We did not clean the broken plate that night. I left it on the floor until the notary photographed it, then I swept every shard myself while Valeria sat at the table wrapped in my coat.

She wouldn’t sit where Andrés had sat. She chose the chair closest to the kitchen door. I noticed. I said nothing.

Later, when the house was finally quiet, Valeria walked through each room as if asking permission from the walls. The dining room. The hallway. The kitchen.

The little balcony where she used to keep basil. At the threshold of her bedroom, she stopped.

“Is it really mine?”

I thought of my husband in Salgado’s office, thin from treatment but stubborn as ever, signing the final trust instruction with a hand that shook. I thought of the key Valeria gave me as a joke.