Before Sunset. Chapter 1. The Ritual of Empty Hands.

On the outskirts of San Jacinto, where pavement gives way to dust, lived Nico. At ten years old, the boy already knew the exact weight of responsibility. Every morning, when the church clock struck four, Nico would sense his father, Dante, pulling on his rubber boots to head to the sugarcane mill. Shortly after, he would hear the hiss of water at the washbasin—his mother, Marta, scrubbing other people’s uniforms to earn a few extra coins.

Nico would rise before the sun appeared—not because he had to work, but because he knew that if he didn’t leave early, the eight-kilometer trek to school would become an ordeal under the sun.

“Here, Nico. Put these in your shoes,” Marta said one morning, handing him some pieces of thick cardboard. Nico nodded silently. The soles of his shoes were so worn that he could feel the cold earth against the bottoms of his feet. He skillfully placed the cardboard inside his battered footwear. His school shirt—once white, now yellowed from constant use—was nonetheless spotless. Marta pressed it with an old charcoal-heated iron, ensuring her son wouldn’t lose his dignity among the school desks.

“Go with God, son,” Marta said, kissing him on the forehead. Her hands smelled of bleach and a lingering, deep-seated dampness. “Study for us.”

As Nico walked, his stomach made strange, rumbling noises. He knew there was no lunch in his backpack—only a notebook with dog-eared corners and a pencil so small he could barely hold it between his fingers.

At school, recess was the most difficult time of all. While the other children ran toward the school canteen to buy empanadas or juice, Nico would seek out the shade of the great samán tree, far away from everyone else. There, he would go to the water fountains and drink until he felt heavy. It was a trick Dante had taught him: "Water tricks hunger, Nico—but education defeats poverty."

A group of boys, led by one named Ramiro, often cornered him. Ramiro was the son of the man who owned the town’s transport fleet, and he always wore brand-new, expensive shoes.

"Look at the 'scientist,'" Ramiro mocked, pointing at Nico’s ankles, which were exposed because his trousers had become too short. "What’s the matter, Nico? Don’t your parents know that children grow, or does the cardboard in your shoes make you taller?"

The others laughed. Nico looked at them—not with hatred, but with a profound sadness. It wasn’t the mockery that hurt; it was the thought of his mother’s hard work, washing the very clothes that the world looked down upon.

"Leave him alone, Ramiro," a soft voice intervened. It was Lucía, a girl with bright eyes who came from a well-off family. "Nico is the best at mathematics—something you couldn't achieve even with ten private tutors."

Lucía would sit with him in the library before the end of the school day. Knowing that Nico didn't have his own textbooks, she would pretend she had forgotten to do her homework, asking him to work on it with her using her book. Nico would explain the country’s history and solve algebraic equations with astonishing clarity. Lucía watched him with admiration, noticing how he would moisten his lips—parched from a lack of food. As evening fell, Nico began his journey home. He arrived just as the shadows of the trees stretched out like dark fingers. He found Dante sitting on the porch, his eyes red from the smoke of the mill.

“Papa, I got the highest grade in Spanish today,” Nico said, sitting down on the ground beside him. Dante placed a calloused hand on his shoulder. His fingers were thick, marked by the scars of hard labor. “That’s the only thing I want to hear, Nico. I only know how to sign my name with an ‘X,’ but you—you are going to write books. Don’t focus on what you lack today; focus on what you will build tomorrow. Nothing your mother and I do would be worth it if you were to give up.”

That night, they ate a plantain soup that Marta had managed to stretch to feed all three of them. They dined by the light of a small oil lamp, as electricity was a luxury they hadn’t been able to afford that month.

“Nico,” Marta said, stroking his hair, “respect isn’t found in new clothes, but in a clear, honest gaze. Never feel less than anyone else, because your true wealth lies here”—she pointed to his head—“and here”—she pointed to his chest.

Nico fell asleep with that promise held close to his heart.

One Tuesday, the science teacher, Mr. Holguín, asked all the students to take out their materials for an experiment on the capillarity of plants. Most of the children brought out clean glass jars and bright food coloring. Nico, his face

flushed with shame, pulled out an empty jam jar he had salvaged from a shop’s

trash bin, along with some fabric dye that his mother, Marta, had given him—leftovers

from her own laundry.

“What’s that, Nico? Are you going to dye the celery to make it look like a brand-name product?”

Ramiro mocked, drawing a burst of laughter from everyone.

Nico did not lower his head. He remembered his father saying, "Son, it’s not the tool that makes the craftsman, but the care with which he treats it." He cleaned the flask with an immaculate cloth and carried out the experiment with pinpoint precision. By the end of the class, Nico’s experiment was the only one that worked perfectly, because he had calculated the dye saturation using a logic the others hadn’t applied. The teacher congratulated him in front of everyone.

"Intelligence," the teacher said, looking at Ramiro, "doesn’t need a fine glass vessel to shine."

Saturdays were when Nico witnessed the magic of resilience. While his classmates played soccer in the town square, he stayed home to help his father. Sometimes, Dante would bring home scraps of wood from the mill to repair the porch or craft small toys, which they would then sell for a few cents.

One afternoon, a wealthy neighbor drove by in his pickup truck and accidentally struck the fence of Nico’s humble home. The man didn’t even get out; he simply leaned his head out and shouted, "Hey, Dante! I’ll send you some cash later to fix that pile of firewood—my car got scratched by your old boards!"

Nico felt his blood boil. He wanted to pick up a stone and throw it, but Dante placed his large hand on his son’s arm. "Easy, Nico. That man’s wealth is so heavy that it keeps him from seeing the ground. If you throw that stone, you bring yourself down to his level. We don’t measure our home by the value of its wood, but by the peace of those who sleep inside. We’ll fix the fence together, and it will be better than before—because it will hold our sweat, not his arrogance." That day, Nico learned that true strength does not lie in striking back, but in refusing to be wounded by someone who has no soul.

On Sunday morning, the town of San Jacinto was divided into two worlds under one roof: the church of San Miguel.

Lucía’s family arrived in a gleaming automobile. Lucía was dressed in white silk, and her parents took the front pews, surrounded by the faint scent of imported perfumes. Nico and his parents arrived on foot, having walked through the cool air of the early morning. Marta wore her only floral-print dress—washed so many times that the petals had faded into ghostly shapes—while Dante wore a stiff-collared shirt he reserved exclusively for God.

They sat at the very back, near the door, where the air circulated better. Nico observed the class divide in their footwear: polished patent leather shoes contrasted with his own moccasins, which were reinforced with cardboard.

As they left, Lucía’s father—a businessman named Don Alberto—approached Dante to offer him some extra Sunday work for a pittance, assuming that hunger would force him to accept. "Dante, I need you to clean my stables today. I’ll pay you enough to cover a week’s worth of food."

Marta glanced at Dante. They both knew that money would cover their electricity bill. But Dante, speaking with an eloquence that left Don Alberto speechless, replied, "I appreciate the offer, Don Alberto, but my Sunday is already spoken for. It belongs to my family and to the rest my spirit requires. Hunger can be satisfied with bread, but time lost with those you love can never be replaced."

They walked back home, the three of them hand in hand. Don Alberto stood staring at his expensive shoes, feeling, in a strange way, poorer than the man in the rubber boots.

At home, Sunday lunch was special—not because of the food, but because of the ritual. Marta would spread a lace tablecloth, worn and torn, over the plank table. She would divide a single orange among the three of them, slicing it into thin pieces as if they were bars of gold.

“Savor it, Nico,” Marta would say. “Feel the sun that this fruit needed to grow. God gives us these sweet treats to remind us that life, though hard, has its sweet moments.”

Nico would eat his portion slowly. In that moment, at that table, he didn’t feel like a boy with old shoes; he felt like the heir to a kingdom of wisdom. His parents didn’t provide him with luxuries; they gave him a moral armor. They taught him that envy is a poison consumed only by those who have nothing within.

On those Sunday afternoons, Nico would sit on the floor to read the book Lucía had lent him, all the while listening to his mother singing softly and his father sharpening his tools for the week ahead.