April stared at the signature until the letters stopped looking like ink and started to look like a door closing from the inside.
She didn’t cry, because she had learned that crying in front of the Salvatierra family always ended up being used as evidence against her.
He held the folder with both hands, feeling the stiff paper against his fingers still stained with sand.
The sea continued moving behind everyone, indifferent, as if no truth could change its way of returning.
Don Roberto took a deep breath, but that sound no longer had authority, only weariness covered with old pride.
“April, listen to me,” he said, lowering his voice as if he could still control the extent of the damage.
She slowly raised her gaze, and for the first time did not seek approval in her father’s eyes.
He looked for something smaller, more difficult: a minimal sign of shame, a sincere tremor, a crack.
But he encountered the same rigidity as always, that way of his of turning any fault into an administrative matter.
Vanessa remained still, with Abril’s torn shirt still hanging from her fingers like absurd evidence.
