Lucía didn’t answer right away.
She was sitting in a small diner in Roma, eating a plate of green enchiladas and drinking mineral water.
The waitress had recognized her from the hospital badge still hanging from her purse.
“Eat them while they’re hot, Doctor. You look exhausted.”
Lucía smiled, her eyes damp.
On the other end of the call, Diego was still shouting.
“Lucía! Don’t do this to me! My father is furious. Renata says we looked like a bunch of freeloaders.”
“Then pay for it yourselves,” she said.
“You know I don’t carry that kind of money.”
“But you do carry the family name.”
Silence.
“Don’t be like this.”
“No, Diego. You all crossed the line a long time ago.”
She hung up.
Then she opened her banking app and canceled every additional card linked to her account.
One by one.
Diego’s card.
The truck card.
The gym card.
The restaurant card.
The cards used for “family expenses” that always ended up paying for suits, liquor, watches, or one of her father-in-law’s whims.
That night, she didn’t return to the apartment in Polanco that she was almost entirely paying for.
Instead, she went to a small apartment in Narvarte that she had bought before getting married.
Diego had always told her to sell it.
He said it was ridiculous to keep “a little single-girl nest.”
Now that nest was the only place that truly felt like hers.
When she stepped inside, she found old medical books, a simple coffee maker, and a photo of her parents in Morelia on the day she graduated.
Her mother was crying.
