You keep your face still while your stepmother dabs at the corners of her eyes like grief is something she can apply and remove on cue. The courtroom smells faintly of paper, coffee, and old air-conditioning, and somewhere behind you, somebody shifts in a wooden bench as if your humiliation is simply the next item on the docket. Diana’s voice is soft, polished, almost tender when she tells the judge that you forget dates, lose your train of thought, and sometimes cannot manage basic tasks without supervision. She says it the way a person might describe a tragic accident. She says it like she is the only one in the room brave enough to tell the truth.

You do not look at her.

You look at the judge, then at the attorney Diana hired, then at the fake psychologist seated two rows behind them in a suit that looks too expensive for a man willing to sign his name to lies. You let the silence stretch one beat too long. People who are lying hate silence. It makes them rush to fill it.

Diana does exactly that.

“She loved her father very much,” she says, pressing her hand to her chest. “And grief has done terrible things to her judgment. I’m only trying to protect what Roberto built.” There it is. Not concern. Not love. Ownership. Even now, even with her voice trembling for the room, she cannot stop reaching for what she believes should have been hers.

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