That night, Lucia sat beside Mateo until his breathing slowed. Whenever she tried to stand, his eyes opened.
“Will Grandma come upstairs?”
“No.”
“Does she have a key?”
“No, sweetheart.”
He rubbed the edge of his blanket between his fingers.
“Did I do something bad?”
Lucia leaned forward.
“Nothing that happened today was your fault.”
“Because I didn’t go with her?”
“You don’t have to choose between grown ups. We are supposed to take care of you.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“You hit Grandma.”
Lucia closed her eyes briefly, then met his gaze.
“I did. I was scared she would take you, and I hit her. That was wrong. I can protect you and still be responsible for what I do.”
“Will you say sorry?”
“For hitting her, yes. I won’t say sorry for keeping you with me.”
He considered that with the serious expression children wear when adults have made the world complicated.
“Next time can we just go inside?”
Her throat tightened.
“I will do everything I can to make sure there isn’t a next time.”
After he fell asleep, Lucia went to the kitchen. Her gloves lay beside her silver earrings. She stared at her right hand until the phone vibrated.
Carmen had sent a photograph of her reddened cheek to several relatives. Messages arrived asking how Lucia could behave so cruelly. One cousin wrote that a child belonged to the whole family.
Lucia started typing a furious reply.
Then she deleted it.
She saved the messages, backed up Javier’s recording with his permission, and contacted a family lawyer for an appointment.
Her hands were still shaking when she opened a folder on her laptop. Inside it, she placed the divorce arrangements, Carmen’s warning, and the notes she had made while the details remained clear.
She called the folder Mateo.
She worked until the courtyard below went dark.
