It didn’t echo.
It made a single, final click.
Like switching off a light.
“That’s it, Leonardo,” the social worker said, not unkindly, but without affection. “This is your last support. Two thousand pesos.”
She hesitated, then added, “And… there’s something from a notary. It looks like your grandfather left you an inheritance.”
I pressed the envelope against my chest. Through the wired glass of the dining hall, I saw my sister Mariana. She was twelve. Her face was pressed flat to the window, one hand lifted as if she could push through it.
They didn’t allow goodbyes.
“No emotional scenes,” they said. “They cause instability.”
So we just stared at each other.
That pane of glass became an entire border between us.
My bag weighed almost nothing: two pairs of jeans, three shirts, a thin jacket, a worn storybook my mother used to read before life fell apart, and a faded photograph—Dad holding me, Mom laughing, Mariana sticky with cotton candy… and my grandfather behind us, half outside the frame, like someone who didn’t want attention but never stopped watching.
I didn’t turn around when I walked away.
