Elena sat on the floor beside her. "Mommy and Daddy are working through a grown-up problem. The perfume lady is Aunt Carmen. We are not mad at you. Not even a little."
"I can still smell pretty sometimes?" Sofia asked.
"When you are older," Elena said. "For now, glitter lotion from the drugstore. Deal?"
"Deal," Sofia said, and sealed it with a sticky hug.
Carmen texted once a day, short updates about Papa, never asking for warmth. Elena answered factually. The restraint on both sides felt like physical therapy—necessary, repetitive, humiliating in its smallness.
The weeks that followed were not simple.
Elena visited her father twice more with Carmen and once alone. She and Carmen spoke carefully, then less carefully, then with the sudden sharpness of old wounds remembering their maps. They argued once in the hospital cafeteria about whether Carmen had a right to be in Sofia's life. Elena said not yet. Carmen said she understood. Understanding, Elena discovered, could be a kind of love when apologies were still under construction.