PART 2
The bedroom door locked.
The nurse, whose name was Rebecca, returned with a supervisor and two hospital guards. One of them stayed outside. The other asked for my authorization to deny any visitors, including my husband.
“Can you do that?” I asked, still clutching Diego to my chest.
The supervisor looked at me firmly.
“Ma’am, after what we just heard, you and your children are not leaving here without protection.”
For the first time since Sofia pressed play, I could breathe.
I took out my cell phone and called the one person Luis had always underestimated: my sister Elena.
Elena wasn’t just my older sister.
She was a public prosecutor.
She answered on the second ring.
“Has my nephew been born yet?”
“Elena,” I said, my voice breaking. “Luis planned something. Sofia recorded him.”
There was a brief silence.
Then his tone changed.
“Don’t delete anything. Don’t talk to him. Don’t let him touch the tablet. I’m coming.”
Luis arrived ten minutes later with a huge bouquet of white roses.
They weren’t even my favorite flowers.
My favorites were yellow daisies, but Luis had stopped remembering things that didn’t suit him years ago.
From my bed, I heard his voice in the hallway.
“I’m her husband. She just gave birth. What right do you have to stop me from coming in?”
Sofia shrank down next to me.
“Don’t let him in, Mom.”
“He’s not coming in,” I promised her.
Luis insisted. He raised his voice. Then I heard Rebecca say something, and then his tone changed, soft, calculated.
“My wife is confused. She’s been very sensitive. Her gynecologist knows she had anxiety. Please don’t feed her ideas.”
There it was.
The script.
I was the crazy one.
I was the hormonal one.
I was the overreacting one.
For months, Luis hadn’t just planned to hurt me. He’d set the stage so no one would believe me.
When Elena arrived, her hair was pulled back, she was wearing black boots, and her gaze was unforgiving. Sofia ran to her and threw her arms around her neck.
“My girl,” Elena murmured. “You’re safe now.”
I handed her the tablet.
“Don’t let Luis take it.”
Elena listened to the recording twice.
The second time, her jaw was so rigid I thought it would break.
“This needs to be preserved today,” she said. “I need the tablet, your cell phone, the messages, the insurance documents, and your medical records.”
Then I remembered something.
“The tea.”
Elena looked up.
“What tea?”
“The night before the contractions started, Luis made me chamomile tea. He said it would help me relax.”
Sofia pulled away from Elena.
“I saw him, Auntie. He put a few drops from a small bottle on her. He told me they were vitamins for Mom.”
The room went cold.
I went into labor two hours later.
The doctors said the contractions had been very intense, sudden, but possible. I was too focused on the pain to ask questions.
Now every memory is like a knife.
Elena requested a toxicology screen. The doctor hesitated at first, but after listening to the audio recording, she agreed to report the suspicion.
Luis kept calling.
Then his mother called.
Then his brother.
Then an unknown number called, and when Elena answered, the number hung up.
The messages came one after another:
Mariana, you’re making a fool of yourself.
Don’t let your sister destroy our family.
Sofia is confused.
You’re not okay.
You need to rest.
I love you.
