Divorced, my husband threw an old pillow at me with a sneer. When I unzipped it to wash it, I was stunned by what was inside…

Héctor and I had been married for five years. From the very first day I became his wife, I got used to his cold words and his indifferent glances. Héctor wasn’t violent or loud, but his apathy made my heart wither a little more each day.

After the wedding, we lived in his parents’ house in a neighborhood in Mexico City. Every morning I woke up early to cook, do laundry, and clean. Every evening I sat and waited for him to come home, only to hear him say, “Yeah, I already ate.” I often wondered if this marriage was any different from being a tenant. I tried to build, I tried to love, but all I got in return was an invisible void that I couldn’t fill. Then one day,

Héctor came home with a cold, blank face. He sat down opposite me, handed me a divorce paper, and said in a dry voice: – Sign it. I don’t want to waste either of our time anymore. I froze, but I wasn’t surprised. With tears welling up, I took the pen with a trembling hand. All the memories of waiting for him at the dinner table, of the times I had stomachaches in the middle of the night that I endured alone, suddenly came flooding back like deep cuts.

After signing, I packed my things. There was nothing in his house that belonged to me, except for a few clothes and the old pillow I always slept with. As I was pulling my suitcase out the door, Héctor threw the pillow at me, his voice full of sarcasm: – Take it and wash it. It’s probably about to fall apart. I took the pillow, my heart constricting. It really was old; the pillowcase was faded, with yellowed stains and torn spots.