I drove to Claudia's the next morning.

I arrived just after nine.

The house was already loud — Claudia's three children moving through it like weather, the dog skidding on the tile floor, something burning slightly on the stove that nobody seemed concerned about.

Isabella was at the kitchen table.

She was in one of Claudia's daughter's sweaters, pale blue and slightly too large for her.

Her bandaged hands were wrapped around a glass of orange juice.

She was watching Claudia's youngest argue with the dog about something and she was almost smiling.

When she saw me she put the glass down and stood up.

I crossed the kitchen and held her carefully, mindful of her hands.

She pressed her face against my shoulder and stayed there for a moment.

Then she stepped back and looked at me with the serious, reading expression she always used when she was trying to understand something important.

"Is it finished?" she said.

"Most of it."

She nodded slowly.

"Is Beatriz gone?"

"Yes."

She thought about that.

"Is she in trouble?"

"She will be.

Yes."

Another nod.

She sat back down and picked up her juice.

Claudia's youngest had won the argument with the dog and was now triumphant at the other end of the table.

"Papa," Isabella said.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Always."

She looked at her glass.

"When you were in the garden.

Before you came out.

How long did you watch?"

"About forty minutes."

She looked up.

"You watched for forty minutes and you didn't come out?"

"I needed to understand what I was seeing."

She considered this.

"Were you scared?"

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"Of making a mistake that would make things worse for you."

She turned the glass slowly in her bandaged hands.

"Rosa said you were very smart.

She said you would figure it out."

"Rosa said that?"

"She said it every week." Isabella looked at me.

"She said, 'Your papa will come home and he will figure it out, and until then we just have to be careful.'" She paused.

"I didn't always believe her."

"I know."

"But she kept saying it."

"She was right."

Isabella was quiet for a moment.

Around us the kitchen continued its noise — Claudia stirring something, the children, the dog, the ordinary chaos of a house full of people who felt safe enough to be loud.

"I want to go home," Isabella said.

"But I also don't want to go back to how it was before.

When you were away all the time."

I sat down across from her.

"I know."

"I know you have to work," she said quickly.

"I'm not saying you can't.

I just—" She stopped.

"When you were gone, the house felt different."

"It won't be the same," I said.

"I'm going to make some changes.

The Dubai project is finished.

There are things I can manage from here.

I won't be away for three months again."

She looked at me carefully.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

She seemed to weigh that.

Then she picked up her juice again and drank the rest of it.

"Okay," she said.

Claudia set a plate of toast in front of me without asking.

She caught my eye across the table and gave me a single nod — the kind that meant *she's going to be fine* — and went back to the stove.

We stayed for lunch.

Afterward, Isabella played in the garden with Claudia's children while I sat with my sister on the terrace with coffee going cold between us.

"She talked last night," Claudia said.

"After dinner.

She told me some of what happened."

"How much?"

"Enough." Claudia looked at the garden, where Isabella was attempting to teach Claudia's son a card game with patient, careful instructions.

"She's resilient, Marcos.

But she's going to need time.

And she's going to need to know that what happened wasn't normal.

That it wasn't what she deserved."

"I know."

"Have you told her that directly?"

I looked at Isabella in the garden.

"Not in those words."

"Tell her in those words," Claudia said.

"Children need to hear the exact thing.

Not the implication of it."

I nodded.

Later, when we were in the car heading back to Marbella, I waited until we were on the open road with the sea coming into view on the left.

"Isabella."

"Mm."

"What happened while I was away — the bags, the chores, the things Beatriz said to you at night — none of that was normal.

None of it was what you deserved.

It was wrong.

And it was not your fault."

She was quiet for a moment.

"I know," she said.

"I want to make sure you know."

"I do." She looked out the window at the sea.

"But it's good to hear you say it."

We drove the rest of the way home with the windows down, the warm air moving through the car, the road ahead clean and straight and clear.