Chapter 3 - THE ROOTS OF THE ROT
"Get up," I said softly to April, helping her rise to her feet. Every movement she made was stiff, agonizingly cautious, as if she expected a blow to land at any second. I scooped her up into my arms, ignoring her weak protests about being too heavy, and carried her straight upstairs to our bedroom.
I stripped off her damp, ruined house dress, wrapped her in the softest cashmere blanket we owned, and coaxed her into lying down on the bed. I washed her raw, red arms and legs with warm water from the bathroom, my hands trembling as I tended to the chafed skin caused by Berta’s cruelty.
When she finally drifted off into an exhausted, feverish sleep, her breathing punctuated by small, nervous sighs, I pulled the bedroom door shut, locked it from the outside, and walked slowly down the stairs.
My mother and Paola were still sitting in the dining room. Neither of them had left. They looked like two criminals waiting for the jury to return with a guilty verdict.
As I walked into the room, Berta’s heavy suitcase dragged across the marble foyer floor. She rushed past us toward the front door, her face red with anger and humiliation. She paused at the threshold, turning back to glare at me with venomous spite.
"You think you're a big man, Julián? You think you're protecting your precious little orphan?" Berta sneered, venom dripping from every word. "Ask your mother why I was here! Ask her who gave me the keys, and who told me to break that little stray dog of yours so she'd learn her place in this family! You got what you paid for, bank boy!"
She slammed the front door behind her so hard the glass in the sidelights rattled.
The front door click echoed through the house like a gunshot.
I turned slowly, walking back into the dining room, and pulled out a chair opposite my mother. I sat down, resting my elbows on the table, and stared at Elena with a gaze so devoid of warmth that she physically recoiled.
"Well?" I said, my voice dead, flat, and chillingly quiet. "Explain it to me, Mamá. Start talking before I lose the last shred of respect I have left for the woman who gave birth to me."
My mother swallowed hard, her fingers digging deep into the leather of her purse. For a long moment, she refused to meet my eyes, staring instead at the polished mahogany grain of the table.
"You don't understand, Julián," she started, her voice trembling with a defensive tremor. "We were only trying to help you. That girl—April—she doesn't belong in our world. She has no family, no breeding, no status. She walks around your house like a ghost, apologizing for breathing. When you're at the bank all day working yourself to the bone, do you have any idea what it’s like for us to watch you tie yourself to someone who brings nothing to the table?"
I let out a harsh, humorless laugh that sounded like glass breaking. "Nothing? She is carrying my child. She is my wife. I chose her."
"You made a mistake," Paola interrupted, her voice cracking as she finally lifted her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Julián, please, don't look at us like that. We didn't want Berta to hurt her like that. But Mamá was right... April was ruining you. She doesn't know how to run a proper household. She was depressed all the time, crying in corners, acting like a victim. Mamá just wanted to toughen her up a little bit, to show her how things are done in our family..."
"Toughen her up?" I stood up so fast my chair fell backward onto the floor with a loud crash.
Both women flinched violently.
"You didn't toughen her up!" I roared, the dam finally breaking. "You hired a sadistic, cruel tyrant to terrorize a pregnant woman in her own home! You watched her scrub the floor with mop water! You watched her get humiliated, broken, and starved while you sat there like a pair of gutless cowards! What is wrong with you people? What kind of twisted, sick monsters raised you?!"
"Julián! Watch your tone!" my mother snapped, her own pride finally flaring up to mask her guilt. "I am your mother! I brought you into this world! I sacrificed everything for you after your father died! And you're shouting at me over a girl with no last name who trapped you with an accidental pregnancy?"
The word accidental hung in the air like a foul odor.
I stared at the woman who had raised me, realizing with absolute clarity that I didn't know her at all. Underneath the polite church clothes, the charity work, and the sweet maternal smile lay an arrogant, elitist snob who viewed human beings as property and status symbols.
"Get out," I said quietly, pointing a steady finger toward the front door.
My mother’s jaw dropped. "What did you say?"
"I said, get out of my house," I repeated, every word dripping with ice. "Both of you. Pack your things, leave your keys on the counter, and walk out that door. And listen to me very carefully: if either of you ever attempts to contact my wife, my child, or me again, I will file criminal charges against Berta, and I will name both of you as co-conspirators in a case of targeted elder abuse, harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Try me."
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Paola gasped, covering her mouth in horror. "Julián, you can't be serious! We're your family!"
"Family doesn't torture the people they claim to love," I said, turning my back on them. "Get out."
