DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

Maria found her in the courtyard, sitting on the edge of the fountain and running a hand across the cool, rippling surface. Wispy clouds partially covered the full moon and cast silver veins across the ground. The only sound was that of the older woman softly humming a tune.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Maria took a breath and cleared her throat. "Mama."

Dora Luz fell silent but did not turn to look at her. "I know what you want, mija."

"…Why?"

Sighing, her mother looked up. "You'll need to be more specific."

She took a breath and tried to begin again. "Why are you doing this?"

"Asking you here?" Dora Luz stood and began to walk towards her daughter. "I don't really know why. So that we might know each other again, I suppose."

"Again?"

"It wasn't until I got your father's letter that I realized just how much I had missed…"

Maria darted out of her reach. "You missed everything."

"Your father and I agreed it would be best if I stayed out of - "

"For eighteen years?"

"I wished I could have helped you - "

"Then why didn't you try?"

"I did try," the older woman answered, her voice growing sharper.

Maria laughed harshly. "That was trying? Trying would have been answering my letters and visiting me more than once a year. But I guess leaving me in that convent while you waltzed around Europe was more important?"

"You don't appreciate all that your father and I did?"

"You both abandoned me!" There were tears brimming in her eyes now, and her hands had balled into trembling fists. "Papa couldn't break me, so he sent me off to have someone else do it for him. And where were you all that time? Doing everything you promised we'd do when you bothered to check on me? Did you even read my letters?"

"I could tell you were - "

"Then why didn't you do anything?"

Dora Luz started to shake her head and pace back and forth, wringing her hands, and this only seemed to make Maria angrier. "Well?"

She stopped, facing away from her daughter. "…Your father - "

"Oh, so you were brave enough to leave him but not brave enough to stand up to him when I couldn't."

"It's not as simple as that! You know perfectly well why I left."

"So that meant it was okay to leave me, too?"

"That's enough, Maria - "

"Did you even want me at all?"

"Maybe I didn't!"

The younger woman recoiled, unprepared to hear the answer she had been imagining. Dora Luz froze and squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at her daughter's face. Oh no. No no no. That's not true, that's not true.

She slowly looked up. "Maria, I'm…"

But Maria was already gone.

The next morning's coffee was cold and more bitter than usual. Dora Luz sipped it slowly as she stared at the empty chair on the other end of the table. A myriad of opened letters sat in front of her, carefully sorted and stacked. She read and re-read the ones which had been sent to her, and stared with disdain at the ones she had been too afraid to send in return.

Heavy footsteps in the hall got her attention, and she looked up to see Manolo walking through the arched doorway. His hair was still a mess, and exhaustion and worry were written on his face. At first she thought nothing of it. "I suspect you'll be on your - "

"Have you seen Maria?" he asked. "I can't find her."