Nothing.
He pressed it again. Still nothing. I watched his expression shift from irritation to confusion through the camera feed, and then my phone started ringing. My mother first. I let it ring out. Then Lorena. Then my father. I let all of it go to voicemail before finally walking out to the gate myself.
"Karla! Open this immediately!" my mother said the moment she saw me.
"You were told the house wasn't available."
"Stop this nonsense, we've driven all this way!"
Lorena stepped forward. "Rodrigo's parents arrive tomorrow. You're embarrassing everyone."
I almost smiled at that. "No, Lorena. You're embarrassing yourselves."
My father's face reddened the way it always did right before he raised his voice. "This is a family property!"
"No," I said. "It's mine."
"Open the gate."
For most of my life, that exact tone had worked on me instantly. This time I just looked at him and said, "No."
Part 4: Who Was Waiting Inside
That was when my mother's attention shifted — past me, through the front windows, to the dining room, where someone was clearly sitting at my table. Her face changed so fast it was almost comedic, if any of this had still been funny by then.
"Who is inside?" she demanded.
I didn't answer right away. She stepped closer to the gate, squinting, and then recognition hit her all at once. All the color drained out of her face.
"What is he doing here?"
Sitting at my table, beside the folder of deeds and receipts and six years of loan payments, was Mr. Aguilar — the actual contractor who had built the house, the man my father's three days of "overseeing the terrace" had somehow grown into an entire origin story over the years. I'd called him two days earlier, told him honestly what was happening, and asked if he'd be willing to be there when my family arrived expecting to perform a story in front of Rodrigo's parents. He hadn't hesitated. He'd worked with my father on exactly one small section of that terrace, for exactly three days, six years ago, and he still remembered, with some irritation, how often Ernesto had later described the whole project as his own.
My father stopped talking entirely. Lorena pulled off her sunglasses like they might help her see the situation more clearly. Rodrigo just looked between everyone, visibly realizing he'd arrived in the middle of something far more complicated than a family vacation.
