The phone call kept me awake all night.
An unfamiliar voice had repeated two words over and over like a warning: “DNA scandal.” It made the entire house feel tense, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
My name is Lara. I’m twenty-nine years old, and for months the neighborhood had been watching me with a mixture of curiosity and judgment—the way people do when a young woman marries an eighty-year-old man.
Don Raúl Hernández lived next door before I rented my small apartment. He was one of those older men everyone respected: the kind who greeted people by name, fixed broken locks for neighbors, and refused to accept payment beyond a cup of coffee.
His house was modest but full of life, with a courtyard covered in bougainvillea, a crooked lemon tree, and an old iron bench where he liked to read every afternoon.
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