"They never even woulda told me!" Rosario's voice was creeping sharply up in pitch and volume and she barely seemed to notice. She reached another dead end and spun on her heel to stomp back in the other direction. "I asked! She said she thought it wasn't important! How is it not important?!"
It was one night, her mom had said, twisting the ring on her finger, fiddling with anxious hands. I was probably just another girl to him, he wouldn'ta even recognised me. Marcos is your dad in all the ways that matter.
But he's not! The words had exploded out of Rosario, hurt and righteous anger blazing hot, and she'd seen her mom flinch as they connected, but it wasn't enough to stop the avalanche. Not genetically! That's half my family medical history! What if the stupid Goldenhawks have a predisposition for breast cancer, or, or schizophrenia? What if I have kids? I could be a carrier for for some heritable disease and I wouldn't know!
Her mom's face had crumpled completely under the barrage. I didn't know that. Oh fuck, I didn't know. I'm sorry, m'ija. I thought I was doing the right thing.
It was so much worse, that expression, than the one from the video call, the moment when she'd seen Archer and realised.
And the truth was, Rosario didn't even care about any of that medical shit. It was peanuts, it was whatever. It just had the benefit of being facts, solid and immutable, without the jagged edges of emotion that might slice her to ribbons if she got too close to them.