At the time, I didn't put two and two together. But two months earlier, Fernando had arrived home smelling of that same perfume, and when I asked him about it, he said it was the car's new air freshener.
I believed him. Of course I believed him.
Hiring the investigator wasn't because of Jimena. It was because of Fernando. It started with emergency meetings on Saturdays. A trip to Cuernavaca "with the guys from work." On February 14th, he went out to buy me flowers and came back three hours later empty-handed.
I didn't complain. Instead, I spoke to Héctor Mendoza, an investigator. "I want to know who it's with," I told him. "That's all."
Two weeks later he called me. He asked me to sit down. I told him I was already sitting down.
"Madam," he told me, "the woman is from your own family."
I thought about a cousin. I thought about a sister-in-law. Never, not even as a joke, did I think about my sister.
Until I opened the first photo. Fernando and Jimena leaving a hotel in Roma. She was wearing the blouse I had given her for her birthday.
That night I realized I'd been sleeping next to a stranger for years. And eating at the same table as someone else.
I kept that photo to myself for four months. For four months I smiled at Christmas dinner while Jimena sat next to me carving the turkey. For four months I said "yes, everything's fine" every time someone asked about Fernando.
And there he was now, microphone in hand, announcing to the entire room what I had known for four months.
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