“Your sister and her husband will keep your room. You’ll sleep in the garage.”
This was the first thing my mother said to me, hours after burying my husband.
He didn’t even look up from his coffee. He kept stirring the spoon, as if warning me that it would rain the next day. I stood in the kitchen doorway, my eight-month-pregnant belly tense with exhaustion, clutching Diego’s olive-green T-shirt, the last one I had left.
“What do you mean, garage?” I asked, breathless.
My mother, Elena, pointed up the stairs with a perfectly manicured nail.
“Ximena and Mauricio are arriving today. They need your room. Mauricio works from home and wants to set up his office there… and his playroom. You don’t take up that much space.”
I felt something break inside me, but I didn’t cry. I’d already cried all I could since they told me Diego wouldn’t be coming back. My father, Rogelio, folded the newspaper and looked at me with that expression he always used when he wanted me to feel like a burden.
“Since Diego died, you haven’t contributed anything. You lock yourself in the house with that computer all day. This house is not a refuge.”
Hearing my husband’s name hit me like a splinter again.
Diego Salazar, a Special Forces sergeant, had died during an operation in the Sonoran mountains. His team had requested a nighttime recovery, but interference blocked communications, and no one was able to locate him in time. For months, no body, no goodbye, nothing. Just that week, the Ministry of Defense released his body, and we were finally able to bury him. Diego never knew I was pregnant.
The front door opened and my sister entered, bathed in expensive perfume, wearing new boots and flashing a haughty smile that had always made me sick. Behind her came Mauricio, her new husband, sporting an incredibly expensive watch and that cocky air typical of men who think the whole world owes them applause.
“Oh, Mariana, don’t start your tantrum,” Ximena said, sinking into a chair. “It’s only temporary. Besides, you’ve been carrying a huge burden since you were widowed. The house feels like a funeral every day.”
Mauricio chuckled.
“And honestly, it would be better if I didn’t spend all my time crying on my video calls.”
I looked at all three of them. I could have begged for a little humanity. That part of me had died on Diego’s grave.
“Okay,” I said.
My mother smiled, satisfied.
“There’s a fold-out bed in the laundry room. And pack your bags carefully. Mauricio will park the Audi in the middle; I don’t want you getting in his way.” I went upstairs without saying a word. I packed three pairs of maternity pants, several blouses, my work laptop, and Diego’s dog tags, which I hung around my neck like armor. When I came downstairs with my suitcase, no one helped me. No one seemed to care. My family kept talking about renovating my room as if I no longer existed.
The garage was freezing. It smelled of damp, oil, and neglect. I sat on the cot and placed a hand on my stomach. My daughter kicked, as if she knew someone had tried to wipe us out that night.
Then the encrypted cell phone I’d had for months vibrated.
