She stands at the ancient gas stove in one of her simple, faded cotton dresses, stirring a pot of oatmeal as if the night had been completely uneventful. Pale, watery morning light spills through the narrow window above the sink, catching in the loose, dark strands of hair that frame her exhausted face. If not for the lingering phantom sensation of her hand on mine, and the searing memory of that light slicing across my bedroom wall, I might have convinced myself the entire ordeal had been a nightmare born of indigestion.
I linger in the doorway, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, watching her.
She notices my shadow before I even open my mouth to speak. “Coffee’s ready,” she says, her voice flat, not bothering to turn around.
I stay exactly where I am, my bare feet cold against the tile. “Who was outside our room last night?”
The wooden spoon stills in the pot.
Just for a beat—a fraction of a second, but long enough to confirm what my nervous system already sensed—her hand freezes. Then, with excruciating forced casualness, she resumes stirring.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she murmurs.
I almost laugh out loud. Not because anything about this is amusing, but because bad lies possess a recognizable, clumsy shape, and I am looking straight at a monumental one right now. Lucía is many things: quiet, fiercely helpful, modest to the absolute point of self-erasure. But she has never been careless with her words. Every syllable she speaks feels weighed and measured before it leaves her lips. Hearing her feign ignorance with such obvious effort tells me that the truth is far larger, and far darker, than a strange noise in the night.
“You took my hand,” I say, my voice dropping to a hiss. “And you moved your head into the light. Deliberately.”
Lucía sets the spoon aside. When she finally turns to face me, her dark eyes carry the hollow look of someone who has already been worn down to the bone before the day has even begun. “Please,” she says softly, glancing nervously toward the ceiling. “Not here.”
The answer frustrates me far more than her denial did.
Not here. In this sprawling, multi-generational house, nothing is ever spoken out loud where it actually happens. Fear moves from room to room, wrapped suffocatingly in daily chores, heavy silences, and polite, manufactured explanations about village customs. I have been living with this bizarre inconvenience for over two weeks, enduring the venomous whispers of the neighbors, the undeniable strain on my own marriage bed, and the slow, crawling humiliation of knowing people imagine twisted things about my home.
“Then where?” I demand, stepping fully into the kitchen.
Lucía flicked her gaze toward the narrow stairwell.
