Chapter 4
Even the small ring Valeria wore every day became something Teresa seemed capable of judging.
That ring had belonged to Valeria’s late mother.
Its meaning had nothing to do with price.
Daniela, Teresa’s daughter, often seemed like the one person in the family willing to soften the tension.
She would message Valeria afterward and tell her not to take Teresa’s behavior personally.
She described her mother as old-fashioned.
She told Valeria to give her time.
According to Daniela, Teresa would eventually change.
Valeria wanted to believe that.
More importantly, she wanted peace with the family she was about to marry into.
So each time Teresa said something cutting, Valeria told herself that patience might be more useful than confrontation.
Eight months before the wedding, Teresa invited Valeria to lunch.
Valeria accepted because she thought the invitation might mean they were finally moving forward.
Instead, Teresa spent most of the meal talking about women Santiago had dated before Valeria.
One had been the daughter of a business owner.
Another was a lawyer from what Teresa described as a good family.
Another had studied abroad.
Teresa never directly said that Valeria was beneath them.
She did not need to.
The comparison did the work for her.
Afterward, Santiago apologized.
He explained that his mother had struggled since his father died and that change was difficult for her.
Valeria listened because she cared about him and because grief can make families complicated.
But somewhere along the way, understanding Teresa became an excuse for allowing Teresa to keep humiliating her.
Valeria would recognize that only later.
At the time, she thought refusing to react meant she was protecting her relationship.
Then the wedding arrived.
For Valeria, the day was full of moments that had nothing to do with Teresa’s opinion of her.
Her father cried when he walked her down the aisle.
That mattered more to her than status, property, or any comparison to Santiago’s former girlfriends.
She had built a career her father was proud of, and she was marrying a man she believed loved her without conditions.
Then came the toast.
Teresa stood before the gathered family and said she hoped Valeria would learn to become the kind of wife worthy of everything the family had built.
The insult was dressed up as a blessing.
Valeria forced herself to smile.
She did not want her wedding to become the scene of another argument.
She told herself she could deal with the comment later.
She had no idea that only two weeks would pass before Teresa stopped hiding the accusation behind carefully chosen words.
Two weeks after the wedding, Teresa called Valeria and invited her and Santiago to a family meal.
She said she wanted to officially welcome Valeria.
She also said she wanted them to start over.
Those words reached Valeria at exactly the point where she still wanted to believe reconciliation was possible.
She accepted.
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When she and Santiago arrived, more than twenty relatives were already there.
A large cake sat in the middle of the dining room.
