Chapter 8
My mother stayed with us at our new home for a few days before taking her scheduled bus back to her small town in Kentucky. On the morning of her departure, Gabriel loaded her suitcase into the trunk.
Sophia reached out and gently took his hand.
“Thank you for standing up for me, Gabriel.”
Gabriel bowed his head in deep humility.
“Please forgive me for not establishing proper boundaries much earlier, Sophia.”
My mother offered him a warm, forgiving smile.
“I never want you to stop loving your mother because of the mistakes she made, Gabriel. I only want you to remember that respecting a parent should never mean tolerating injustice against others.”
Gabriel’s eyes welled with tears as he nodded.
“It will never happen again, I promise you.”
Later that afternoon, we accompanied Beatrice to her new apartment. The space was simple, spotless, and filled with natural sunlight. Gabriel placed the set of keys on the kitchen counter.
“Mom, you can live here in complete peace and comfort. We will continue to support you financially, I will drive you to all your medical appointments, and you are always welcome to visit Mateo, but our home, our financial decisions, and our family boundaries will remain strictly under Camila’s and my management.”
Beatrice nodded slowly, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I understand.”
It was perhaps the most difficult word I had ever heard her utter.
Over the following months, we maintained almost zero contact with Lucas and Chloe. We later learned through extended family that the two of them were fighting constantly, with Lucas blaming Chloe for pushing him to demand money, and Chloe countering that the entire mess was Beatrice’s fault for promising them real estate she never owned.
A few months down the road, I decided to drop by Beatrice’s apartment to deliver her monthly vitamins. She was sitting quietly by her sunny window, and when she saw me enter, she offered to pour me a cup of fresh coffee.
For several minutes, we sat together in silence. Finally, she broke the quiet.
“Camila… what I did to your mother was deeply wrong.”
I did not answer immediately, allowing her room to speak.
“I put that chain on the refrigerator because I felt a desperate need to prove that I was still in control of the house, believing that if I allowed your mother to feel comfortable, I would slowly become completely irrelevant.”
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“My mother never once tried to take your place, Beatrice.”
“I realize that now,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “And the people I thought were standing up for me were really just waiting to see what assets they could strip away from me.”
