I made mistakes, Mama. Some of them out of love, some out of pride, and some because weak men are very good at calling their fear loyalty.
I kept thinking I could manage her if I stayed calm enough, worked hard enough, explained gently enough.
But control does not get smaller when you feed it patience. It gets hungrier.
Αnd if anything happens to me before I fix what I should have fixed years ago, you need to know this: the house is not as simple as she will make it sound.
You look at the metal box.
The brass key taped to the letter suddenly feels hot in your palm.
The rain begins outside then, fine at first, a soft needling against the broken windows, but you barely hear it. You are inside a different storm now, one built from memory.
Monserrat telling the funeral guests that you were “fragile.” Monserrat stepping in front of the framed photograph you tried to take from the mantel.
Monserrat lifting her chin and saying, “Everything in this house is mine,” while your son’s cousins looked down at their shoes and said nothing.
You had thought that cruelty was the end of the story.
