I knew something was wrong before I even saw her.
The air felt different. The sky was gray. When the door to the visiting room opened and Lidia came in, for a second I didn’t recognize her. She was thinner, her shoulders slumped, as if she were carrying an invisible stone.
Her blouse was buttoned all the way up despite the June heat.
Her makeup barely covered a bruise on her cheekbone. She smiled slightly, but her lips trembled.
She sat down across from me with a small basket of fruit. The oranges were bruised. Just like her.
“How are you, Nay?” she asked, her voice so fragile it seemed to be begging permission to exist.
I didn’t answer. I took her wrist. She shuddered.
“What happened to your face?”
“I fell off my bike,” she said, trying to laugh.
I looked at her more closely. Swollen fingers. Red knuckles. These weren’t the hands of someone who had fallen. These were the hands of someone who was fighting back.
“Lidia, tell me the truth.”
“I’m fine.”
I lifted her sleeve before she could stop me. And I felt something old and dormant awaken inside me.
Her arms were covered in marks. Some yellow and old. Others recent, purple, and deep. Fingerprints, belt lines, bruises that looked like maps of pain.
“Who did this to you?” I asked softly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t.”
“Who?”w
