“I’m pledging sixty percent of its equity to open a temporary credit line,” Doña Victoria said, smoothing her silk neck scarf with clipped flicks of her fingers.

“It gives us emergency cash.

That keeps the company payroll going through Easter.”

She pressed the fountain pen to the parchment and signed her full name across the bottom line in three sharp strokes.

“Take the cash envelope, Alejandro,” Doña Victoria ordered, capping the pen with a metallic snap.

“Find her before she leaves the city registry building.”

The marble corridor outside the central filing office smelled of wet stone and floor wax.

I slid my updated birth certificate and the receipt for my name change into my purse and turned toward the wide stairs to the exit.