Skip to content 
He looks down at Mateo.
The room grows quiet again.
“About him,” Rodrigo says.
Your hand moves protectively over the carrier.
“My son?”
“Our son.”
The words land late.
Too late.
Rodrigo hears it too.
He closes his eyes.
“I thought if I acknowledged him, everything would collapse.”
You stare at him.
Everything.
His image.
His affair.
His family’s trust.
His clean public story.
Not his marriage.
Not his child.
Everything else.
“And now?” you ask.
He opens his eyes.
“Now it already has.”
You want to feel satisfied.
You do not.
Watching someone realize they destroyed their own life is not victory when you once loved them.
It is just grief with better lighting.
The meeting ends without agreement.