But sitting there in his old blue suit, frightened and exhausted, he suddenly remembered another Sofía.
A little girl with two crooked braids sitting at the kitchen table while he tried to explain fractions after working a fourteen-hour shift.
He remembered her first school uniform.
Her first lost tooth.
The night she had a fever and he stayed awake until sunrise with a wet cloth against her forehead.
And now she was walking toward him.
“Papá.”
Sofía stopped beside his chair.
Don Chema’s eyes filled with tears.
“What are you doing here?”
She crouched beside him.
“What you taught me to do.”
“What?”
“Showing up when someone needs me.”
That broke him.
His shoulders shook once.
Then again.
“I didn’t want you girls involved.”
“I know.”
