February 22, Guadalajara

On February 22 in Guadalajara, the night makes its own weather. The air is still, then it isn’t. It carries sound the way smoke carries a smell, thin at first, then suddenly everywhere.

His baby girl sleeps on her back, one fist curled like she’s holding onto a dream. The lamp is off, but the streetlight sneaks through the blinds and paints her cheeks in pale stripes. Her breath is small and steady, the cleanest rhythm in the apartment. He watches it like a monitor.

Outside, something sharp happens. Not close enough to see, close enough to know. A crack, then another, and a pause that feels like the city listening to itself. Farther off, a dog answers, then another. Somewhere a car alarm starts, gives up, starts again like it can’t decide whether it’s brave.

He doesn’t move. Moving feels like an invitation. He keeps his hand on the edge of the crib, not touching her, just there, a line he draws between her and the rest of the world. He thinks about his locks, his window bars, the thin door that pretends to be a boundary. He thinks about the routes he takes during the day, which streets he avoids now, which hours he no longer trusts. He thinks about the way you learn a city twice, first as a place, then as a set of precautions.

His phone is face down on the nightstand, the screen black, a small lie. He doesn’t want the headlines. He already has the sound.

He tries to do math, as if numbers could make a shield. How much money before you can move, how many months of rent, how many “just a little longer” conversations. He tries to picture a safer neighborhood, a quieter block, a life where the night is only night. The picture keeps tearing at the edges.

His daughter stirs, makes a soft complaint, and then settles. He leans in until he can smell her skin, milk and soap and that new-person sweetness that makes everything else feel unreal.

Another noise outside, lower this time, like a door slammed in anger. He swallows. He tells himself the words anyway, the ones fathers have always used when there’s nothing else to do.

I will keep you safe.

He doesn’t know if the city believes him. He repeats it until his hands stop shaking.