From the little roadside fondita across from the dirt road, you watched them through the live camera feed like they were actors who hadn’t realized the audience had finally turned against them. Ofelia stood closest to the gate, one hand planted on her hip, the other gripping that oversized burgundy handbag like it held authority instead of lipstick and receipts. Sergio kept glancing at his phone, then at the house, then back at his relatives, already sweating through the collar of the shirt you had ironed for him the night before you stopped ironing anything for him at all. Behind them, two nieces wrestled with gold balloons, an uncle balanced a tray of mole in both hands, and one cousin stood by the car with a folded table tucked under his arm like he was setting up camP urm On land he thought had already been won.
When you told him to put you on speaker, the sound outside changed. The murmuring died, the balloons stopped squeaking, even the cousin with the portable speaker lowered it to his side. The silence that followed was the kind that makes people stand straighter because they sense something ugly is about to step into daylight. And for the first time that morning, Sergio’s face stopped performing confusion and started showing fear
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