“Mommy sad?”
Lucía broke.
She pulled the child against her chest and sobbed the way she had not allowed herself to sob in three years. Not in the boarding room she rented. Not on buses. Not while washing dishes until midnight. Not on birthdays that belonged to a daughter she believed buried.
Alejandro looked at his mother.
“Is it true?”
Doña Elena lifted her chin.
“You are upset. You are not thinking clearly.”
“Is it true?”
“I protected this family.”
The words answered everything.
Alejandro stumbled back.
Several guests gasped.
Lucía slowly rose with Valeria in her arms.
“Protected?” she said. “From what? From my baby having a mother who loved her?”
Doña Elena’s eyes sharpened.
“You have no idea what world you are standing in.”
“I know exactly where I’m standing,” Lucía said. “In front of the woman who stole my child.”
Doña Elena’s composure cracked.
“She was not stolen. She was placed where she could have a life.”
“A life where she was too terrified to speak?”
That silenced her.
Alejandro’s jaw clenched.
“Call my attorney,” he told one guard. “Call the police,” he told the other.
Doña Elena grabbed his arm.
“Alejandro, think. Think of the company. Think of the press. Think of your father’s name.”
He looked at her hand on his sleeve as if it disgusted him.
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