“So,” she says, “His Majesty the madonna returns.” She means the hospital visit, not with concern, but with accusation. As if Lidia taking one afternoon to see her twin was a luxury stolen from more deserving people.
You lower your eyes the way Lidia would.
That costs you something. Everything in you wants to look directly at her until she remembers every ugly word she ever used against your sister and hears it back in the shape of your silence. But not yet. Monsters grow careless when they believe they are still looking at prey.
“Sofi needs dinner,” you say softly.
Teresa snorts.
“Then cook.”
The kitchen is a narrow corridor pretending to be a room.
A dented refrigerator, one sticky window, a sink with chipped enamel, and an old stove with only three reliable burners. You open the cabinets and feel rage rise like heat under a closed lid. Barely any food. Pasta, oil, stale crackers, rice. In the corner, hidden behind tea tins, you find two fruit cups and a packet of animal crackers wrapped carefully in a dish towel.
Lidia’s stash for Sofi.
You make rice, eggs, and whatever vegetables are still decent enough to cut. Sofi sits at the table watching you with solemn concentration while Teresa complains from the other room that you take too long and waste too much. Verónica wanders in only to ask whether Damián knows you were at “the asylum” longer than expected, then smiles when she says the word.
You say almost nothing.
