Quieter than normal.
I looked at her right away. I didn’t want a single more word to reach her without my filter.
—Go to your room, love —said.
She denied with a calmness that surprised me.
—No. I want to listen.
Rodrigo looked up at her and for the first time in ten years he really looked at her.
I observed that moment with a mixture of fury and disgust. Because I saw the real blow on his face. The surprise of finding not the little girl he signed to ignore in court, but a tall, intelligent, beautiful teenager, sitting in front of him as living proof of everything he hadn’t wanted to see.
—Ximena… —he said, and the name came out clumsy, as if it were a foreign word.
She didn’t respond.
Ophelia yes.
He crawled a little further, hands clasped, begging.
—Forgive me. Forgive me for everything. I was wrong. I was cruel. I was unfortunate. But that child is not to blame. I beg you for God’s sake, Mariana, tell him to get tested.
I looked at her from above, feeling how the entire past burned in my blood.
I could say that at that moment I was great, wise, spiritual.
I would lie.
What I felt was anger.
An ancient, dense, complete rage.
I wanted to yell at her that when I didn’t have milk for Ximena, they didn’t care either. That when my daughter had bronchitis and I didn’t sleep four nights, they didn’t show up. That when I learned to work with a fever because missing was losing money, no one came to kneel. I wanted to remind him of every word, every contempt, every silence.
And yet, above all that fury, there was something else.
Ximena.
Not Matthew.
Not Rodrigo.
Not Ophelia.
My daughter.
Everything happened first for her.
—Get up from the ground —I said with a hard voice.
Ofelia obeyed immediately, wiping her face awkwardly.
I turned to Ximena.
—Do you want to go to your room now?
