I don't ask. Don't push. Just drive.
The estate disappears behind us. Five minutes pass. Ten.
Then she breaks.
"He said I'm killing her."
My hands tighten on the wheel. "What?"
"My mother. He said…" Her voice cracks, raw and ragged. "He said watching me destroy myself is like watching her die all over again. That every time I make headlines, every time I'm adisaster, I'm killing her memory. Proving that she wasted her last breath on me. You know what mom’s last words were to me? Try to be good, like your brother."
"He's wrong."
"Is he? Because I haven't been good. I've been everything she didn't want. Everything he was afraid I'd become."
"You've been surviving. That's not the same as failing."
"It feels the same."
I want to turn the car around. Want to walk back into that sickroom and tell Jorge Delgado that dying doesn't give him the right to destroy his daughter with guilt. But it wouldn't help. Would only make her feel worse. Like she needs defending, like she can't handle her own family.
So I keep driving.
"Can we not go home yet?" Her voice is small, broken. "I can't… I can't be in that apartment right now."
"Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere. Nowhere. I don't know." She wipes her face with the back of her hand. "Just drive."
I drive. Through Miami, aimless, letting the city stream past while she cries herself empty. The sun starts its descent, painting everything gold.
Eventually, I pull off at a quiet stretch of beach. Not our beach. A different one, rockier, more isolated. The ocean spreads before us, endless and indifferent. I park facing the water.
She's stopped crying. Just stares at the waves, hollow. "I should have been better."
I turn toward her, one hand still on the wheel. "You were seventeen when she died."
"I was old enough to understand." She presses her forehead against the cool window glass, breath fogging a small circle.
"Old enough to be traumatized." I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, watching her reflection in the window. "Not old enough to process it without help."
She twists a strand of hair around her finger, tugging until it must hurt. "My brother processed it."
"Your brother ran." My voice hardens as I shift in my seat to face her fully. "He's been hiding in a church for eight years. That's not processing. That's escaping."
She looks at me sharply. "You don't know anything about him."
"I know he left you. I know you're here, dealing with your dying father alone, while your perfect brother prays somewhere. That's not being good. That's being gone."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Something shifts in her expression.
"You really see everything, don't you?"
"I told you. I don't look away."
The words hang between us. Then she reaches across the console. Her hand finds mine, fingers interlacing, and she holds on tight.
I let her hold my hand. Let her anchor herself to me.
