The venom in her voice hi:t me harder than any sla:p ever could.
Cristina stood planted in the doorway of the small bedroom I had called mine for the last three years, arms folded tightly across her chest, her face twisted with a disgust she no longer bothered to hide.
“It’s decided, Guillermo,” she said flatly. “Go. Leave. Die on the street if that’s what it takes—but you’re not living in my house another day. My house. Not ours. David’s house. My house.”
Her words erased three years of my life as if they had never existed.
Three years of helping with the bills using what little I earned from my boarding house. Three years of walking my grandchildren home from school, cooking their dinners, fixing broken doors, leaky pipes, loose tiles—every creak and crack in that house had passed through my hands. None of it mattered now.
I was seventy-four years old. A retired carpenter. My fingers were knotted from arthritis, my spine permanently curved from half a century of hauling wood, tools, and responsibility. And now my daughter-in-law—the woman I had known for barely five years—was discarding me like an old chair she no longer needed.
“Cristina,” I said calmly. At my age, I had learned that raising one’s voice never brought dignity back. “David knows about this?”
She didn’t hesitate. “He agrees. We talked last night. We’re tired of supporting an old man who causes nothing but problems.”
Problems.
I looked at her, searching her face for irony or shame. There was none.
“What problems have I caused?” I asked quietly.
She laughed. “You exist. That’s the problem. This house is too small. Three bedrooms. David needs an office to work from home and make real money—for our children. Not to shelter a useless old man.”
The words burned, but they didn’t surprise me. Some people reveal their true selves only when they believe they hold power over you.
“I understand,” I said.
That seemed to unsettle her. “That’s it? You understand?”
“Yes,” I replied. “You want me gone. I’ll go.”
Her mouth tightened. “Good. You have until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I asked. “I need at least a week to find a place.”
“I don’t care. Tomorrow—or I’ll call the police and say you threatened me. Who do you think they’ll believe? A senile old man, or me?”
Something shifted in me then. Not anger—clarity.
“I was just thinking,” I said softly, “that a gift will arrive at your door tomorrow.”
She frowned. “A gift? Are you insane?”
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