“Careful.”
She wipes her face.
“I waited my whole life for someone to need me like that.”
You look through the classroom window at your son.
“He needed you before he had words.”
She turns to you.
“So did you.”
You want to argue.
You do not.
Because she is right.
You had given her Mateo because you thought she was dying of loneliness.
But you were drowning too.
That was the part you never admitted.
Your baby needed arms.
Mercedes needed a reason to open her curtains.
You needed a witness to your exhaustion, someone who could look at your messy apartment and your trembling hands and not call you weak.
The secret nearly destroyed that.
The truth rebuilt it differently.
On the fifth anniversary of the night you overheard her, Mercedes gives you a small wooden box.
Inside is Gabriel’s watch.
The same one that no longer works.
You try to give it back immediately.
“No.”
She pushes it toward you.
