You tell yourself all the way to work that it means nothing.
Men like Alejandro do not walk into neighborhoods like yours and come out changed. They come out moved for one evening, maybe two, then they return to glass offices and climate control and forget the smell of damp wood and boiled beans. They remember the story, perhaps. The image. The emotional inconvenience. But not the people inside it. You know this because the city is full of rich men who like being briefly touched by struggle the same way tourists like sunsets. Beautiful from a safe distance.
So when you step off the microbus and see his black car already parked in the executive space, your first feeling is not excitement.
It is fear.
By six-thirty you are on the twelfth floor, pushing your cart past frosted conference room walls and desks that cost more than everything inside your house combined. The office smells like coffee beans, printer heat, and expensive perfume. Somewhere down the hall, two assistants are whispering near the copy machine, and when you pass, their voices dip low for half a second before floating back up. You do not need to hear the words to know they are about you. At Monte Real, silence has its own accent.
You keep your chin level and work.
Trash bins first. Glass doors second. Restock the restroom supplies. Wipe fingerprints from the brushed steel handles. Rescue three empty toner boxes and two archival file cartons before anyone can flatten them carelessly. Your hands move with their usual precision, but your thoughts are running ahead of you, tripping over yesterday, over Nico’s proud little voice, over your grandmother’s sharp eyes studying Alejandro like she could weigh a man by the sound of his shoes.
At eight-fifteen, your supervisor appears.
