Elena’s eyes stung. She blinked hard and stared at the coffee she still had not drunk. The offer was real. The door was open. Walking through it would mean naming the marks under her sweater, the loads she carried, the love that had grown inside the secret, the tracking apps, the negative tests, the new rules designed to hide all of it from Rosa and from the woman sitting across from her. It would mean destroying the version of the family Victoria still believed she was protecting.

She looked up and gave the only answer she could afford.

“There isn’t a secret crisis, Mom. There isn’t a boy I’m hiding...