CHAPTER 4 – Camilo's Secret
CHAPTER 4 – Camilo's Secret
When I returned home, Camilo was waiting in the kitchen.
His arms were crossed.
His expression wasn't worried.
It was angry.
"Where is she?"
"I found her a motel."
"You what?"
"I'm paying for three nights."
"You should've brought her home."
I stared at him.
"After everything that happened?"
"She's my mother."
"And I'm your wife."
Silence.
Then I asked the question that had been growing in my mind all day.
"How long have you known about Mateo taking her money?"
Camilo looked away.
Too quickly.
My stomach dropped.
"You knew."
"I..."
"You knew."
"I found out months ago."
Everything inside me froze.
"Months?"
He nodded without meeting my eyes.
"I thought they'd work it out."
"You watched your mother become homeless..."
"...and said nothing?"
"I didn't think he'd actually throw her out."
I couldn't recognize the man standing in front of me.
The man I had married would've fought for his mother.
The man before me avoided conflict until other people paid the price.
"So instead..."
"...you decided to move her into my apartment..."
"...without asking me?"
"I didn't know what else to do."
"You could've told me the truth."
"I was afraid you'd say no."
The exact same words his mother had spoken.
Suddenly it all made sense.
They hadn't acted separately.
They had planned it together.
"You both lied to me."
Camilo remained silent.
"You invented the story about the cousin."
Silence.
"You made me think she was only staying a few days."
Silence again.
Finally, he whispered,
"It was supposed to be temporary."
"No."
I shook my head.
"It wasn't."
I remembered the organized closet.
My underwear on the bed.
My daughter's room already transformed.
The empty suitcase.
"No one unpacks their entire life for three days."
His shoulders slumped.
"I thought..."
"...once she settled in..."
"...you wouldn't ask her to leave."
The room spun.
It had never been an emergency.
It had been a strategy.
A plan built entirely on trapping me into accepting something I never agreed to.
I walked to the hallway closet and reached for the small metal lockbox where we kept important documents.
I opened it.
Our apartment lease was gone.
"Camilo."
He looked up.
"Where is the lease?"
His face lost all color.
"What?"
"The lease."
"It's..."
"Where is it?"
"I let Mom borrow it."
My pulse pounded in my ears.
"Why?"
He swallowed.
"She said she needed proof of address."
My voice became dangerously quiet.
"For what?"
"I don't know."
I grabbed my laptop, logged into our tenant portal, and searched our account.
One new document had been uploaded two days earlier.
The upload wasn't mine.
It wasn't from the landlord.
It had been submitted from Camilo's account.
I clicked it open.
At the top of the page, in bold letters, were the words:
APPLICATION TO ADD A PERMANENT OCCUPANT TO THE LEASE
My apartment.
My signature line.
Already filled in.
Except...
It wasn't my signature.
Someone had forged my name.
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And according to the timestamp...
The application had been submitted the day before Doña Esperanza moved in.
