The man sitting inside the apartment didn’t stand when I entered, he only watched me carefully, like he had been waiting far longer than I understood.
For a second, I thought I had walked into the wrong place, but then he said my name quietly, and something inside my chest tightened.
“Bernardo,” he said, his voice calm but heavy, “she told me you would come, but not this soon.”
The door clicked shut behind me, and I realized my hands were still shaking from the drive, from the rain, from everything I hadn’t processed yet.
I looked around the room, small, clean, almost empty, and then back at him, trying to understand why my daughter would send me here.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice sounding older than I felt, like it carried more years than my body could hold.
He hesitated, just long enough to make me uneasy, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, studying me like a difficult memory.
“My name is Mateo,” he said, “and I think I’m the reason your daughter had to push you out of that house.”
