Chapter 3
Dr. Elena arrived with a medical bag and the kind of face doctors wear when they already know they are walking into something ugly.
She examined Isabella in the small sitting room.
I sat beside my daughter.
Beatriz tried to stay.
Elena looked at her.
“I need space to examine the child.”
“She’s my stepdaughter.”
“And right now she is my patient.”
Beatriz did not like that.
Good.
Isabella kept looking at me every few seconds.
As if checking whether I would leave.
I did not.
Elena photographed the blisters.
The redness.
The small cuts around Isabella’s fingers.
The bruising on her knees.
She asked questions gently.
“How did this happen?”
Isabella looked at Beatriz.
Beatriz smiled.
Elena saw that.
“Mrs. Ortega,” Elena said, “please wait outside.”
Beatriz laughed.
“No.”
I stood.
“Yes.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You are making a mistake.”
“Then add it to your list.”
For a second, I thought she would argue.
Then she walked out.
The door closed.
Isabella’s shoulders dropped like her body had been holding a heavy door shut.
Elena softened her voice.
“Isabella, did someone make you carry those bags?”
My daughter looked at me.
I said, “You are safe.”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Beatriz.”
“How many times?”
Isabella’s lips trembled.
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
Elena continued.
“What else does she make you do?”
Isabella began small.
Laundry.
Scrubbing floors.
Washing Beatriz’s terrace tiles.
Cleaning shoes.
Carrying grocery crates.
Taking trash.
Then came the worse things.
No dinner if chores were slow.
No phone calls with me unless she smiled.
No speaking to staff alone.
No telling me anything because “your father loves me, not your whining.”
By the time she finished, Elena’s face had changed completely.
“Ivan,” she said softly, “we need to document everything.”
“I know.”
“And I need to report this.”
Beatriz burst into the room.
“No, you don’t.”
She had been listening.
Elena stood.
“Yes, I do.”
Beatriz pointed at Isabella.
“She’s lying.”
My daughter shrank into the chair.
I stepped in front of her.
Beatriz turned to me.
“You know what she’s like. Her mother spoiled her.”
The room went silent.
My first wife, Lucia, had died when Isabella was four.
I had not heard Beatriz speak her name with that much contempt before.
Maybe she had always done it when I was gone.
I asked quietly, “What did you say?”
Beatriz’s confidence flickered.
“I said Lucia made her soft.”
Isabella began to cry.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
A small broken sound.
I turned to Elena.
“Finish the report.”
Beatriz grabbed my sleeve.
“You are choosing a dead woman’s child over your living wife.”
I looked at her hand.
May you like
Then at her face.
“No,” I said. “I am choosing my daughter over the woman who hurt her.”
