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Miguel began talking quickly after that, the way guilty people do when they think enough words can blur betrayal into confusion. He said it hadn’t been planned. He said he had been lonely. He said I was always traveling. He said we had both been under pressure. He said Carmen had been there for him when everything felt hopeless. He said he never intended for it to go this far.
Rosa cut in before he could finish. She said the cruelest thing of the afternoon with the calm certainty of someone who believed biology gave her moral authority.
She said Miguel wanted a family and life had made its choice.
I looked at my mother, desperate in some childish part of me for one face in that room to look horrified for my sake.
She couldn’t meet my eyes.