Rafael testified against me. Daniela cried in court with one hand over her empty womb. My mother-in-law called me a murderer in front of the entire room.
I said nothing. Not because I was guilty. But because no one wanted to listen to a betrayed woman.
That night, Daniela fell down the stairs in my house. My house. The one I inherited from my father.
The one Rafael decorated with money from my account. The same house where he brought his mistress while I worked double shifts at a clinic in Monterrey. I did not push her.
I did not even touch her. When I arrived, she was already on the floor, screaming, her hands pressed tightly against her stomach. Rafael came out of the bathroom buttoning his shirt.
His face was not full of pain. It was full of fear. “Mariana…” he whispered.
Daniela lifted her head and pointed at me. “She did it.”
Two words. And my life closed around me like a prison cell.
The trial lasted less time than my marriage. Rafael brought witnesses. Daniela brought tears.
My mother-in-law brought money. I brought the truth. It meant nothing.
“The accused acted out of jealousy,” Rafael’s lawyer said. “She could not bear the fact that her husband was going to have a child with another woman.”
Everyone looked at me as if I were a monster. No one asked why the mistress was in my house.
No one asked why Rafael had erased the security footage. No one asked why the real medical report disappeared from the file. I was sentenced to 2 years.
When the prison door closed behind me, I did not cry. I had already cried everything out in the patrol car. In the women’s prison, I learned quickly.
I learned to sleep with one eye open. To never ask for favors. To never tell my story to just anyone.
To hide fear beneath my tongue. The first month, Rafael came to see me. I did not go in.
The guard shouted my name from the hallway. “Mariana Ortega, visitor.”
“I don’t have visitors.”
“He says he’s your husband.”
I laughed. A dry laugh.
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