Chapter 6 - THE GRANDSON SHE HAD ALREADY GIVEN MY HOUSE TO
I did not shout at Elvira.
That surprised both of us.
“What did you say?”
She immediately backtracked.
“I mean someday. If things change.”
“You said he has nowhere else to raise the boy.”
“Mariana—”
“Did Ricardo promise Daniela my house?”
Silence.
That silence was different.
Not shame.
Fear.
“Elvira.”
“He said there would be arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
“I don’t know.”
That was a lie.
I ended the call.
Alejandra sent a formal demand that Ricardo preserve all financial and property records. We also notified the notary who had handled several historical documents for our household that no transfer involving my property was authorised.
By evening, we discovered something unsettling.
Two months earlier, Ricardo had ordered a certified copy of the house deed.
He had also requested copies of my identification documents from the family tax file.
I remembered signing nothing.
When confronted, Ricardo said it was for “estate planning.”
“What estate planning?”
“In case something happened to either of us.”
“Then why didn’t the estate plan include me?”
He stopped talking.
That night, I told Sofía the truth.
Not every detail.
Enough.
Her father had been unfaithful.
There was a baby coming.
Her grandmother had known.
The marriage was ending.
Sofía sat completely still.
Then she asked:
“Is the baby a boy?”
I stared at her.
“How did you know?”
Her eyes filled.
“Grandma said something at Easter.”
“What?”
Sofía swallowed.
“She said, ‘Soon your father will finally have someone to continue things properly.’ I thought she was talking about a cousin.”
My sixteen-year-old daughter had been standing beside another clue months before any of us knew what it meant.
Elvira had not simply accepted the pregnancy.
May you like
She had celebrated it.
And whatever “arrangements” Ricardo had made, she already imagined Daniela’s son living in my house.
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