PART 2
I’m not an impulsive woman. If surgery has taught me anything, it’s that when everything falls apart, the only thing that saves it is order.
While Julián remained in that room playing at being father of the year, I stayed by the vending machines and turned the pain into a procedure. First, I transferred the money from our joint account to the personal account my mother forced me to keep “just in case.” Then I moved what was in the emergency fund, what we had set aside to finish paying off the cabin in Valle de Bravo, and the available cash from an investment we could both access. I didn’t take anything that was legally his alone. But everything that belonged to both of us, and that I had built up with thirty-hour shifts and lost weekends, I put in safe hands.
Then I blocked the shared credit cards, changed the passwords for the house alarm, the utilities, and even the platforms we paid for together. Then I called the only person I knew wouldn’t ask me to calm down or apologize: Rebeca Salgado, a family lawyer.
She answered on the second ring.
“I need a divorce strategy. Today,” I told her.
There was a brief silence. Then her tone changed.
“What did he do?”
“He told me he was going to Paris. I found him in the maternity ward, holding a newborn with another woman.”
Rebeca didn’t waste a second. “Don’t confront him yet. Save screenshots of everything. Bank statements, transactions, messages, emails, dates. Protect your documents and don’t delete anything. If you can finish your shift without breaking down, finish it. Then come to my office.”
I hung up and went back to operating on a man who had been stabbed outside a bar in Mixcoac. I stitched up an artery as if my life weren’t burning at the same time.
