Chapter 6 - The Long Drive Home
The silence inside Diego’s sedan was heavier than the ocean.
Diego drove with both hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel, his knuckles white against the dark leather. In the backseat, Leo had fallen asleep, exhausted from the tears, the trauma, and the late hour, his tiny hand still loosely holding his favorite toy car.
I sat in the passenger seat, staring out at the dark, winding highway stretching between Querétaro and our home. Beside my feet rested the gray metal storage box that my legal contact had advised me to retrieve from the trunk before we left the estate grounds. I hadn't opened it yet, but its weight felt like an anvil resting in the footwell.
Veronica had stayed behind at the venue, screaming at the staff, demanding refunds from vendors who were already packing up their equipment, while Fernanda was driven away by her tears in a separate taxi. Diego had chosen to walk out to the parking lot with me, but his silence offered no comfort.
"Laura," Diego finally broke the silence, his voice raw and trembling. "Where do we even go from here?"
"I'm going to a hotel tonight with Leo," I replied without looking at him. "Tomorrow, I’m getting a rental truck to pull our belongings out of your mother's house."
"Laura, please don't do this," Diego pleaded, glancing over at me briefly before looking back at the dark road. "My mom... she was wrong. What she did to Leo... it was monstrous. I see that now. I was blind, I was weak, but please don't destroy our marriage over her mistakes!"
"Her mistakes?" I turned to face him, my voice tight with restraint. "Diego, she pushed our five-year-old son onto a marble floor because he ate a piece of bread! She took my life savings! And you stood there—you stood there—and told me not to make a scene because you were worried about a potential business investor!"
"I panicked!" Diego yelled, tears spilling over his eyes. "I’ve spent my entire life trying to satisfy her! She made me feel like I was nothing unless I kept the family together! I thought if I just got through tonight, I could fix it quietly tomorrow!"
"You can't fix a house built on rot, Diego," I said softly. "You let her consume our lives. You let her treat me like a servant and our son like an inconvenience. And worst of all, you let her use my hard-worked money to build her fantasy while we slept in her spare bedroom."
"I'll pay you back!" Diego choked out. "I'll take out a personal loan! I'll work two jobs! I'll give you every single peso back, Laura, I promise you!"
"It was never just about the money, Diego," I whispered, looking out the window as the city lights of our town appeared in the distance. "It was about who you protected when the people you love were bleeding on the floor."
We pulled up to a modest extended-stay hotel near the outskirts of the commercial district. I didn't ask him to come in. I unbuckled my seatbelt, woke Leo gently, and picked up my purse and the gray box.
May you like
"Laura," Diego said, reaching out to touch my shoulder.
I pulled away. "Do not come to the hotel tonight, Diego. Tomorrow morning, I am bringing an attorney and a moving crew to your mother's house. Have our things packed."
