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Rosa started shouting immediately, calling me bitter, unstable, heartless. She asked how I could do this to a pregnant woman. I might have laughed if I weren’t so exhausted. Carmen stayed by the car at first, one hand on her belly, staring at the front door as if realizing she had never truly belonged there.
Miguel tried another tactic. He approached me, lowering his voice, putting on sorrow like a coat. Ana, don’t do this in front of everyone. We can work this out.
I held up printed copies of the bank transfers.
You painted a nursery for your mistress with my money, I said. In my house. There is nothing to work out.
Carmen’s head snapped toward him. My money? she asked.
He turned too slowly, and that brief hesitation told her more than any answer could.
That evening, she texted me from an unknown number asking to meet. Every sensible instinct told me to ignore it. But curiosity is stubborn when your life has been rewritten without your consent.
We met two days later at a coffee shop across town. Carmen looked exhausted, swollen, and suddenly younger than her thirty-two years. She wore no makeup. She twisted a paper napkin in her hands until it tore.