Outside, a neighbor’s television laughed through the wall, loud and ordinary, as if the world had not shifted inside apartment 3B.
Then came three hard knocks at the door.
Miguel and Lupita froze.
Canela stood so fast the box scraped the tile, and one puppy cried from the sudden movement.
“Miguel,” Lupita whispered.
The knocks came again, sharper.
“Open up,” Don Ernesto called from outside. “I heard an animal.”
Miguel closed his eyes for one second, feeling the cost arrive sooner than he expected.
Their rent was already late by nine days, and Don Ernesto had reminded him twice about the no-pets rule.
Lupita gathered the puppies closer to the wall, but there was nowhere to hide a starving mother dog.
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