Behind her stood her mother, Lucia Alvarez, gripping the wooden handle of a cleaning mop so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale. She had made a decision that morning she already regretted. She had brought her daughter with her because the neighbor who sometimes watched Nina had stopped answering the door, and there was no money for childcare, not when every dollar went toward rent and food and the slow repayment of debts that never seemed to shrink.
Now Lucia wished she could vanish. The man in the chair rolled forward slightly, his smile fixed and practiced, the kind that suggested confidence had long since replaced empathy.
“Do you understand what that amount of money represents?” he asked Nina, tilting his head as if indulging a game. “It is more than your family would earn in several lifetimes.”
Nina swallowed, her fingers curling into her palms, yet her gaze did not fall. She glanced back at her mother, saw the tears Lucia was trying desperately not to let escape, and nodded once.
“Yes,” Nina said quietly. “It is more than we will ever have.”