Chapter 10: What Justice Looked Like From the Inside
The fourteen days moved differently than I expected.
Not slowly.
Not quickly.
Just differently — with a weight and a texture that ordinary time doesn't have.
Sofía went back to school.
She did her homework at Elena's kitchen table every evening.
She didn't ask daily updates about the case.
She seemed to understand, without being told, that some things needed to unfold at their own pace.
Elena's house became something I hadn't expected it to become: a place where I remembered who I was before I became the person who managed everything.
I cooked dinner on Tuesdays.
I walked in the mornings.
I called my sister, who lived two hours away and who cried on the phone and said she had always thought something was wrong but hadn't known how to say it.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked.
"I didn't know what to tell you," I said.
"I didn't know it myself."
On the ninth day, the house sold.
Reyes called me with the number.
It was a fair price — better than fair.
The buyer was a young couple, he said.
They had a daughter.
I sat with that for a moment.
"Good," I said.
On the eleventh day, Elvira was discharged from the hospital.
I found out because Sofía told me — she had seen a post on a family group chat she hadn't yet left.
Elvira was home.
Ricardo had picked her up.
Sofía showed me the post.
A photograph of Elvira in the car, smiling, Ricardo's hand visible on the steering wheel.
"She looks fine," Sofía said.
There was no particular emotion in her voice.
"She is fine," I said.
Sofía put her phone away.
"I left the group chat."
I didn't say anything.
I put my arm around her and she leaned against me for a moment, then straightened up and went back to her book.
On the fourteenth day, Ricardo appeared before the court.
I was not required to be present.
Reyes attended.
He called me afterward.
"He entered a plea," Reyes said.
"What kind?"
"Not guilty.
His lawyer is contesting the forensic report."
"Can they?"
"They can try.
The message from Daniela is harder to contest.
His own words, from his own phone, describing what he did." A pause.
"This will take time, Mariana.
These things always do.
But the foundation is solid."
"I know."
"The civil division is moving faster.
The asset transfer is complete.
The 7 million is fully protected.
The house proceeds will be in your account within thirty days."
I was standing in Elena's garden when he said that.
The afternoon light was coming through the leaves of the tree at the back wall.
"Thank you," I said.
"For everything."
"It's what I'm here for."
I hung up and stood in the garden for a while.
Then I heard the gate and Sofía came through it, still in her school uniform, her bag over one shoulder.
She stopped when she saw my face.
"What happened?"
"He appeared in court today," I said.
"It's moving forward."
She set her bag down on the garden step.
She sat beside it.
"And us?" she said.
"What happens to us?"
I sat down next to her on the step.
"We keep going," I said.
"We find a place of our own.
I'm thinking about reopening the fabric shop — there's a space available near the market.
Small, but good."
She looked at me.
"You gave that up when I was born."
"I know."
"Are you sure?"
"I've been thinking about it for eleven days," I said.
"Yes.
I'm sure."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "Can I help?
On weekends?"
"I was counting on it."
She picked up a small stone from the garden path and turned it over in her fingers.
Then she set it down.
"Mom.
Do you think he's sorry?"
I thought about Ricardo's face in Reyes's office.
The careful shirt.
The tired eyes.
The moment when the calculation dropped away and something rawer came through.
"I think he's sorry it went this way," I said.
"I'm not sure that's the same thing."
She nodded slowly.
"No," she said.
"It isn't."
We sat together on Elena's step as the afternoon light shifted and the garden went from gold to ordinary.
Then Elena's voice came from inside the kitchen.
"Girls.
Dinner."
Sofía stood up and offered me her hand.
May you like
I took it.
We went inside.
