You kneel several feet away.
Not blocking him.
Not reaching.
“I moved rooms,” you say. “You don’t have to sleep in the old one unless you want to.”
He looks at you.
“Where?”
“Your mother’s old studio.”
His eyes widen.
Mariana used to paint there. After she died, you locked the room because grief made you selfish. Diego had asked about it many times, and you always said later.
Later became years.
Now the studio is clean.
Sunlit.
Soft blue walls.
A bed near the window.
His books.
His telescope.
Mariana’s old easel in the corner, covered but not hidden.
Diego enters slowly.
He touches the windowsill.
Then the easel.
Then he sits on the bed.
“Can Elvira sleep nearby?”
You nod.
“She already chose the room next door.”
He looks down at his brace.
“Can I lock the door?”
Your chest aches.
“Yes.”
“From the inside?”
“Yes.”
He nods.
Then, after a long silence, he says, “You can say goodnight from the hallway.”
It is not forgiveness.
It is a door left slightly open.
You accept it like grace.
The trial becomes a media storm because your family is wealthy, Valeria is beautiful, and the crime is too horrifying for people to ignore.
Headlines call her the “Cast Stepmother.”
You hate the nickname.
Not because it is unfair to Valeria.
Because it turns Diego’s suffering into entertainment.
Your attorneys advise you to say nothing publicly.
For once, you agree.
The evidence speaks.
The hospital photographs.
The insects collected from the cast.
The puncture marks.
The chemical residue.
The notebook.
