"Do not say I know as if agreement is the same as repair."
Marco stood. He did not approach her. He understood, somehow, that approaching would be a kind of theft.
"I was wrong," he said. "I told myself I was protecting you from the shock until Carmen was steady enough to face you. I told myself I was protecting Sofia from the sound of another war between sisters. I told myself a lot of noble garbage while I sat in traffic with your sister crying in the passenger seat. The truth is I was afraid. Afraid you would leave me for keeping it. Afraid you would refuse your father and hate yourself later. Afraid of choosing wrong in every direction."
Elena walked back to the coffee table and stared at the empty space where the perfume had briefly sat, as if the ghost of the bottle might still explain itself. Upstairs, Sofia murmured in her sleep. The house held its breath around the three of them.
"Is he really dying?" Elena asked. The question came out smaller than she intended.
"Congestive heart failure. The doctors gave him months, maybe less. Carmen has the papers. She wanted to bring them herself."
Elena sat down hard on the sectional. The navy fabric accepted her the way it always had, without judgment. She thought of her father's hands. She thought of Carmen's laugh from before the drinking became a country with no borders. She thought of Marco closing the laptop too quickly and hated that the gesture had been about fear rather than adultery and hated, too, that the distinction did not immediately make the betrayal smaller.