You almost smile.
“Something you should’ve burned better,” you say.
His face goes flat.
That is the expression you learned to dread in the last year of the marriage, the one that came when charm failed him and the meaner version underneath had to decide whether to hiss or strike. But now you are outside the tribunal in midday traffic, with Rebeca beside you, his mother ten feet away, his lawyer watching from the curb, and strangers close enough to remember what they hear. Even Julián knows some kinds of violence look less impressive in daylight.
“Give it to me,” he says.
“No.”
The word comes out clean, almost easy. That surprises you more than it surprises him. For months he trained himself to believe your silence meant you had become soft enough to be arranged around. At some point he forgot that silence and surrender only look alike from far away.
His mother appears at his shoulder before he can answer.
Doña Elvira has perfected the art of elegant cruelty over sixty-two years, and even now, with sweat collecting beneath her powdered makeup and curiosity beginning to ripple through the courtyard around you, she still tries to wear superiority like silk. “Mariana,” she says coolly, “whatever childish thing you found while snooping in my son’s desk, don’t be ridiculous. The judge already decided.”
That makes Rebeca laugh.
