Not at Miguel.
Not at Lupita.
At the door.
As if she had heard footsteps no one else could hear.
Lupita picked up her phone again, but her hand trembled before she could unlock it.
“We should call the police,” she said.
Miguel immediately thought of his truck.
The unpaid fine.
The expired inspection sticker he had promised to fix after the next delivery.
The hours he would lose, the questions, the suspicion, the way people like him were rarely believed first.
Then he looked at Canela’s paws.
He hated himself for thinking about the truck.
“They may take the dog,” he said.
“They may help her.”
“They may take the puppies too.”
“They may find Sofía.”
“And if Sofía left that bracelet because she wanted no one to find her?”
Lupita looked at him then, hurt by the possibility and by the fact that he had said it aloud.
The pale puppy made a tiny sound, almost a complaint, and Lupita lowered her eyes again.
She knew, as Miguel knew, that people left things behind for many reasons.
Some ran from danger.
Some caused it.
Some were simply too tired to keep carrying every piece of their life.
Miguel sat on the floor, his back against the cabinet, and pressed both hands over his face.
His phone vibrated again.
This time it was not Lupita.
It was his dispatcher.
He had missed the delivery window.
There would be a penalty, maybe worse, because he had already received two warnings that month.
He let the call fade.
Lupita watched the screen go dark.
“That job pays our rent,” she said.
“I know.”
“I said bring them because I couldn’t bear it. But I didn’t say lose everything.”
“I know.”
“And now there is a hospital bracelet, and maybe a missing baby, and maybe nothing we can fix.”
Miguel looked at her.
The anniversary flowers he had not bought seemed suddenly small, but not unimportant.
This was how he always failed her, not through one big betrayal, but through little absences that piled up quietly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Lupita’s eyes filled, but she did not let the tears fall.
“For tonight or for every night you thought apologizing later was enough?”
Miguel had no answer that would not sound poor.
