If he obeyed, Canela and the puppies might d!e before sunrise.
If he called someone official, the bracelet might become something bigger than all of them.
“Give me two hours,” Miguel said.
Don Ernesto laughed once, without humor.
“For what? To make another excuse?”
“To find somewhere safe,” Miguel said. “For the dog. For all of them.”
Don Ernesto looked at Lupita, at the puppy hidden in her sweater, and something tired crossed his face.
“Two hours,” he said. “Then I don’t hear barking, crying, or one more scratch on my floor.”
When the door closed, Miguel leaned his forehead against the wood and breathed like he had been running.
Lupita did not comfort him.
She went back to the bracelet.
“We have to call the hospital,” she said.
Miguel turned.
“And say what? That a dog dragged their bracelet down the highway with six puppies?”
“Yes.”
“They’ll think we’re crazy.”
“Maybe,” Lupita said. “But maybe someone is looking for Sofía Herrera.”
Canela growled again at the name, softer this time, as if it hurt instead of angered her.
Miguel crouched near the dog, keeping his hands visible.
“Who was she to you, girl?” he asked.
Canela did not move.
But one of the puppies pushed blindly toward her belly, and she bent to clean it with desperate tenderness.
Lupita called the hospital with the bracelet number, her voice polite at first, then firmer as she repeated herself.
Miguel could hear only pieces.
Found bracelet.
Federal Highway 45.
Newborn puppies.
Name Sofía Herrera.
No, not a prank.
No, we are not asking for money.
Then Lupita went silent.
Her face changed slowly, as if someone on the other end had opened a door she did not want to see.
“When?” she asked.
Miguel stood.
Lupita listened, her eyes fixed on the tile.
“Thank you,” she said at last, but the words sounded empty.
She ended the call and placed the phone beside the bracelet.
“They said Sofía Herrera left the hospital yesterday morning,” Lupita said.
Miguel waited for the rest.
“With a newborn daughter.”
The room became smaller.
The puppies whimpered under Canela’s body, and the refrigerator clicked loudly in the kitchen.
“What does that have to do with Canela?” Miguel asked, though the question felt too simple.
Lupita shook her head
“They wouldn’t tell me more. But the nurse asked where exactly we found the bracelet.”
“And?”
“She asked if there was a dog with us.”
Miguel looked down at Canela.
The dog was staring at the door now.
Not at Miguel.
Not at Lupita.
At the door.
As if she had heard footsteps no one else could hear.
Lupita picked up her phone again, but her hand trembled before she could unlock it.
“We should call the police,” she said.
Miguel immediately thought of his truck.
The unpaid fine.
The expired inspection sticker he had promised to fix after the next delivery.
The hours he would lose, the questions, the suspicion, the way people like him were rarely believed first.
Then he looked at Canela’s paws.
He hated himself for thinking about the truck.
