This chapter is all around depressing... be forwarned. First of all, Pedro, Rosaura and Roberto have moved away to San Antonio... thanks to Mama Elena. Then, some soldiers from the malitia come to raid Mama Elena's home and they are dumbfounded at how stubborn and bull-headed Mama Elena is, and they leave their home only doing very minimal amount of dammage. Now that everyone Tita has loved have been taken away from her, she is forced to 'whole-heartedly' serve her mother in her every whim. One of Tita's duties is very thoroughly described in this chapter. The ritual of bathing Mama Elena. That's right... BATHING her mother. Even though her mother is fully capable of bathing herself, she delegates this task to Tita, her 'until she dies' care-giver. I won't go into full detail about this process, but it is a very long, drawn out and over the top process. This just goes to show how much control Mama Elena has over Tita. Tita has no life of her own, because she is forced to answer to everything Mama Elena wishes, and is not given the chance to live her own life.
News comes to the family of Roberto's death in San Antonio. Because Tita was the only one able to feed him, he was not getting the nutrition he needed away from her...so he died. This sent Tita into a emotional frenzy; and rightly so. She stands up to Mama Elena and blames her for the death of her grandson. Mama Elena, being the loving woman she is, hits Tita hard enough to break her nose. Tita runs out of the house and seeks solace in their pigeon coup above the barn.
I forgot to mention the introduction of a new character. And this is a good character. His name is Dr. John Brown, and he was the doctor that came to the house to care for Rosaura after Roberto was born. Well, he took a liking to Tita. And when he was called to the house to retrieve Tita from the pigeon coup and send her to an 'insane asylum', he was excited to be of service. When he went up into the coup, he saw Tita at her worst state... she had literally lost it and was in no way fit to care for herself. Instead of locking her away in an institute, like Mama Elena wanted, Dr. Brown brought her to his own home to care for her. This is where the story starts to pick up a little for Tita.
I was so excited after I read this chapter. After all that has happened to Tita, she finally gets to get away from Mama Elena! Sure it took a beating from her own mother, the death of her nephew, a broken nose and a mental melt down in a pigeon coup to bring this all together, but it happened! I'm excited to read on and discover what the future holds for Tita... and this handsome Dr. Brown.
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