Laura Méndez’s suitcase hit the stone floor with a dull thud, as though it, too, had finally given up. The sound echoed down the long corridor of the hacienda, blending with the words that still rang painfully in her ears.“We no longer require your services.”Santiago Mendoza had said it without lifting his eyes from the papers on his desk.Three years.Three birthdays filled with balloons and cake.Three winters of fevers, cough syrup, and sleepless nights.Three storms where Sofía only fell asleep if Laura’s hand was wrapped tightly around hers, as if letting go meant disappearing.And now Laura stood there, a half-packed suitcase at her feet, her chest tight, her dignity stretched to its breaking point.She didn’t cry in his office. She refused to beg.She cried later—in the small staff bathroom—silent, controlled, her palm pressed hard against her mouth so no sound escaped. She packed what mattered: clothes, a children’s book filled with sticky notes, a faded photograph of her mother. She paused when she saw the hairbrush Sofía used on her favorite doll.
“That belongs to her,” Laura thought. “I don’t anymore.”Outside, the San Miguel de Allende sunset washed the terracotta walls in muted gold. Don Ramón, the driver, opened the car door and looked at her with eyes full of words he didn’t dare say. Only one slipped out, barely audible.It isn’t right, Miss Laura.”he nodded, lips pressed together, and climbed inside. She didn’t look back. If she did, she knew she’d run straight back to Sofía—and being dismissed so coldly, like a clerical error, made that unbearable.As the car pulled away, Laura rested her forehead against the cold window and remembered the beginning.Sofía had been two years old then, crying as if the world had ended. The previous nanny had failed. Laura—fresh out of school and shaking inside—sat on the bedroom floor with a coloring book and invented ridiculous voices: a dramatic dragon who spoke like a soap opera star, a butterfly that sang old ranchera songs. Sofía stopped crying, stared at her with huge green eyes, and reached out.
