Renata Sanz | District 10 | CDB#2 | Done

She thought herself lucky to tend to the goats, the pigs, the sheep, and all the chickens. She had names for each of them, no matter they were for breeding or slaughter. She learned early on that life was cradle to grave about the quieter moments. Those that she could grasp in her hand and hold close to her heart. So they could tell her that this place was cruel and that surely she would one day die, but not so much of a broken heart.

Ren played the big sister to her brother Rodrigo, often walking with him to the hen houses to help collect the eggs just as the sun was rising. He held her calloused hand and watched her gentle curls as her hair spun down around her shoulders. Always watching the way she collected herself, never hurried. Only needing one time with mother or father for what needing doing on the ranch.

She'd taught him so many things by the time she'd become a teenager. How to play cards and cheat at them. How babies were made (to be fair, he saw enough of what that was on the farm). How to take care of one another, even when it was very cold in their little tin shack with rusted edges.

So long as they could be there for one another, he imagined it would be a life well lived. No matter how long it would be.