You drive the Mexico–Toluca highway like your anger has headlights. The sports car growls through pine-scented curves, but you don’t see the trees or the drop-offs into Valle de Bravo. All you hear is your aunt Eugenia, her voice slick as perfume and sharp as a knife. She keeps repeating the same words until they feel carved into your skull: the maid is dangerous, the children are neglected, the jewelry is being stolen. You tighten your grip until your knuckles go pale, not because of a ring, but because fear has finally found a place to sit. Fear looks like two small bodies and one helpless phone call you missed. Fear sounds like your sons crying when you are not there to hear it.
You tell yourself you’re doing this because you’re their father. You tell yourself you’re doing this because you can’t lose anything else. But the truth is uglier, and it rides shotgun with you: you’re doing this because guilt needs a target. Since the accident, guilt has been the only thing in your house that never takes a day off. It wakes up before you do, it follows you into meetings, it watches you sign contracts with a steady hand while your insides shake. Mariana’s face still lives behind your eyelids, the way the light left her eyes on that wet road. The past doesn’t knock anymore, it just walks into the room whenever it wants.
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