Chương 3
“Yes.”
“Did he intervene?”
“No.”
“Did he help you afterward?”
“No.”
Maribel shifted beside the bed but said nothing.
Lucía wrote for several seconds.
“What did he do?”
“He told me his father lost his temper.”
Lucía’s pen stopped.
Then it moved again.
Sofía heard the sentence differently after saying it aloud to a stranger.
At the house, it had sounded cowardly.
Here, under hospital lights, it sounded like evidence of a choice.
Lucía asked about Carmen grabbing her arm and about Sofía pulling free.
“She says I shoved her,” Sofía said.
“Did you?”
“I pulled my arm out of her hand.”
“Were you trying to injure her?”
“No.”
“Did she fall?”
“No.”
“Were you leaving when Ramiro kicked you?”
“Yes.”
Lucía looked up.
“That matters.”
Sofía gave a small nod.
She did not feel vindicated.
She felt tired.
Lucía explained that another officer would photograph visible injuries and that Sofía could make a formal complaint that night.
The medical documentation would be preserved through the hospital’s normal process, but a criminal case would not become simple merely because the injury was serious.
There could be interviews.
There could be conflicting statements.
There could be delays.
Ramiro could deny what happened.
Carmen could support him.
Iván could say he saw nothing.
Andrés could become important.
At his name, Sofía’s stomach tightened for reasons unrelated to the physical pain.
“Will you arrest him?”
“We need to finish the initial report and speak to witnesses.”
“He kicked me.”
“I believe you’re reporting that he did.”
Lucía’s voice stayed even.
“But I don’t want to promise you a procedure I don’t control.”
Sofía appreciated that more than reassurance.
She had spent enough years in hospitals to know that certainty was often something people offered when they had nothing else useful to give.
Her phone began vibrating again.
Maribel reached toward it.
Sofía stopped her.
“I’ll take it.”
It was Andrés.
She declined the call.
A message appeared almost immediately.
I’m coming there.
Sofía showed the screen to Lucía.
“Do you want him kept away from you?”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly enough to surprise her.
Lucía nodded.
“I’ll let security know.”
Another message appeared.
Please don’t do anything before I get there.
Sofía stared at it.
“What does he think I’m going to do?” she asked.
Maribel folded her arms.
“You already know.”
Sofía looked at her.
Maribel rarely spoke sharply.
She was the kind of nurse who apologized to IV poles after bumping them.
Tonight her mouth was a hard line.
Lucía asked whether Andrés had ever threatened Sofía.
“No.”
“Controlled money?”
“No.”
“Stopped you from seeing people?”
“No.”
Sofía hesitated.
“He avoids things.”
Lucía waited.
“He lets his family say whatever they want, and then later he tells me not to take it personally.”
“That’s not a criminal offense.”
“I know.”
Sofía looked toward the curtain.
“But I think I kept translating it into something smaller because I wanted my marriage to work.”
Lucía did not answer that.
She returned to the report.
Afterward, another officer photographed the faint redness around Sofía’s forearm and the tenderness beginning to darken below her abdomen.
Sofía hated every second of it.
Not because the officer was disrespectful.
He was almost excessively careful.
She hated the conversion of her body into documentation.
A ruler beside a mark.
A date.
An angle.
A file number.
Something private turning procedural.
When it was over, Maribel brought her crackers and tea.
“You need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know.”
Maribel opened the packet anyway and put it beside her.
For ten minutes they said nothing.
A child cried somewhere down the hall.
A monitor alarm chirped twice before someone silenced it.
A janitor rolled a trash bin past the curtain, one wheel squeaking at every rotation.
Sofía broke one cracker into four pieces without eating any of them.
“I bought prenatal vitamins yesterday.”
Maribel’s face changed.
“They’re in my kitchen.”
Sofía stared at the crumbs on her blanket.
“I hid them behind the coffee because Andrés never moves the coffee.”
Maribel reached over and covered Sofía’s hand.
That was the first moment Sofía cried.
Not when the doctor told her.
Not when she spoke to the police.
Not when she saw the blood.
It was the stupid hiding place behind the coffee that broke her.
She cried quietly, shoulders shaking, breath catching in her throat.
Maribel stayed until the worst of it passed.
Then she handed Sofía tissues from the box and said, “These are terrible tissues.”
Sofía gave a broken laugh.
“They’re basically sandpaper.”
“I’ve been saying that for years.”
The laugh hurt her abdomen.
She pressed a hand there and winced.
Maribel immediately became serious again.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, don’t laugh.”
“That seems medically questionable.”
“Tonight I outrank humor.”
Someone knocked lightly on the curtain frame.
A security guard leaned in.
“Your husband is here.”
Sofía’s body went rigid.
“He’s not coming in.”
“He says he only wants five minutes.”
“No.”
The guard nodded.
“He also says he brought your purse.”
“My purse is here.”
The guard looked embarrassed.
“He said your other purse.”
Sofía almost smiled despite herself.
Andrés had always been terrible at lying under pressure.
“What color?”
The guard blinked.
“What?”
“What color purse did he bring?”
“I didn’t see one.”
Sofía closed her eyes.
“Please tell him to leave.”
The guard disappeared.
Two minutes later Sofía’s phone rang.
Then again.
Then a voice came from the hallway.
“Sofía.”
She knew the exact quality of Andrés’s panic.
Not loud.
Not angry.
Thin and breathless, as if he were trying to solve an emergency by keeping his voice gentle.
“Sofía, please.”
Maribel stood.
“I can call security back.”
Lucía had stepped out to coordinate the report.
Sofía stared at the curtain.
Some part of her wanted Andrés to come through it.
Not because she forgave him.
May you like
Because a piece of her still believed he might become the man she had expected him to be in the living room.
He might cross the room too late and somehow make lateness different from absence.
