The light came on. And then I saw two shadows closing the curtains…

I didn’t go up right away.

I stayed inside the car, my hands clenched around the wheel, looking at my own house as if it were someone else’s scene.

Cars passed by on the street on their way to Periférico Norte. Distant horns could be heard, a patrol car, the engine of a delivery motorbike. Life went on in Naucalpan as if nothing had happened, as if two blocks from Plaza Satélite there wasn’t a man watching another man close the curtains of his bedroom.

My first impulse was to go in and break his face.

The second was worse.

I wanted to cry.

But I thought of Nicolás.

I thought of Sofia.

I thought of my son asking if he had done anything wrong by telling the truth.

Then I took out my cell phone and started recording.

Not to humiliate Elena.

Not to take revenge.

So that tomorrow, when she denied everything, I would never doubt my own eyes again.

I waited fifteen minutes.

Then I walked home with my suitcase in my hand, as if I had just come from the airport.

The gate opened with the remote.

I went in slowly.

The room was empty.

There were two glasses of wine on the table, a bag of garlic bread, a box of cold pizza, and the television on without sound.

Sofia’s pink rabbit was lying on the couch.

That froze me more than the glasses.

My children had been there.

With him.

I went up the stairs without making a sound.

Each step creaked as if it wanted to give me away.

In the hallway, I saw Nicolás’s door ajar. He slept hugging his blue dinosaur. Sofia was in her bed, with a blanket up to her nose.

I approached them first.

I had to make sure they were okay before destroying my marriage.

I kissed Nicolás’s forehead.

He barely moved and whispered:

“Dad?”

“Go back to sleep, champion.”

“Is the friend gone yet?”

I felt something break again.

“Not yet.”

Nicolás opened his eyes.

“Mom gets angry if we ask.”

“Nothing will happen to you anymore for asking.”

He looked at me, confused, but fell back asleep.

I closed the door.

Then I walked to my bedroom.

The door was barely closed.

Murmurs could be heard inside.

Elena’s voice.

His voice.

They weren’t laughing.

They were talking.

“I told you he was going to Guadalajara,” she whispered. “We have until tomorrow.”

“Then don’t be nervous,” the man replied. “He almost signs everything.”

I stood motionless.

Signs everything?

“Roberto doesn’t check anything,” Elena said. “He lives tired. I put the papers between invoices and account statements, and he signs.”

The air left me.

“And the children?” he asked.

Elena took a moment to answer.

“Nicolás is talking too much.”

I felt fire in my chest.

“He’s a boy,” the man said. “Scare him a little. Tell him that if he talks, his dad is going to get mad at him.”

I squeezed the cell phone so hard that I thought I was going to break it.

It was no longer just an infidelity.

It was my son carrying fear in my own house.

Elena sighed.

“Sofia doesn’t understand anything. Nicolás does. That child watches too much.”

He let out a low laugh.

“Well, that’s why I’m helping you. When Bob signs the sale authorization, the house goes. You keep half, I move the other part. Then we file the lawsuit. Abandonment, psychological violence, constant travel, you name it.”

I leaned against the wall.

The house.

They wanted to sell my house.

The one I was still paying for.

The one we built so my children would have a garden.

“What if he fights for custody?” Elena asked.

“With his travel schedule, he loses,” he said. “Besides, you have the emails. The messages where he says he can’t get there. The videos of the children crying when he leaves. That is easy to edit.”

Then I understood why Elena recorded so much.

They were not memories.

They were weapons.

I pushed the door open.

It opened suddenly.

Elena was sitting on my bed, wearing my gray shirt.

He was standing next to the bureau.