My niece was supposed to go home to her husband and newborn son, but when I found her barefoot outside the hospital in five-degree cold, still wearing her hospital gown and clutching the baby as if her life depended on it, she showed me a message saying her home was gone, her belongings had been thrown out into the snow, and in that instant I understood this wasn’t a marriage falling apart… It was a trap set by people who had no idea who she was about to call…

When Elena got pregnant, he changed. He started coming home late, answering curtly, telling her he didn’t understand “the pressures a man puts on him.” She was vulnerable, tired, in love… and he knew it.

The real trap was set at the hospital.

Mauricio’s brother, Rubén, works at the Public Registry. Two days before the birth, he showed up with a folder and a pen. He told Elena they were “papers to protect the baby’s inheritance,” that Mauricio was overwhelmed, and that it was all just a simple procedure.

Elena was in pain, on medication, scared, signing without reading while staff came and went.

Among those papers was a transfer of ownership of the apartment to her name.