The incision across my lower abdomen felt like a jagged line of rusted iron, burning with every breath, pulling with every step.
Five days. It had been five days since the sterile lights of the operating theater at the Christus Muguerza had blinded me, five days since the surgical team had cut through seven layers of tissue to pull Emilia into the cold world while my hand gripped an empty rail.
Seventeen calls.
I remembered the blue glow of my phone screen against the pale hospital sheets. The rhythmic *beep-hiss* of the monitor. The nurse wiping sweat from my forehead, whispering, *“Is there anyone else we can call, señora?”*
*“No,”* I had answered then, my voice small and pathetic even to my own ears. *“He’s in a meeting. He’ll answer on the next ring.”*
He never did.
Now, standing on the smooth Carrara marble of our foyer in San Pedro Garza García, the silence of the house was not peaceful. It was heavy, sour, and perfumed with something synthetic and floral—a scent that did not belong to me.
My diaper bag dug into my left shoulder. My right arm cradled Emilia, who was swaddled in pale yellow cotton, asleep against the rhythm of my pounding ribs.
On the credenza beneath the gilt mirror, two crystal tumblers sat half-drained. Beside them lay a pair of strappy patent-leather heels, kicked off carelessly near the base of the winding staircase.
I didn’t call out. I didn’t announce my arrival.
Instead, I climbed the steps. One at a time. Each elevation sent a throb of liquid fire through my surgical staples, but the physical pain was strangely grounding. It kept the numbness in my chest from swallowing me whole.
The door to the master suite was open two inches.
Laughter drifted through the crack. Rodrigo’s laughter—low, relaxed, rich with the easy confidence of a man who believed the world was an orchard planted solely for him to harvest.
I pushed the door open with the flat of my palm.
The room smelled of stale champagne, heat, and expensive skin cream.
Rodrigo sat on the edge of the tailored king mattress, his Italian linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, his hair damp from a shower. And leaning over the mahogany vanity, adjusting an earring in the mirror, was Fernanda Ruiz.
She was wearing my robe.
It was not merely a garment. It was royal-blue mulberry silk, hand-embroidered along the cuffs with tiny silver lilies—a gift from my mother, Sofia, three weeks before the pancreatic cancer took her voice, her breath, and her life.
Fernanda froze, her hand still raised to her lobe. Through the mirror, her wide, hazel eyes met mine.
Rodrigo didn’t move for three full seconds. The smile remained frozen on his mouth like grease congealing in a cold pan.
“Daniela,” he said. His voice carried no shame. No sudden shock. Only the heavy, irritable sigh of a man who had been interrupted while reading the paper. “What are you doing here?”
Emilia shifted in my arms, letting out a tiny, mewling sigh.
“I live here,” I said. The words came out flat, hollowed out of all inflection.
Fernanda spun around, pulling the silk robe tighter across her chest. Her skin went the color of chalk. “You… the clinic said you were being discharged tomorrow afternoon. Rodrigo said the doctor ordered an extra twenty-four hours of observation.”
A coldness spread from the base of my skull down to my fingertips.
“You called the clinic?” I asked softly.
She looked at Rodrigo, panicked. “Rodrigo, you said—”
“Shut up, Fernanda,” Rodrigo muttered, rising slowly to his feet. He ran a broad hand through his thick, graying hair and stepped toward me, his brows knitted in that familiar expression of patronizing discipline. “Daniela, don’t stand there glaring. You’re being dramatic. You’ve had a difficult delivery, your hormones are completely out of balance, and you’re looking for things that aren’t there.”
“She is wearing my mother’s robe,” I said.
“Because her blouse was wrinkled from the drive from Saltillo,” he snapped, as if explaining long division to a slow child. “We’ve been working on the municipal bid since dawn. She took a shower. It’s fabric, Daniela. For God’s sake, don’t start a scene over fabric.”
“Take it off,” I whispered.
Fernanda swallowed hard, glancing between us. “Daniela, look, this is just a misunderstanding. The firm—”
“Take it off her, or I will peel it off her with my bare hands,” I said. My voice did not rise. It didn’t tremble. It was colder than the surgical suite where I had laid alone five days ago.
Footsteps clicked down the hallway behind me.
“What is all this screeching?”
