Rosa Ramírez clutched the handle of her red suitcase as though the fate of the world rested on that single grip. Before her, the court officer pressed the seal onto the door of the house she had called home for forty-three years. The tape snapped into place with a sharp, final sound. The word “seizure” wasn’t boldly printed, yet it lingered everywhere—in the heavy air, in the hush of neighbors watching from a distance, and in the way the autumn sun seemed unable to warm a thing.
Beside her, Armando shifted the blue suitcase higher on his shoulder and swallowed hard. At seventy-one, his back had already borne too much: dismantled engines, heavy toolboxes, endless hours in the mechanic’s shop… and now, the humiliation of leaving without a key, without a roof, and with no one waiting for him in the back seat of the Kia.
