You think of Rodrigo upstairs in the entry hall, his voice low and controlled on the phone, moving through the same house where his six-year-old daughter had been arranged like a display of grief. You think of Verónica, your daughter-in-law, who had stood in that black dress all evening receiving condolences with mascara-smudged dignity while telling neighbors that her baby had “left too soon.” You think of the tiny key taped beneath the satin lining. Of the metal restraints. Of the fever burning under Renata’s skin.Apparel
“Yes,” you say. “Very dangerous.”
The dispatcher tells you units are on the way and instructs you to stay hidden if you can. She asks if you can move to a room with a lock. You look around the laundry room. White cabinets. Utility sink. The old dryer still rattling from the last cycle. The back service exit three feet away, its lower paint chipped from decades before your son married taste and money and decided everything old in this house embarrassed him.
“There’s a back door,” you whisper.
“Can you leave?”
You look down at Renata sitting on the pile of blankets, wrapped in your black sweater, her face white with exhaustion and terror. Her hair is damp against her temples. Her lips are cracked. The little ivory funeral dress is crooked at one shoulder where you tore the satin lining catching her under the arms. She is shivering despite the fever.
Then you hear footsteps overhead.
Male. Slow.
Not hurried. Not yet alarmed. The footsteps of a man who still thinks the house belongs to him in every possible way.
“No,” you say softly. “Not yet.”
