Chapter 2 - Alejandro Enters The Bathroom With A Guilt-Ridden Expression
Alejandro stood frozen in the bathroom doorway, his tall frame blocking the soft hallway light. His eyes darted from my pale face to the trembling woman sitting in the warm bathtub water.
"You found her birthmark, didn't you?" Alejandro asked, his voice barely rising above a hollow whisper. I slowly stood up from the edge of the tub, my hands clenched into tight fists at my sides.
"How long have you known, Alejandro?" I demanded, stepping out into the hallway and forcing him backward. He didn't answer immediately, running a nervous hand through his dark hair as guilt washed over his features.
"I only realized it this morning at the downtown soup kitchen when she showed me her old ID photo," Alejandro confessed quietly. "She dropped it in the soup line, and the name on the laminated card was Lucile Bennett."
My breath caught in my throat as the staggering reality of his deception sank deep into my chest. "You brought her here under the guise of charity, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me?" I cried out.
Lucy pulled the towel tightly around her shoulders inside the tub, her eyes wide with mounting confusion and terror. "Please, don't fight," Lucy pleaded softly from the bathroom, her voice echoing off the tile walls.
I turned my back on my husband, marching down the long carpeted hallway toward our master bedroom suite. Alejandro followed closely behind me, his footsteps heavy with remorse as he closed the bedroom door behind us.
"I wanted to tell you privately, Mariana, without shocking you in the middle of a public soup kitchen," Alejandro defended himself weakly. "You spent twenty years believing she was dead, and I needed to verify the facts first."
I spun around to face him, my eyes burning with tears of betrayal and long-suppressed grief. "You lied to me, Alejandro, and you played games with my mother's life while she was living on the streets!" I screamed.
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The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the hum of the central air conditioning unit. Alejandro stepped forward, reaching out a gentle hand to touch my trembling arm.
"We are going to find out what happened twenty years ago, Mariana, I promise you that," Alejandro vowed softly. But looking into his eyes, I realized this mystery went much deeper than my husband was willing to admit.
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