Chapter 4 - What Mateo Learned
Months later, Mateo sat beside Renata on the small balcony of their apartment.
The walls had been repainted.
The broken toys were gone.
The kitchen was clean.
There were no suitcases piled in corners.
No shouting from the living room.
No one telling Renata she was selfish for needing rest.
Mateo held a crayon drawing in his lap.
It showed a little boy, a woman, and a yellow apartment building beneath a bright blue sky.
“Is this us?” Renata asked.
Mateo nodded.
“And who is that?” she asked, pointing to the woman.
“That’s you.”
“What am I doing?”
“You’re holding my hand.”
Renata swallowed hard.
Then he looked up at her.
“Are bad people coming back?”
She took his small hand.
“No, mi amor. And if anyone ever tries to hurt us again, we will ask for help.”
“Like Jimena?”
“Like Jimena.”
Mateo thought for a moment.
Then he leaned against her shoulder.
“Daddy should have helped.”
Renata closed her eyes.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “He should have.”
But Mateo would grow up knowing something different.
That love did not stay silent in the face of harm.
That a home was not a place where people endured cruelty.
And that his mother was never weak because she stayed quiet.
She had simply been gathering proof.
May you like
The six slaps did not make Renata lose her home.
They ended the illusion that it belonged to anyone but her.
