It had been raining relentlessly for three days. The sky over Vera Cruz had broken into a thousand pieces, and the water was falling as if it wanted to erase the entire map of the town of San Nicolás. The streets disappeared under the current, the dogs howled from the roofs, and the houses—those little houses of wood and sheet metal—floated like tired boats.

In one of them, in a small attic, Don Mateo and Doña Rosa, two seventy-year-old men who had spent their whole lives together, took refuge.
They only had a half-burned candle, a wet blanket and the hope that the rescue boat would arrive before the Papaloapan River swallowed them.

“Rosa, hold on a little longer,” Don Mateo whispered, coughing. Tomorrow the Civil Protection will surely come.
Her voice was trembling, but she still had that calm that always managed to calm her.
Doña Rosa nodded, although her hands trembled. “As long as he says yes, I believe,” he thought. That had been the case all his life.

The water rose mercilessly. There was no more rice, no bread, and no electricity. Don Mateo could hardly breathe; The cough shook his chest as if it were going to break it.
Doña Rosa put on him the old raincoat he used to go to the countryside.
“Hold on, old man. Tomorrow they’re going to get us out of here…” he whispered.

That night, the storm roared hard. The wind was blowing so hard that it seemed to want to rip off the roof.
Don Mateo took her by the hand and said in a weak voice:
“Rosa…” If tomorrow dawns, I promise you that we will go together to see the sea, as when we were young.

She smiled through tears.
But when the first light of dawn barely appeared, Don Mateo was no longer breathing.
Doña Rosa hugged him, crying with a muffled cry:
“No, Mateo! You told me we’d both hold on! Don’t leave me alone!

The hours passed slowly. The water reached his chest, and Don Mateo’s body cooled in his arms.
She didn’t let go of his hand for a second.
When he finally heard the engine of a boat, he could no longer feel his legs.

The rescuers climbed it up amid screams and splashes. She, wrapped in the soaked blanket, clung to her husband’s covered body.
“Madam, don’t worry, we’ll take it too,” said a young volunteer.
But when I lift the blanket… there was no one there.

All that remained was the old raincoat and a yellowish wedding photo, stuck to Doña Rosa’s chest.
She stammered,
“He was here…” He was still talking to me last night… he told me to remind the eldest son about the cloth sack in the closet…

The boy swallowed hard and, in a trembling voice, replied:
“Doña Rosa…” Yesterday we found a man down the river… He had that same photo in his hand. He tried to swim against the current, he seemed to be looking for someone… He did not make it.

Doña Rosa was speechless. The noise of the water was the only thing that was heard.
Then she understood everything: Don Mateo had gone out during the night, in the middle of the storm, looking for help to save her. He kept his promise.
Only this time, the river carried him first.

She hugged the photo and murmured, looking at the gray horizon:
“Oh, Matthew… You went for help, didn’t you? Always so stubborn, always so good… You saved me again.

The water began to slowly recede, and the boat continued on its way through the rubble.
Doña Rosa, sitting on the edge, looked at the river that had brought everything back to him except him.
A white heron crossed the sky, and she smiled slightly, whispering,
“Go first, old man. When it’s my turn, you’ll be waiting for me, where the water doesn’t hurt.

The river continued to flow. The rain finally stopped.