“Give me the seven million from the sale of your mother’s apartment, because that money is also my son’s!”
It was six in the morning when my mother-in-law, Doña Teresa, entered my house as if she were the owner. She didn’t knock. She didn’t say hello. She just pushed the door so hard that the bang made the frame shake.
I was in the kitchen, still wearing the same black sweatshirt I had worn the night before to review papers. My eyes were swollen from crying so much, not because of sleep, but because of six months of mourning that did not end.
My mother, Lucía Hernández, had died of a stroke. All her life she was a nurse at the General Hospital in Mexico City. She worked double shifts, ate standing up, bought cheap shoes even if her feet hurt, and always said: “Mija, one day I want to leave you something so that you don’t depend on anyone.”
I was his only daughter.
My husband, Diego, on the other hand, had been almost a ghost since she died. He was at the wake for twenty minutes because “he had a meeting.” When I had to empty my mother’s apartment in the Del Valle neighborhood, she said she was sad and went to play paddle tennis with her brother Alejandro. When I went to the notary, I went alone. When I signed papers, I cried alone.
But that morning Diego was there.
He walked in behind his mother, combed, bathed, with an ironed shirt. As if they were going to an important appointment. As if my pain finally interested them.
“Has the money already fallen?” Doña Teresa asked, looking at my cell phone on the table.
I froze.
“Good morning, Teresa,” I said, trying to stay calm.
She let out a dry laugh.
“Don’t play fine, Marisol. We know that yesterday the sale was closed. Seven million for that apartment. Your mom was lucky.
I felt a twinge in my chest.
Good luck.
My mom was unlucky. My mom broke her back for forty years. She saved every peso, she invested without telling anyone, she bought that apartment when everyone told her that a woman alone couldn’t. That money wasn’t a prize. It was her life turned into bricks, documents, and sacrifices.
Diego came over and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Love, don’t worry. My mom doesn’t mean it badly. But we have a family emergency.
“Familiar?” I asked.
“Alejandro needs help,” he said.
Alejandro, his older brother, was an expert in failing with style. He set up a gourmet taco business, went bankrupt. Then he sold supplements online, he went into debt. Then he asked for money for cryptocurrencies and disappeared for three weeks in Cancun.
“What does my mother have to do with Alejandro?” I asked.
Doña Teresa tapped the table with her palm.
“It has to do with the fact that you are Diego’s wife. And in Mexico the family supports each other. You are not going to keep millions while my other son sinks.
