My mother built our three-story house with her bare hands—not literally, of course, but she might as well have. Every brick represented a double shift at the textile factory, every window frame a skipped vacation, every coat of paint a birthday she celebrated alone because she was working overtime. When she handed me the deed on my wedding day, registered entirely in my name, she pressed the document against my chest and said something I didn’t fully understand until much later: “This is yours, Maria. Not his, not his family’s. Yours. Remember that when the world tries to tell you otherwise.”

I remember laughing, kissing her cheek, thinking she was being overly cautious. Adrian was gentle then, attentive, the kind of man who brought me coffee in bed and remembered the small things—how I liked my eggs, which songs made me cry, the exact shade of yellow that reminded me of my childhood kitchen. We’d been together for two years before marriage, and I truly believed I was the luckiest woman alive. Our wedding was celebrated with full approval from both families, traditional and warm, filled with promises that felt unbreakable.