Every month I gave 200,000 pesos to my husband's family, until one night, during dinner, my mother-in-law demanded more money again, and my husband slapped me in front of everyone. "Apologize to my mother," he ordered. I just wiped the blood from my lip, took out my cell phone, and called my lawyer, never imagining that a financial audit would end up bringing down his entire family.

PART 1

“Starting next month, you’re going to deposit three hundred thousand pesos for us, Valeria. And don’t make that face, because that’s why you married my son.”

Doña Irma said it without lowering the knife with which she was cutting the marinated pork loin on my own table, as if she were talking about buying tortillas and not about squeezing my entire life out of it.

It was Sunday night in the Del Valle neighborhood of Mexico City. Outside, it was raining with that persistent grayness that makes any silence heavier. I had cooked early to welcome Sergio's family: his mother, Doña Irma; his father, Don Ernesto, who, according to them, suffered from a heart condition; his younger brother, Marco, always with business plans that never went beyond his cell phone; and Jimena, Marco's wife, with wine-colored nails, a designer bag, and a smile that always seemed to be charging interest.

Sergio, my husband, didn't even look up from his phone.