Miguel did not make Sofia's promise for her. He said, "Your mom just promised you. And if you're ever worried, you can call me, Aunt Maribel, Uncle Javier, or Dr. Teresa. You never have to keep grown-up secrets."
Lucia nodded. Sofia swallowed hard. The offshore rotation lasted twenty-eight days.
It was the strangest month of Miguel's career. He had spent years functioning through homesickness, but now distance felt chemically different. Every delay in Sofia's response triggered suspicion. Every unfamiliar background sound during a call made his body tense. He hated himself for scanning Lucia's casual stories for evidence: who came over, who called, whether Mom went out, whether there was another toothbrush.
Ben Cole had warned him this would happen. "Hypervigilance is not trust," Ben had said. "It's the nervous system trying to replace trust with surveillance. It can keep you alert, but it cannot keep you married."
Miguel repeated that sentence to himself on the platform at two in the morning while the Gulf wind beat against the structure. Sofia, meanwhile, did what she had said she would do. She attended individual therapy. She sent Miguel her schedule, not because he demanded minute-by-minute proof but because predictability helped. She did not ask Lucia to report anything to him. She invited Maribel over on two Saturdays when loneliness hit hardest and admitted why rather than pretending she was simply socializing.