Your voice is so cold even you barely recognize it.
Berta goes still.
Apríl clutches the blanket closed over her chest and leans into Paola like she might fall over if she loses contact with another human being. Her skin is red along both arms, and there are darker marks near one wrist that look older. That detail lands somewhere deep and ugly inside you. This is not one afternoon. This is a system.
“Paola,” you say, “take Abril upstairs. Run her a bath if she wants one. Stay with her. Don’t leave her alone.”
Paola nods immediately.
Your mother reaches toward Abril too, maybe out of guilt, maybe instinct, maybe performance. Abril recoils so hard she nearly stumbles. The movement is small but unmistakable. Your mother freezes with her hand hanging in the air, and shame finally floods her face.
That is your second shock of the day.
Not just that Berta has been cruel.
That your wife is afraid of your mother too.
Once Paola helps Abril toward the stairs, you turn back to the two women still in the living room. The TV is still playing some loud dramatic argument, bright music filling the silence nobody knows how to cross. You grab the remote from the coffee table and switch it off.
The quiet that follows is merciless.
“I want the truth,” you say.
Berta folds her hands in front of her apron. “The truth is your wife is unstable.”
You laugh once.
It is a terrible sound.
“No,” you say. “The truth is that I came home and found a seven-months-pregnant woman on the floor scrubbing herself raw while you sat in my chair and humiliated her.”
“She needed correction.”
You stare at her.
parte 3 —–
