Armando’s voice was low. “Ivan is not reliable. We know that.”
That surprised me enough to make me look up.
He held my gaze. “If we truly believed a child was being passed around because nobody wanted her, we were not going to send her away again without knowing more.”
It was not an apology.
Not yet.
But it was a crack in the wall.
“I am taking her,” I said.
Irma did not move to block me this time.
Renata held my hand the whole way to the car, her fingers digging into mine as if someone might vote again if she let go.
I did not go back to the house.
Not that day.
I drove to a hotel near the hospital, the kind with clean white sheets, a lobby coffee station, and hallway carpet patterned in gray squares. At the front desk, I asked that no one be given my room number. The clerk, a woman with tired eyes and purple nail polish, looked at my scrubs, then at Renata holding the stuffed rabbit Irma had sent with her, and nodded without questions.
“Of course.”
The room had two queen beds and a view of the parking lot. Nothing beautiful. Nothing familiar. That was enough.
Renata sat on the edge of one bed still wearing her shoes.
“Are we safe here?” she asked.
I sat beside her. “Yes.”
“Do they know where we are?”
“No.”
She looked at the door. “Can they vote again?”
My throat tightened.
“No,” I said. “Nobody gets to vote you away from me.”
That night I bought her pajamas from a store near the hotel and ordered grilled cheese from room service because it was the only thing she said sounded okay. I helped her shower. I brushed her hair. I put on her favorite cartoon and lay beside her until her breathing slowed.
Only after she slept did I check my phone.
Missed calls from my mother.
My father.
Lorena.
Messages piled up.
Answer us.
You are overreacting.
You are destroying this family.
Lorena did nothing wrong.
Your parents do not deserve this.
Bring Renata back and talk like an adult.
I responded to none of them.
The next morning, I called my supervisor at the hospital.
“Patricia?” she said. “You sound awful.”
“I have a family emergency. I need a few days.”
She did not ask for details. Good supervisors know when a voice has already spent all its strength.
“Take them,” she said. “We’ll cover you.”
A coworker connected me with a family attorney named Graham Salcedo. His office was in a converted brick house near downtown, with low bookshelves, warm lamps, and legal pads stacked in careful piles. I arrived with Renata at a friend’s apartment nearby and the folder of documents in my arms.
Graham Salcedo was serious in a way that calmed me. He did not perform outrage. He did not interrupt. He read.
The deed.