“I’m tired of watching you fiddle with your shoelaces,” Lydia says, focusing a sharp gaze on Antonio. “What brings you here?”
My chest tightens, as the weight of the moment comes to bear. I prepared myself to tell the story again, but no amount of preparation will ever make it easy.
All eyes are on Antonio, and for a long, torturous moment, he says nothing. But there’s sorrow in his expression. His mother and mine were best friends—like sisters. They became even closer after Vera disappeared. The news of what her husband did is going to shake her to the core. Antonio knows it.
“Hugo murdered Maria Rosa, Daniela’s mother.”
Lydia drops her cup, and coffee splashes all over her and the rug. She doesn’t move. Not even when I grab a cloth napkin and blot the liquid off her slacks.
I know he didn’t want to see her like this.Why did he have to be so blunt?
Because he’s Antonio.He didn’t even try to soften the blow or work his way to the hot center from the edges. He dove right into the storm, headfirst—it’s what he knows.
“Did it burn your leg?” I ask, trying to distance myself from the story he’s about to tell.
Lydia’s head moves from right to left, almost of its own volition. I’m not sure she even knows if she’s burned herself. She’s that shaken.
Rafael is quiet, his eyes trained on his feet. And Antonio is stoic, all emotion tucked away, because he knows the worst is yet to come.
“Are you sure?” Lydia whispers, grasping my hand.
Antonio nods. “Daniela was there.”
She looks up at me, with so much despair in her expression that it almost levels me. I would give anything to make it go away—for her—for all of us.
“Because they protected me,” she murmurs.
“We don’t know that,” I say, before Antonio can reply, because the urge to comfort her is overwhelming. “My mother might have stumbled onto something that put her in peril.”
She nods, but I’m not sure she believes me.
“There’s more,” Antonio says, his voice low and tight.
I want to scream, No more! No more! She can’t take anymore right now.But now that he’s started, he won’t stop. He wants it done. And despite Lydia’s pallor, part of me wants it over, too. Revisiting this at another time isn’t going to make it any easier.
Lydia draws a ragged breath.
I pull up a chair beside her and take her hand.
“Hugo didn’t go alone,” Antonio continues, like a robot, but his clenched fists betray him. “Abel and Tomas were with him.”
Rafael lists forward, elbows on his knees, and buries his face in his hands.
I hear the words too, but they don’t touch me. I’m grateful that Antonio insisted that he should be the one to tell them. I don’t think I could have done it. There’s so much turmoil in the room it’s staggering. At this point, I’m nothing more than a bystander looking in at the events as they unfold.
“Tomas raped Daniela, and she became pregnant as a result. Her daughter’s name is Valentina.”
Rafael storms out of the room like it’s engulfed in flames.
I glance at Antonio, who is motionless, a stone statue. I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around him and hold tight until he recovers from the pain he unleashed on his mother and Rafael. But it’ll have to wait. “Go to Rafael. I’ll stay here.”
He blinks a few times and nods, leaving without a cursory glance at his mother or me.
I get on my knees near Lydia. For the first time, I let go of the propriety of my pain. It belongs to me, but there are others who feel it acutely—maybe no one more than Lydia. I don’t have to apologize, but I can share the pain.
“I’m so sorry, my love,” she says between sobs. “So very sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for them,” I murmur, through my own tears. “As awful as it was, as bleak as I felt in the following weeks, Valentina gave me a reason to live.”