Upon Leaving Mexico

by Joseph Grant

Upon leaving Mexico, all the sadness in the world weighed on my shoulder. The girl that I had loved most had stayed behind. I hated leaving her in Anapra, but I had to; those were the days when the cartels had taken over and it wasn't safe for Americans anywhere. Later on, as I went back as a journalist for La Opinión, I had found out through various contacts that she had married a colonel in the Mexican Army and together they had a daughter but that he had run afoul of the traffickers he had been escorting to the Border and that only his head had ever been found along the outskirts in Tijuana near the airport. Mexican law then was such that the body was needed for the widow to collect pensión and since she was unable to collect his retirement fund or insurance for that matter, some time later I had heard she worked in a brothel to provide for her and her daughter, but both were killed in a car accident along El Camino Real on a Christmas Day. Often, I have thought about what would have happened had I stayed.

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Joseph Grant has been a loyal friend to this site (and its community of readers and writers) since its earliest days. Six Sentences is honored to publish "Upon Leaving Mexico," Joe's 100th published story worldwide.