The Moment Everything Changed: Buenos Aires Distances

By Mel C. Steel

Buenos Aires DistancesIn the small agricultural town of San Antonio de Areco, six hours from Argentina's capital, seventeen-year-old Lucia Mendoza has spent years preparing for escape. While other girls plan quincea eras and early marriages, Lucia studies economics textbooks by lamplight, determined to win the national scholarship competition that will take her to university in Buenos Aires. Her father-a proud man diminished by Argentina's recurring economic crises-has reluctantly accepted her ambitions, while her mother quietly supports the dreams she herself once abandoned.

When Lucia misses her period and a home test confirms her fears, the distance to Buenos Aires suddenly represents more than just her academic aspirations. With no doctor in her town willing to provide confidential services to a minor, she needs to reach a clinic in the capital to confirm her pregnancy and understand her options. Without a car, with limited funds, and terrified her father will discover her condition, Lucia turns to the one person whose quiet strength has always been the family's foundation-her grandmother Elena.

What Lucia doesn't expect is her grandmother's confession: in 1978, during the darkest days of Argentina's military dictatorship, nineteen-year-old Elena made the same journey along the same roads, carrying the same secret and the same fear. As they embark together across the sunbaked Pampas, Elena's story unfolds alongside Lucia's present dilemma, revealing how political upheaval, economic instability, and family expectations have shaped women's reproductive choices across generations.

In a country where distances are measured not just in kilometers but in opportunities, where Buenos Aires represents both freedom and alienation from rural traditions, grandmother and granddaughter discover that some journeys must be repeated before they can be understood. As past and present intertwine, both women confront the complex legacy of family secrets, the weight of economic circumstances on personal choices, and the courage required to determine one's own future.

"Buenos Aires Distances" is a moving exploration of how women across generations navigate the universal terrain of choice, sacrifice, and the courage to chart their own paths-even when the map has been drawn by those who came before.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F5R64SPG
• ISBN13: 9798280522527
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"