The banging came again.
It was not really a knock.
It was a show.
The kind of loud, open-handed pounding people use when they want the neighbors peeking through curtains, choosing sides before they even know the truth.
I stood behind the curtain, barefoot, still wrapped in the robe I had tied around my waist so tightly it felt like armor. The living room still smelled faintly of the coffee I had made and forgotten to drink. Outside, Doña Lupita was still making a scene.
“My son paid for everything!” she shouted. “Everything! She’s unstable! She locked him out of his own home!”
One officer looked uncomfortable. The younger one kept staring at the door like he wished he had been sent to handle a missing bicycle instead of this circus.
I opened the door only as far as the chain would allow.
“Good morning,” I said.
The older officer, broad in the middle with tired but kind eyes, touched the edge of his cap.
“Señora Salgado?”
“Yes.”
“We received a report about a domestic dispute.”
“A domestic dispute,” I repeated.
Behind him, Doña Lupita threw both hands toward the sky.
“She admits it! She’s crazy! My son is in Cancún working, and she has stolen his house!”
I looked at her carefully.
She was wearing pearls at nine in the morning.
Pearls. Lipstick. A pressed blouse. A handbag tucked under her arm. A truly worried mother would have come in slippers and messy hair. Doña Lupita had dressed for an audience.
That was the first useful thing I noticed.
