“Then where?” you ask.
Lucía flicks her gaze toward the stairs.
Upstairs, you hear your mother moving in her room on the second floor, the faint thud of a dresser drawer closing. Esteban is still asleep on the third floor—or pretending to be. Your younger brother Tomás, Lucía’s husband, left before sunrise for his shift at the parts warehouse. The house is waking the way houses always do, in fragments, and suddenly you resent the timing of ordinary life.
“Tonight,” Lucía says. “On the roof. After everyone’s asleep.”
You should insist on now.
You should demand answers in daylight, in the kitchen, surrounded by cabinets, clean dishes, and practical objects that could stand as witnesses. But something in Lucía’s face stops you. It is not stubbornness. It is fear stretched thin enough to resemble courtesy.
So you nod once.
“Tonight,” you say.
All day, the house feels staged.
Your mother comes downstairs in her robe, complaining about her knee and asking if there are eggs left. Esteban appears ten minutes later, scratching his chest, kissing your cheek, complaining that he slept poorly even though you know he slept like a rock. When he sees Lucía at the stove, his expression shifts so quickly you almost miss it. Not desire. Not irritation. Something far stranger.
Recognition.
