It seeped into the room the way dampness creeps into walls—quietly, patiently, until one day it is everywhere and you can no longer remember what the air used to feel like before it changed.

In the first one, Alejandro was hugging the woman with the ID card in front of a cream-colored house.

In another, she was smiling with one hand on her belly.

Pregnant.

In another, they were both holding a small cake with a candle.

There was no doubt.

It was not a fleeting affair.

It was a full life.

And I was the lie.

I felt like screaming, but no sound came out.

Just a broken moan.

Then I saw something else at the bottom of the mattress.

A thick, yellow envelope, stained in one corner.

I pulled it hard.

There were papers inside.

Minutes.

Receipts.

Copies of transfers.