People around me. Not women. Not favors. Not debts.
She nodded before deciding why.
The restaurant overlooked a cluster of jacaranda trees just beginning to bloom, purple slipping into the city like a memory refusing to fade.
Fernando chose a corner table facing away from the windows. Habit, not vanity.
For several minutes they spoke only about ordinary things: traffic, the doctor’s recommendations, whether she was sleeping badly because of discomfort or thoughts.
Valeria answered honestly, then noticed she was answering honestly, which felt more dangerous than lying.
When the food arrived, her appetite returned in sudden, embarrassing hunger.
Fernando pretended not to see how quickly she ate, speaking instead about the weather in Monterrey, where one of his factories had flooded last year.
It was such a mundane story that she relaxed enough to ask a question.
“Why did you disappear?” she said. “The articles said you stopped attending everything after your wife d!3d.”
His fork rested against the plate. Outside, a waiter laughed softly somewhere near the bar, the sound bright and distant.
“They say many things when silence leaves room,” he replied.
He could have ended it there, but after a moment he continued, eyes lowered, voice steady.
“My wife was ill for a long time. By the end, people had already started speaking about my return before she was gone.”
Valeria felt the sting of that sentence in her own skin.
“I learned,” he said, “that grief becomes public very quickly when money is involved. So I stopped offering the public anything.”
She thought of the cameras outside the lawyer’s office, how they had wanted her pain while her signature was still drying.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Fernando shook his head. “Don’t apologize for understanding.”
That simple reply unsettled her more than sympathy would have. Understanding implied resemblance, and resemblance implied a closeness she had not agreed to feel.
She looked down at her hands wrapped around the coffee cup and noticed they had stopped trembling.
