“Where do we go now, Armando?” Rosa asked, her voice splintering, as if every word stripped away a piece of her pride.

Armando stared at the town’s cobblestone street—the same colonial stones Rosa had swept countless times on her way to the store, the same ones that had watched their children grow. He wanted to invent an answer, a path, some certainty. But all he could find was an old, bone-deep fatigue.

—I don’t know, my dear… I don’t know anything anymore.

The worst part hadn’t been the bank or the mortgage. It had been the children. Fernando, the mayor, hadn’t even bothered to hide his irritation.

“You sort it out yourselves,” she had said, as if years of diapers, fevers, school runs, sacrifices, and sleepless nights were a debt already settled. Beatriz, the middle daughter, had been even more distant: “I can’t be responsible for your mistakes.” And Javier, the youngest… Javier simply never replied. Not a call. Not a message. Nothing. A silence so complete it hurt more than any scream.