And Camila, whom they thought they had silenced, had left more power in one small button than they had in all their wealth and names.
When they took my mother away, she screamed my name.
“Julian! I am your mother!”
For the first time in my life, that sentence held no power over me.
I looked at Camila’s coffin.
“And she was my wife.”
I did not smile.
Justice does not bring back a hand’s warmth. It does not rebuild laughter. It does not fill an empty room.
But sometimes justice is the only thing left to keep love from being buried twice.
Six months later, the house no longer smelled of candles or lies.
I took down the black curtains and opened every window. I sold the furniture my mother had chosen and filled the living room with plants, sunlight, and photographs of Camila smiling with her hair loose, exactly the way she loved.
