Chapter 3: What Elvira Knew All Along
Ricardo came back into the kitchen holding his phone against his chest.
"We need to talk," he said.
"We do," I said.
"Sit down."
He didn't sit.
He stood near the doorway, the way a man stands when he hasn't decided yet whether to stay or run.
"Whatever you think you saw—"
"I saw Daniela Torres," I said.
"I saw you carry her bag.
I heard her ask what would happen if I found out.
And I heard your answer."
His jaw tightened.
"You were following me?"
"I was getting coffee.
You parked in the hospital lot."
He set his phone on the counter.
He picked it up again.
He put it back down.
"Mariana.
It's complicated."
"How long?"
"That's not—"
"How long, Ricardo?"
He looked at the window.
"Two years."
The number landed quietly.
Two years.
Sofía had just turned fourteen two years ago.
I had thrown him a birthday dinner two years ago.
I had sat beside his mother in that hospital room for the past eleven days, two years into a lie I didn't know existed.
"And the baby," I said.
"When is she due?"
"Three weeks."
"A boy."
He said nothing.
"Your mother knew."
Still nothing.
"Ricardo.
Your mother knew."
"She found out six months ago." He finally looked at me.
"She didn't tell you because she thought—she thought if the baby came, things would settle.
She thought you'd understand eventually."
Something moved through me that wasn't quite anger.
It was colder than that.
"She held my hand," I said.
"In that hospital room.
She asked me to stay.
She looked me in the eye and asked me to stay so that you could be there when that baby was born."
"Mariana—"
"Did she plan it?
The timing of her surgery?"
"Don't do that."
"Answer me."
He turned away.
That was its own answer.
I stood up and walked to the counter.
My hands were steady.
I noticed that about myself — how steady my hands were.
"The house is listed," I said.
"The 7 million has been moved into an account only Attorney Reyes can access until the divorce proceedings begin.
I called him last night."
Ricardo spun around.
"You already called a lawyer?"
"I called him before you came home."
"Mariana, you can't just—that house is where Sofía grew up.
You can't sell it without—"
"It's in my name.
My parents gave it to me.
I can do exactly what I want with it."
His voice shifted.
The softness disappeared.
"You're making a mistake.
If you do this publicly, if you drag Sofía into a court case—"
"Don't." I kept my voice level.
"Don't use our daughter's name to protect yourself."
He stepped closer.
"I'm not protecting myself.
I'm thinking about the family."
"Which family?" I said.
"The one in this house, or the one you just checked into the maternity ward?"
He had no answer for that.
His phone lit up on the counter.
The screen faced up.
I could see the name before he grabbed it.
*Elvira.*
He silenced it without answering.
But we both saw it.
His mother was calling him from her hospital bed — the same bed I had been sleeping beside for eleven nights — and he silenced her call because she had already said too much.
"I'm going to see Sofía," I said.
"She's at school.
She doesn't know anything yet.
And she won't hear it from you before she hears it from me."
I picked up my bag.
I walked to the door.
"Mariana." His voice cracked slightly.
"Where are you going to go?"
May you like
I opened the door.
"Somewhere your mother can't reach me."
