For three years, I had lived with the fear that he might cash every check at once.
I had counted that money over and over.
I had worried about one mistake destroying the little stability Trixie and I had built.
I pushed the box toward him.
“Mr. Alvarez, I need you to explain this.”
He studied the table.
Then he said, “My daughter was named Sofia.”
I stopped moving.
He nodded toward the wall.
The woman beside him in several photographs was not his wife.
I could see it now.
She had his eyes and the same serious mouth.
“She had a little girl,” he continued. “Her name was Camila.”
I waited.
“Sofia married young. The man was charming at first. Everyone liked him.”
His jaw tightened.
“Then he began controlling everything. The money. Her clothes. Her friends. He made sure she had nowhere to go.”
My anger faded.
Mr. Alvarez rubbed his thumb against the scar on his hand.
“She called me once,” he said. “She asked if she and Camila could stay here.”
“What did you say?”
His eyes closed for a moment.
“I told her to go home and work things out with her husband.”
The clock continued ticking.
I could barely breathe.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I was stubborn. Because I thought marriage was a promise you kept, even when it hurt.”
His voice cracked on the final word.
I looked at the photographs again.
“What happened to them?”
He did not answer right away.
When he finally looked at me, the truth was already on his face.
“They died in a car accident six weeks later.”
I covered my mouth.
“He was driving,” Mr. Alvarez added. “He had been drinking.”
The room seemed to shrink around us.
“I’m so sorry.”
He nodded once, but his expression did not change.
“I had money saved. Not much, but enough to help her. I had this apartment. I had an empty room in the house. She asked for help, and I sent her back.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I knew she was afraid.”
His reply was sharp.
Then his shoulders dropped.
“That should have been enough.”
I looked down at the checks.
The first one was dated three years earlier.
I remembered the woman I had been then.
I remembered hiding in the bathroom so Trixie would not see me cry.
I remembered choosing between petrol and groceries.
I remembered feeling ashamed of every need.
Mr. Alvarez folded his hands.
“When you came here, you had the same look Sofia had that day.”
“What look?”
“Like you were trying not to ask for too much.”
My eyes filled.
He continued before I could speak.
“You had your daughter with you. Your car barely started. You looked at that little apartment like it was a palace.”
A weak laugh escaped me.
“It felt like one.”
