He had smiled, but not completely.
That should have warned you.
The bus arrives with a hiss of brakes, and you climb aboard slowly, feeling every one of your seventy-one years in your knees. The driver lowers the step without being asked. You thank him and take a seat near the middle, your purse resting on your lap while the city drifts past the window in faded colors and fractured reflections.
Your mind keeps returning to Ángela’s voice.
Not shaky. Not apologetic. Not even hurried.
Cold.
The kind of cold that doesn’t appear all at once. It forms slowly, like ice building inside hidden pipes, while everyone in the house keeps drinking from the tap and pretending the water tastes the same.
You think about all the afternoons she came by after Roberto died. The way she insisted on organizing your papers. The way she asked where the deed was kept, where the car title was, which bank Roberto preferred, whether you still remembered your passwords. At the time, it felt like help. A daughter stepping in to protect her widowed mother.
Now you can see the truth moving beneath those moments like a snake through tall grass.
She wasn’t helping.
