The word sits inside your chest like something warm and dangerous. It is not joy, not yet. Joy requires space, and your body is still crowded with too many years of apology. But it is close enough to oxygen that you almost do not recognize it.
By the time the plane lifts off, it is 3:18 a.m.
You watch the city fall away beneath a sheet of cloud and think of Marisol’s list spread across the kitchen table like a military campaign. Five kinds of appetizers. Two mains. Three sides. Dessert trays arranged by color. Gluten-free options for people who, in her own words, “matter enough to notice details.” She had said all of it in the tone of a woman discussing floral centerpieces rather than unpaid labor extracted from her daughter-in-law as if obedience were a family tradition.
And Álvaro, beside her, had not even looked ashamed.
That part keeps cutting deeper than the list.
