Valeria, lying on the examination table with her belly still stained with clear gel, began to sob.

They weren’t tears of physical pain; it was a heart-wrenching, deep cry, the sound of a soul shattering into pieces. The doctor sighed heavily, clasped his hands on his desk, and looked at Rebecca with compassionate firmness.

—Ma’am, I’ll be direct. Your daughter doesn’t have any illness. Valeria is pregnant. She’s approximately 12 weeks along.

The whole world stopped. The sound of truck horns on the avenue, the nurses’ voices in the hallway, all faded away. Rebeca felt an invisible blow to her chest.

Pregnant? Her 15-year-old daughter, the one who still slept with a teddy bear, the one who was just learning how to use makeup. She slowly turned her face to look at her daughter. Valeria had curled up on the gurney, covering her face with both hands, trembling violently.

In that instant, Rebeca understood that all that exhaustion, the vomiting, the baggy sweatshirts in the unbearable heat, and the terror in the girl’s eyes weren’t a tantrum. It was a silent cry for help.

Just five minutes later, the door opened and a social worker from the clinic entered. After a brief explanation from the doctor, the woman, with a kind but firm demeanor, asked Rebeca to go out into the hallway.

She needed to speak with the girl alone. Those were the longest 20 minutes of Rebeca’s life. She sat down in a blue plastic chair, clutching an old wooden rosary in her purse until her knuckles turned white. Her mind was racing. Who had done this? Valeria didn’t have a boyfriend; she barely left the house except for school and back.

When the social worker finally came out, her face was distraught. She approached Rebecca and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in hers.

—Mrs. Rebeca… what I’m about to tell you is extremely delicate. Valeria confessed to me how this happened. It wasn’t a consensual act. Someone abused her.

Rebecca let out a suppressed sob, covering her mouth.

“Who was it? Tell me who did this to my little girl!” she demanded, feeling rage begin to burn in her gut.

Valeria said it was someone from her house. Someone she saw every day. Someone no one, absolutely no one, would suspect.

Like a flash of lightning illuminating a dark landscape, all the memories crashed down on Rebeca with the weight of lead. The Sundays when Ernesto offered to stay alone with the girl so Rebeca could go to the market to buy groceries. The way Valeria tensed up every time he entered the room.

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