He grabbed my hair.

And she yelled at me to stop whining and get out. Meanwhile, my father looked away with disdain, and my sister smiled, saying that she would finally have the room to herself…

Until my husband arrived.

And everything changed.

……

My name is Lucía Hernández. I am thirty-one years old. And I was kicked out of my house twenty-four hours after a cesarean section.

Not from my apartment.
But from my parents’ apartment in Ecatepec, where I was recovering because in the apartment I shared with my husband, Mateo García, they were still fixing a water leak that had turned the bedroom upside down.

Mateo had gone to the pharmacy to get antibiotics, gauze, and the postpartum towels that the hospital had sent me.

I was in my old room, with my daughter Valeria asleep in the bassinet, moving slowly because every step pulled at my stitches.

Then my mother Carmen’s cell phone rang. And as soon as she hung up, she came into the room with that sharp expression she always wore when it came to my sister.

“Your sister is coming this afternoon with the baby,” she said. “
She needs this room more than you do.”

I thought it was a cruel joke.

My sister Daniela, two years younger than me, had just had a baby and had been the center of the house all her life.

Even so, I thought that not even my mother would be able to say that in front of a woman who had just had surgery.

“Mom, I can barely get up,” I told her. “
At least let me rest until Mateo gets back. Then we’ll figure something out.”

She didn’t even blink.

—You’re moving perfectly.
Start putting your things away.

My father, José, was leaning against the living room door, not looking at my face.

When I tried to stand up with Valeria in my arms and the pain bent my waist, I muttered that it was inhuman.

That’s when my mother lost control.

He came closer, grabbed my hair with one hand and pulled me towards the edge of the bed.

“Stop whining,” he yelled at me. “
Pack your bags and get out.”

I let out a groan because I felt a lash on the wound.

My father snorted, annoyed, as if I were making a scene on a whim.

“Get her out of here now,” he said. “
She’s making me uncomfortable.”

Daniela arrived ten minutes later with her stroller, a huge bag, and that usual half-smile.

She looked at my swollen eyes, the stained nightgown, the poorly closed suitcase by the door, and blurted out:

—Finally I’m going to have the room to myself,
without your drama.

I don’t remember exactly how I got downstairs. I only know that Valeria started crying, that I could barely see through my tears, and that the cold air outside cut my skin when I crossed the gate with one hand on my stomach and the other holding the bassinet.

Then Mateo’s car turned the corner.

He braked sharply when he saw me standing on the sidewalk, pale, disheveled, trembling.

She got out, left the pharmacy bag on the seat and looked first at my hands, then at my disheveled hair, then at the blood that was peeking out from under the fabric of my nightgown.

I told him just one sentence:

—They fired me.