So do the police.
Valeria tries to enter Diego’s room wearing a cream dress and perfect makeup, carrying a stuffed bear from the hospital gift shop like a prop. Elvira stands in the doorway.
“You do not pass.”
Valeria’s smile tightens. “You are the nanny.”
“And you are the woman he fears.”
The police officer nearby hears that.
So does CPS.
Valeria notices too late.
She turns to the officer with tears ready. “This woman has always hated me. She is poisoning Diego against me.”
Elvira lifts her chin.
“I did not put ants in a cast.”
The sentence lands like thunder.
Valeria’s eyes flash.
You step between them.
“Leave,” you say.
She stares at you.
“Alejandro, you cannot be serious.”
“I said leave.”
“You’re choosing a servant’s lies over your wife?”
Elvira flinches at the word servant, but only slightly.
You do not.
“I’m choosing my son’s body over your performance.”
Valeria’s face goes blank.
Then cold.
“You will regret humiliating me.”
That is not something an innocent woman says.
The officer writes it down.
Valeria sees the pen move and immediately softens.
“I’m under stress,” she says.
No one answers.
She leaves escorted by security.
For the next two days, Diego barely speaks.
Not to you.
Not to doctors.
Only to Elvira.
You do not force him.
Your therapist friend, Dr. Marín, tells you over the phone that trust, once broken by a parent, does not return because the parent is sorry.
“You want him to forgive you quickly so you can stop feeling like a monster,” Dr. Marín says.
The words hurt because they are true.
“What do I do?”
