Chapter 5 - The Implosion in Iztapalapa
While Mateo’s legal team filed the emergency injunctions, the chaos in Iztapalapa reached a boiling point.
I learned about it through a series of frantic text messages and voicemail alerts that began rolling in around 3:30 p.m., just as I was sitting down for a quiet lunch at a local café near the courthouse.
First came my mother, her voice trembling with sheer disbelief and rage on a voicemail:
“Carmen! What have you done?! I went to the bank to pay Leticia’s car installment, and the teller told me the account has been locked due to a fraud investigation! The cards are rejected! They locked everything! Call me right now, you ungrateful little demon, or you will never step foot in this family again!”
Then came Leticia, whose usual arrogance had completely evaporated, replaced by hysterical weeping:
ointers:
“Carmen, please! The dealership is threatening to repossess my car! The school just called because Leo’s tuition bounced! How are we supposed to live? Mom is crying in the kitchen and her blood pressure monitor is beeping! Please tell me this is a sick joke!”
I didn't answer either of them. I simply took another bite of my torta, listening to the voicemails with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a colony of ants whose anthill had just been hit with a garden hose.
They thought I would cave. They thought that by turning off the money tap, I would come crawling back begging for forgiveness so they could continue exploiting me.
They had no idea that I had already burned the bridge behind me, and the fire was spreading straight to their front door.
That evening, around 8:00 p.m., I received a text message from an unknown number. It was a photo of the front door of my mother’s house in Iztapalapa. Taped securely to the wood was a formal judicial notice from the civil court, demanding immediate financial disclosure and halting all automated transactions pending a formal hearing.
Below the photo, a final text from my mother:
“You have destroyed your own family. We curse the day you were born.”
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I stared at the screen for three seconds. Then, I blocked her number. I blocked Leticia’s number. And for good measure, I blocked every extended family member who might try to send flying monkeys to harass me.
I went home to my tiny, quiet apartment, washed my single dinner plate, and went to sleep under my yellow curtains without a single shadow of anxiety in my heart.
