At the hospital, everything becomes fluorescent, cold, and procedural. Mercedes disappears behind double doors while a nurse takes statements and asks for identification. Tomás paces with one hand in his hair, playing devastated son for anyone with a clipboard. Every few minutes he looks at you, not with love, not with concern, but with the hard, measuring stare of someone deciding which version of you will be easiest to destroy.
When the nurse asks if Mercedes has enemies, he laughs once through his teeth.
“Not enemies,” he says. “Tension at home.”
You feel the floor shift under the sentence.
The nurse looks up. “What kind of tension?”
Tomás sighs the way kind men do when forced to reveal the burden of a difficult wife. “My wife has been under a lot of emotional strain lately,” he says. “There have been… misunderstandings. My mother and she have not always gotten along.”
He says it softly, regretfully, like a man protecting your dignity.
You finally speak.
“The coffee he gave me smelled wrong,” you say.
Silence lands between the three of you so cleanly it almost sounds deliberate. The nurse blinks. Tomás does not move at all. He only turns his head toward you, slowly, like a machine resetting its angle.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
Your pulse is roaring now, but your voice comes out steady. “The coffee you put in front of me smelled like bitter almonds.”
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