Chapter 14
Gloria reached for the phone where it lay face-down on the glass coffee table.
It had been there since Vanessa set her bag by the door, a small black rectangle against the gold frame, screen dark. The living room felt too bright still, warm daylight coming through the sheer curtains the same way it had that afternoon weeks ago when Leo had clung to my neck and whispered, "Papá Ayuda a mamá." No one moved to pick it up until Gloria did.
She didn't grab it. She lifted it with both hands the way she'd held it that first day, careful, and then she looked at me.
"May I?" she asked.
I was still on the floor with Leo asleep against my shoulder. Marco stood behind the sofa, his hand resting on the back of it, not touching anyone. Vanessa stood by the hallway with her bag packed at her feet, arms no longer crossed, just hanging. She watched Gloria's hands.
I nodded. My throat was dry. "Yes."
Gloria sat down slowly on the edge of the gray sofa. She didn't go to her usual spot. She scooted to the end closest to the coffee table, closest to me, and unlocked the phone. The passcode was four quick taps. The screen lit her face.
She turned it so I could see.
The gallery was open to the most recent video. The thumbnail was me. I was on the floor in my black sleeveless top, hair pulled back, holding Leo so tight my knuckles were white. Both of us were crying. The timestamp said 4:17 p.m., six weeks ago. Behind us, blurred but there, were the sofa and the lamp. It was exactly what the camera had seen in that second shot.
My stomach dropped. I'd known she'd filmed it. Knowing and seeing were different.
"That's the one I sent," Gloria said quietly. Her voice shook a little. "I sent it to the family group. My sister, Marco's cousins. I wrote, 'We need to help them.'"
Marco made a small sound behind me. He didn't speak.
Gloria swiped left. There were two more clips, shorter, shaky. One was Vanessa speaking. One was just Leo's face.
"I thought I was documenting," she said. She wasn't making eye contact with the screen. She was looking at me. "So they would understand you needed help."
The warm light made the phone screen hard to see until she angled it. I breathed in. Leo shifted against me but didn't wake. I put one hand flat on the glass table to steady myself and leaned closer.
"Show me the thread," I said.
She tapped out of the gallery, opened messages. The group was called FAMILIA, with nine names in it. The last message was the video, and below it a string of replies I didn't read fully — prayers, questions, one that said "poor Vanessa having to handle this." Gloria's thumb hovered over it.
"Do it with me?" she asked.
I understood what she meant. She wasn't going to delete it alone while I watched from the floor. She wanted us to do it together so it wasn't her deciding what happened to my image.
I shifted Leo carefully onto the cushion I'd made with a folded blanket, and crawled the last foot to the coffee table on my knees. My legs had gone numb. I knelt there across from her, our hands nearly touching over the glass.
Marco knelt down beside me without being asked. He didn't reach for the phone.
Vanessa took a step forward from the doorway. "Mom, you don't have to—" she started.
Gloria didn't look up. "I do."
I put my fingertip on the screen, right next to hers. She pressed and held the video. The little menu popped up: Delete. She looked at me once more, and I nodded.
We tapped it together.
The phone asked, Delete for everyone or Delete for me? Gloria's finger trembled.
"For everyone," I whispered.
She selected Delete for everyone. The video disappeared from the thread with a soft pop, replaced by You deleted a message. She then held the entire conversation, selected Delete Chat. Again the prompt. Again we tapped.
After that she went back to the gallery. The video was still there in recently deleted. She opened that folder, and there I was again, frozen mid-sob.
"Together," she said again.
We selected it, hit Delete All, then Empty Trash. The phone asked Are you sure? permanently? We pressed yes.
The screen went back to an empty gallery, gray and blank.
Vanessa had come all the way to the coffee table while we did it. Her bag was still by the door. She stared at the empty screen, at Gloria's empty hands, and I saw something in her face give way. Not anger. It was like a calculation finishing.
"You really deleted it," she said. Her voice was flat.
Gloria locked the phone and set it face-up in the middle of the glass table, not in her lap, not in her hands. Neutral.
"Yes," Gloria said. "It wasn't mine to keep."
May you like
Vanessa looked at me, then at Marco, then back at the phone that no longer held anything she could send or show anyone. She didn't have leverage anymore. She had a bag by a door.
No one reached for the phone.
