PART 2
The next morning I went downstairs with a black bandana over my head. I darkened the circles under my eyes to look defeated. Doña Elvira was in the kitchen eating seeds, sitting like a queen in a house she had never paid for.
“Have you already submitted your resignation?” she asked.
“Yes,” I lied, my voice breaking. “I’m not going back to the office.”
Her eyes lit up.
— Then take my card and go to the market. I want beef shank, bones for broth, good fruit, and a jar of agave honey. Diego needs to eat well.
— Of course, Mom. Use the additional card, you know the PIN.
She left cheerfully, carrying a designer bag I had also bought her. Half an hour later, my phone began buzzing with notifications: transaction declined, transaction declined, transaction declined. I imagined Doña Elvira standing in front of the neighborhood butcher, red-faced with embarrassment, while everyone watched her fine-lady card fail to cover even a kilo of meat.
Then Diego called. Once. Five times. Ten times. I did not answer. He sent desperate messages: “Why isn’t the card going through?”, “I’m at a restaurant with my boss”, “Transfer it to me now, you’re making me look ridiculous.”
At seven in the evening he stormed in, furious. His shirt was wrinkled, his face sweaty, his pride in pieces.
— What did you do with my cards?
“Nothing,” I replied, pouring myself some water. “Since I quit, the bank froze everything. I have no income anymore. Didn’t you say you were in charge of the money?”
Doña Elvira entered behind him, carrying an empty bag.
— You humiliated me in the market!
— No, Mom. You were humiliated by depending on a card that was never yours.
Diego slammed his fist on the table.
— Don’t play with me, Mariana.
— I’m not playing. From today on, this house runs on your salary.
The silence was beautiful. Diego earned enough to maintain appearances, not enough to sustain a life I had always funded.
The following days were a brutal education. Bills arrived for electricity, water, internet, and maintenance. I pinned them to the refrigerator. Doña Elvira, who always kept the air conditioning running, was horrified when the power cut out. By midday the house had become an oven. Then the water was disconnected. The kitchen smelled, the bathroom was unbearable, and the food in the refrigerator began to spoil.
I was working from my studio with a rechargeable fan, cold brew coffee, and my computer. The company had not accepted my resignation because I never submitted one. They gave me a week of remote work and promised to protect my position.
On the fourth day, Diego borrowed money at interest to restore the utilities. That same night I confronted him with another truth — I had found messages on his old phone about gambling debts, loans, and transfers to a woman named Fernanda.
“You owe more than a million pesos,” I told him, setting copies on the table. “Gambling, loans, hotels. And you also stole the gold wedding coins my parents gave me.”
Doña Elvira went pale.
— Diego, tell me it’s not true.
“It’s her fault,” he shouted, pointing at me. “She’s always working. A man needs attention.”
I laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound.
— Did you also need your mom to shave my head?
That night I installed small cameras in the living room and hallway. I already knew that when a parasite loses its food source, it bites.
They did not take long. Doña Elvira tried to give me tea “to help me sleep better.” I poured it down the sink and pretended to fall into a deep sleep. At midnight, she and Diego came into my room with a lamp and tools. They wanted to open my safe and take the house deeds.
After twenty minutes, they got it open.
Inside there were no deeds. Only a printed sheet: “The house is in my name and the documents are protected. Good night, thieves.”
The next day no one could look at me.
But Diego still had his most brazen move left. Two days later he arrived with Fernanda — heavily made up, elaborately dressed, with a belly that looked too symmetrical to be real.
“I’d like you to meet the woman I love,” Diego announced. “She’s pregnant with my child. The first grandchild in this family. So sign the divorce papers and leave us the house.”
Doña Elvira cried with joy and stroked Fernanda’s belly.
— Finally, an heir.
Fernanda looked at me with contempt.
— Love is not to blame for a wife not knowing how to keep her husband.
I said nothing. I simply observed the hard, perfectly round belly. The ten-centimeter heels. The strong perfume. The way she moved with none of the natural carefulness of a pregnant woman.
I smiled.
— Fine. You can stay a few days while I sort everything out with my lawyer.
They believed they had won.
They had no idea they had just walked onto the stage where I intended to expose every one of them.
