She had been told she couldn’t.
And she’d still brought seventeen people into a restaurant and announced that she had done it.
She had expected me to believe her before I had time to check.
“They told you no,” I said.
Renata stared at me.
“What?”
I turned my phone so only she and my father could see the activity log.
The details were small, but Renata didn’t need to read them.
The moment she saw the format, the color left her face.
“They told you the scholarship couldn’t be transferred,”
I said.
“You knew that before dinner.”
Nobody at the table moved.
My father’s coworker quietly set down his coffee cup.
Renata recovered quickly.
“University employees say different things all the time.
I was still working through it.”
“You announced it was done.”
“Because it should be done.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You have had every advantage.”
Aunt Lidia laughed once, without humor.
“Every advantage? The girl studied until two in the morning for three years.”
Renata ignored her.
“Mara has spent years living in your shadow.
Every award, every teacher praising you, every family dinner turning into another conversation about Reyna’s grades.
Do you understand what that does to another child?”
I looked at Mara.
She was crying silently now.
“Did you ask her if she wanted my scholarship?”
Renata didn’t answer.
So I asked Mara.
“Did you?”
Mara shook her head immediately.
“No.”
Renata’s eyes flashed.
“You don’t know what you want yet.”
“I know I didn’t want this.”
The room went still again.
Mara wiped her face with the heel of her hand.
“She told me you were giving it up,” she said to me.
“She said you wanted to go somewhere else and that she was going to ask whether the money could stay in the family.”
Renata stared at her daughter.
“Mara.”
“You did.”
“Enough.”
“You told me not to say anything tonight because Reyna would get dramatic.”
I watched Renata absorb the fact that even Mara was no longer following the script.
Her polished expression disappeared.
“Fine,” she said.
“Yes, I made calls.
Yes, I asked questions.
Because somebody in this family has to think beyond one person.”
Grandma Elena pushed back from the table.
“You impersonated her.”
