At my father’s funeral, my husband bent close and murmured in my ear, “When this is over, you’re not coming back to the penthouse. I already changed the locks. It belongs to me now.”What I remember most from the day we buried my father is not the fragrance of the flowers or the sympathetic faces around me.It is the sound of rain.It tapped softly against the stained-glass windows of the church in Guadalajara, uneven and quiet, like someone drumming their fingers against a closed door. Red and blue light filtered through the glass and drifted across the walls as the clouds moved overhead. The polished wooden coffin at the front caught that colored light, gleaming more like a display piece in a gallery than the place where my father would rest forever.I sat in the front pew because that was where everyone expected me to be.The oldest daughter. The only girl. The one who signed the hospital forms. The one who chose the coffin. The one who called every relative. The one who stayed composed while everything else fell apart.

My black coat clung to my shoulders. My hands were locked together so tightly my fingers had gone numb. I did not dare separate them. I was afraid that, if I did, all the grief I had forced down would spill out.Someone coughed behind me. A woman to my left wept soundlessly. The priest’s voice moved through the church in a low, solemn tone, speaking of a decent, hardworking man, a devoted father.I heard it all as though I were standing behind thick glass.Then Alexander leaned toward me.His breath brushed my ear. To anyone watching, it would have looked comforting. His arm rested firmly around my waist. From the outside, we looked like a couple united by grief.“After this,” he whispered so quietly it nearly disappeared beneath the rain, “you are not returning to the penthouse.”My heartbeat stumbled.“I changed the locks. It’s mine now.”The words sank into me like stones dropped down a deep well. Cold. Heavy. Absolute.I kept my eyes on the white lilies resting on the coffin. Their scent was almost unbearably sweet. I focused on the fine lines in each petal because it was easier than turning my head and looking at the man who had just tried to erase me from the only place my father had ever wanted to be my shelter.