The sun was a spiteful bastard, glaring down on Alma as she dragged herself up the cracked concrete of her driveway. Her feet throbbed in her sensible black pumps, each step a reminder of the twelve-hour shift she’d just endured at the hospital. Her scrubs clung to her skin, damp with the sweat of a day spent wrangling patients who thought “emergency” meant a stubbed toe. She was done—done with the whining, the paperwork, and the godforsaken cafeteria coffee that tasted like burnt regret. All she wanted was a glass of cheap red wine and a foot soak that might resurrect her soles from the grave.
But as her gaze landed on the driveway, her jaw tightened. There it was: Fernando’s rusty old Chevy truck, a relic from the Jurassic era of bad decisions, parked next to Reyna’s beat-up sedan, a car that looked like it had lost a fistfight with a hailstorm. Her husband and her twenty-two-year-old daughter were home. Together. Which meant trouble. Always did. Alma rolled her eyes so hard she nearly sprained something. “Great,” she muttered under her breath. “The dynamic duo of disaster. What fresh hell awaits me now?”
She was halfway to the front door, keys jangling in her hand, when a sound stopped her dead. A rhythmic, thunderous *banging*—loud enough to rattle the windows and probably wake the neighbors’ yappy chihuahua. It wasn’t just noise; it was a declaration, a primal beat that pulsed through the walls of the house like a war drum. Alma’s brow furrowed, her irritation spiking to DEFCON 1. “What in the ever-loving—” she started, but didn’t finish. Her curiosity, laced with a growing sense of dread, propelled her forward.
She shoved the door open with the force of a woman who’d had enough, the hinges squeaking in protest. The banging grew louder, more insistent, as she stormed through the living room, past the sagging couch and the half-empty pizza box Fernando swore he’d clean up “tomorrow.” Her boots thudded against the worn hardwood, each step a countdown to whatever nonsense awaited her. The noise was coming from Reyna’s bedroom, down the hall. Of course it was. That girl had been a walking tornado since she hit puberty.
Alma didn’t knock. She didn’t have the patience for pleasantries. She gripped the doorknob, twisted, and flung the door open with the fury of a scorned goddess. The sight that greeted her damn near stopped her heart—then set it ablaze with a rage so hot it could’ve melted steel.
There was Fernando, her sweaty, grunting husband of twenty-five years, his faded flannel shirt half-unbuttoned and clinging to his broad shoulders. His face was flushed, contorted with effort, as he pounded away with reckless abandon. And there, bent over the edge of the bed, was Reyna—her own daughter—sobbing, her dark hair a tangled mess, her hands gripping the bedframe for dear life as the headboard slammed against the wall with every thrust of… a hammer?
Wait. A hammer?
Alma blinked, her brain screeching to a halt as the scene recalibrated. Fernando wasn’t *behind* Reyna in the way she’d first assumed. He was standing off to the side, hammering a nail into a rickety old shelf that looked two seconds from collapsing. Reyna, still bent over, was holding the shelf steady, tears streaming down her face—not from pain or shame, but from… laughter? She was laughing so hard she could barely breathe, her shoulders shaking as Fernando cursed under his breath with every missed swing.
“What in the actual *fuck* is going on here?” Alma’s voice cut through the chaos like a guillotine, sharp and deadly. She crossed her arms, her hip cocked to one side, her glare hot enough to ignite the peeling wallpaper. The banging stopped instantly. Fernando froze mid-swing, the hammer dangling from his hand like a guilty verdict. Reyna straightened up, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, her laughter morphing into a smirk as she caught sight of her mother’s face.
“Oh, Mama, you should see your expression right now,” Reyna said, her voice dripping with mischief. “Did you think you walked in on a porno or something? ‘Cause I gotta say, that’s a hell of a leap.”
Alma’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t you start with me, Reyna Maria. I come home after a day of dealing with idiots who think WebMD is a medical degree, and I hear a racket loud enough to summon the dead. What was I supposed to think? That you two were building a goddamn ark in here?”
Fernando, still red-faced and panting, finally found his voice. “Alma, cariño, it’s not what it looks like—I mean, we’re just fixing Reyna’s shelf. It broke last night, and—”
“Oh, spare me the sob story, Fernando,” Alma snapped, cutting him off with a wave of her hand. “You’ve got the coordination of a drunk toddler. I’m surprised you haven’t nailed your own hand to the wall yet. And you—” She turned her laser focus on Reyna, who was now leaning against the bedframe, arms crossed, mirroring Alma’s stance with a defiant tilt to her chin. “Why are you crying? Or is this just another one of your dramatic performances to get out of doing actual work?”
Reyna grinned, unbothered by the venom in her mother’s tone. “I’m crying ‘cause I’m laughing at this idiot over here,” she said, jerking her thumb at Fernando. “He’s missed the nail six times. Six! I told him to let me do it, but noooo, Mr. Macho Man had to prove he’s still got it. Newsflash, Pops, you don’t.”
Fernando sputtered, his mustache twitching with indignation. “Hey, I’ve still got plenty of it! I’m just… out of practice, okay? And this hammer’s too heavy. Who even buys a hammer this big?”
“Someone who knows how to use it,” Alma shot back, her lips curling into a wicked smirk. “Which clearly ain’t you, sweetheart. Step aside before you turn this room into a crime scene. I’ll fix the damn shelf myself.”
She strode forward, snatching the hammer from Fernando’s hand with the authority of a general seizing a weapon from a fumbling recruit. He stumbled back, muttering something about “just trying to help,” but Alma wasn’t listening. She turned to Reyna, who was watching the exchange with barely concealed amusement.
“And you, missy,” Alma said, pointing the hammer at her daughter like it was a scepter of judgment. “Next time you decide to stage a demolition derby in your bedroom, give me a heads-up. I’ve had enough heart attacks for one day.”
Reyna raised her hands in mock surrender, her dark eyes glinting with mischief. “Fine, fine, but admit it, Mama—you thought you caught us in the act. Be real. You were ready to throw down.”
Alma’s smirk widened, but her eyes were steel. “Oh, honey, if I’d caught you two doing anything remotely close to what I thought, this hammer wouldn’t be fixing a shelf. It’d be fixing attitudes. Permanently.”
Fernando, still hovering awkwardly by the door, let out a nervous chuckle. “Cariño, you know I’d never—”
“Save it, Fernando,” Alma interrupted, her tone dripping with mock sweetness. “I’ve got eyes, and I’ve got ears. And right now, both are telling me you’re a walking disaster. Now, get out of my way. I’ve got a shelf to save and a marriage to reconsider.”
Reyna snorted, barely containing another laugh. “Damn, Mama, you’re savage today. Remind me not to cross you when you’re in this mood.”
“Too late for that, mija,” Alma replied, already lining up the hammer with the nail. “You’re both on thin ice. Now shut up and hold this thing steady, or I’ll make you sleep on the floor with the broken pieces.”
As Reyna moved to assist, still smirking, and Fernando shuffled out of the room muttering apologies, Alma’s mind churned beneath her cool exterior. The shock of what she’d thought she’d seen still lingered, a bitter aftertaste to the absurdity of the actual situation. Her husband and her daughter—could she trust them, really? Or was this just the tip of some deeper betrayal, hiding beneath their clumsy excuses and half-assed DIY projects?
She drove the nail into the wood with a single, precise strike, the sound echoing like a gavel. Oh, she’d get to the bottom of this. One way or another, heads were going to roll—and Alma was damn sure they wouldn’t be hers.
To be continued…
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