Here Gabriela Stiteler reflects on the conversation with her Abuelita that helped inspired “A Well-Worn Path,” her latest story for EQMM in our July/August issue, on sale now!

“A Well-Worn Path” came to me after a conversation with my Abuelita, who, thanks to a
long-ago investment in an insurance policy, had the help of comfort care companions twice a
week. Until very recently, she lived independently with the support of family and a dedicated
cohort of helpers driving her around, chatting with her, and doing light cleaning.

During a visit in 2024, my sons and I were staying with her in her Squirrel Hill
apartment. The four of us walked to the Manor Theater to see Jurassic Park, took the city bus to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, and ate noodles and dumplings from the place across the street while Abuelita told us about the dog parade she and her comfort care companion had attended.

That night, after a game of Parcheesi and one of those delightful William Powell Philo
Vance movies, I couldn’t stop thinking about that dog parade and Abuelita and her companions.

The seed was planted.

But it needed a little time and space to germinate.

Because of my background in human development and education, I’m always thinking
about why people do what they do and what they need to thrive. Self-Determination Theory boils it down to three essential “nutrients”: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

By the fall of 2024, I was still thinking about the comfort care companion, the dog
parade, and how important and hard both independence and interdependence are as people age. In Maine, where I live, these caregivers are vital to individuals, families, and our society. In my community, many of these caregiving roles are filled by immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

The story developed from there.

I wrote and submitted “A Well-Worn Path” in December of 2024.

A lot has happened since then.

My Abuelita fell, broke her leg, and has moved to live with my aunt in Mexico, where the cost of care is less and the winters are a little more forgiving. In January, I sat in a committee
meeting where a woman I admire—a parent, refugee, and beloved member of a tight-knit Maine community—disclosed that she did not feel safe leaving her home. She worried for her two grown sons. Her sixth-grade daughter didn’t want to go to school because she was scared. Her husband, a Mainer by birth and veteran, shared his frustration about perceptions of his wife, about feeling helpless to change things. A long-time member of our community was picked up and taken away while her children watched. My children came home from school asking where their friends were. My fourth-grade son asked to stop and buy sports cards from Don’s to put in with the schoolwork folders because he wanted his friends to know he was thinking of them.

I’m anticipating a lot will continue to happen until the storm passes. Until the ship rights
itself.

When I read the story now, the seed is the same. My Abuelita and her companion and that dog parade. But the branches have grown in ways I hadn’t fully anticipated. Empty desks and baseball cards.

I think the ending stands, but it sits a little heavier on the chest.

Gabriela Stiteler is a writer and educator based in Portland, Maine. Her short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere. Her debut story, “Two Hours West of Nothing,” was a finalist for the Robert L. Fish Award and was short-listed for The Best American Mystery and Suspense of 2024. She is a 2025 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Bodwell Award recipient and received Ellery Queen Readers’ Choice recognition for her 2025 story “The Usual Reasons.” Her story “Beautiful, Dangerous Things” will appear in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2026.