbor? Or the traumatizing loss of a beloved pet? Or her strength as someone who will not be pushed around? And the turtle. What disease makes a turtle bleed from the nose? And why did she give it away so quickly? Did it die? 

I ask these last few, partly out of curiosity, partly out of a need to have some response. "No sé, señorita. No sé." And then, after a pause, "Así es la vida." 

I laugh then. Not a slight chuckle but a real laugh. "Así es la vida." Sometimes turtles bleed from their noses. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they don't. 

Así es la vida.