She released you at once, as though the intensity had been imagined, then smoothed it over with a sigh.
“Because if you stomp around the house in the middle of the night every time you hear something, you’ll scare Miguel if he is awake. And if he’s asleep, you’ll wake him. Please. Lie down.”
The silence between you shifted.
It was small. Barely measurable.
But it was there.
The kind of silence that enters a marriage only when one person has just said something slightly too quickly and the other person has finally heard the speed.
You stood.
Then you walked to the bedroom door.
Behind you, Valeria’s voice sharpened.
“Ricardo.”
You paused.
Not out of obedience.
Out of instinct.
Something cold had already started threading itself through your chest, sewing together small moments you had refused to line up before. Miguel pulling away at dinner when Valeria tried to touch his shoulder. The caregiver quitting suddenly in November with some excuse about family in Puebla. The way Valeria had recently begun insisting she handle Miguel’s bedtime medication herself, even though she had no medical training. The smell of bleach from the downstairs laundry area at odd hours. Miguel’s new habit of staring toward the floor vents when the house fell silent.
You opened the door.
