Sandra stepped to my side. “Good evening. I am Sandra Aguilar, attorney at law. We are here to notify you that Mrs. Laura is initiating proceedings for forgery, attempted asset fraud, and economic abuse. Furthermore, a protection order has been requested to prevent you from disposing of the property or removing common assets.”
Mrs. Mireya clutched her chest. “What an exaggeration! This is just a couple’s quarrel!”
Sandra looked at her calmly. “Ma’am, forging a signature is not a couple’s quarrel.”
The officer told Bruno to stay calm. Bruno started to sweat. “I didn’t forge anything.”
Sandra raised an eyebrow. “Perfect. Then you won’t have any problem explaining why there is a power of attorney with Laura’s name misspelled and a signature that doesn’t match her official ID.”
“It was a draft.”
“And the deposits to Sarah—were those drafts, too?”
Mrs. Mireya looked at her son. The Queen Mother was starting to crumble. “Deposits?”
Bruno didn’t answer. I did. “He was paying for his new life before he finished stealing mine.”
Mrs. Mireya turned bright red. Not out of shame for me, but out of rage because her son had made her look bad.
“Bruno, tell me this isn’t true.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Mom, it’s not that simple.”
“You were going to give the house to someone else?”
“I was going to fix it!”
“And what did you tell me?” she screamed. “That Laura had you tied down? That you were the one making sacrifices?”
I stood still. Interesting. The lies had branches.
Bruno turned to me, desperate. “Laura, please. I swear Sarah doesn’t mean anything.”
“That’s ugly. She meant enough to move her into my house.”
“It was a mistake.”
“No. A mistake is forgetting to buy milk. You made a list.”
Sandra let out a tiny snicker. I pointed to the folder. “There’s your plan, point by point. You even wrote ‘change the locks.’ I beat you by a week.”
Bruno lowered his voice. “What do you want?”
That question made me sick. He didn’t ask how I felt. He didn’t ask how to make amends. He asked for a price. As if my dignity were on clearance, too.
“I want you to take your things under supervision. I want you to never come near me again. I want your forged signature to cost you. And I want a divorce.”
Mrs. Mireya let out a shriek. “No divorce! You’ll destroy the family!”
I looked at her. “No, ma’am. The family was already destroyed. I just found the dust under the rug.”
Bruno tried to cry. I knew him. First came the arrogance. Then the offense. Then the tears. Always in that order.
“Laura, think of everything we’ve been through.”
I thought. I thought of the Christmases spent cooking for his family while he played cards. The times he hid expenses from me. My forgotten birthday. His shirts ironed for meetings where he told people I “didn’t work.” His mother’s laugh saying I’d probably spend the cleaning lady’s money.
I had thought enough. “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I said. “And that’s why I don’t want to live it anymore.”
The officer explained that he could enter to get his clothes and personal documents, but he couldn’t remove furniture or unrecorded papers. Bruno looked insulted by the idea of being watched in his own trap.
I took off the chain. He walked in slowly. He looked at the impeccable house. The shining kitchen. The windows without a smudge. The waxed floor. Everything he used to measure me. Everything he never thanked me for.
“You really do clean well,” he murmured, perhaps without thinking.
I felt a cold calm. “No, Bruno. I hold things together well. Cleaning was the least of it.”
He went to the bedroom. I followed him with Sandra. Mrs. Mireya tried to enter, too, but the officer stopped her.
“Only the gentleman.”
“I’m his mother!”
“Precisely,” Sandra said.
Bruno stuffed clothes into a suitcase. He took colognes, belts, papers from his drawer. When he tried to grab the house folder, I put my hand on it.
“That stays.”
“I need documents.”
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