I took her hand.
“Thank you for not deleting it.”
That was all I could say.
The next morning we were referred to a Women’s Justice Center. In Mexico City, those centers provide specialized and coordinated services for women, girls, and boys up to age twelve who are victims of family or gender violence. Tomás was eight, and for the first time his age wasn’t used to call him a liar, but to protect him.
That’s when the slow part began.
The real part.
The kind that never appears in movies.
Statements.
Photographs.
Evaluations.
Clothes sealed in bags.
Interviews with psychologists.
Copies.
Signatures.
Phone calls.
The same questions repeated carefully without breaking the child.
Tomás would fall asleep for moments in a chair leaning against my arm, waking every time a door slammed shut.
“Is Diego here?” he would ask.
“No.”
“Mom?”
“She’s outside.”
“Are you taking me back?”
“No.”
“Even if she says yes?”
“Even if she screams.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to believe me but didn’t know how anymore.
That was the hardest part.
Not winning temporary custody.
Not hearing Lorena accuse me.
Not watching Diego pretend to be innocent.
The hardest part was realizing my son no longer trusted the word of any adult.
Not even mine.
The first emergency hearing was three days later.
I hadn’t slept.
Tomás was with my sister under authorized supervision because they didn’t want to expose him to the courthouse hallways.
Lorena arrived dressed in white.
Like a victim.
Diego didn’t go inside, but he stood outside leaning against a truck.
She cried in front of the judge.
“My son is being manipulated by his father. Andrés never accepted the divorce.”………………………………………………
