Your daughter-in-law had once been the kind of woman people turned to look at twice. Not because she was vain. Because she moved through the world with the clean bright confidence of someone who had never yet been ground down into survival. She had laughter that reached the eyes. Hair she wore loose and glossy down her back. Dresses in strong colors. Opinions she did not apologize for having. The first time Rafael brought her home, she beat your brother-in-law in an argument about municipal taxes and then helped your sister clean the kitchen without being asked. You liked her immediately.
Now she looked like a portrait left too long in damp weather.
Her hair was twisted into a knot that had given up pretending to be neat. There were shadows under her eyes so deep they looked painted there. Her shirt had a milk stain on one shoulder. Her hands moved nonstop, automatically, with the mechanical speed of a woman whose body no longer waited for the mind’s permission before obeying the next need.
And your son, your big broad healthy son, the man who once cried for an hour when his goldfish died, sat on the couch scrolling on his phone with one hand and flicking through sports channels with the other.
He did not even rise when you entered.
“Mom,” he said, surprised but not enough. “What are you doing here?”
You did not answer him first.
“Do you need help, sweetheart?” you asked Helena.
She looked up so fast it almost hurt to watch. There was genuine shock in her face, as though the possibility of help had become so distant she no longer expected to see it walking through the front door.
“I’m okay,” she said automatically.
