Chapter 2 - Dinner at Eight
The slap came because dinner was late.
Not because anything had burned. Not because anyone was starving. Not because Mariana had refused. Dinner was late because Rodrigo had changed the time twice, invited his mother and sister without warning, and then expected the house to bend around his ego like everything else did.
“If dinner isn’t ready,” he said, “maybe this will teach you to do what you’re told.”
His hand crossed her face before she could answer.
The sound cracked through the dining room.
For a heartbeat, even the crystal glasses seemed to go still.
Rodrigo stood at the head of the table in his white dress shirt, rubbing the hand he had used to hit her as if she had inconvenienced him by having skin.
“I told you dinner was at eight,” he said. “It’s already 8:23.”
Teresa did not rise. She did not gasp. She did not tell her son to stop.
She lifted her wine glass and looked at Mariana as though evaluating a servant.
“A respectable wife knows how to care for her home,” she said. “If you can’t even cook pasta, why did you bother getting married?”
Fernanda crossed her legs and laughed softly.
“Go on, Mariana. Make something fast. And don’t start crying. You know how my brother gets when you embarrass him.”
Mariana touched the corner of her mouth.
There was a small mark on her fingertip.
Not enough to make them uncomfortable.
Enough to remind her of every excuse she had once accepted.
Flowers.
Stress.
Work pressure.
Her fault.
Then, eventually, no apology at all.
Now he did it openly.
In front of his mother.
In front of his sister.
May you like
At a dining table Mariana had paid for.
Inside a house that had belonged to her before Rodrigo ever learned the gate code.
