Chapter 2 - Camila Had Been Planning to Leave Helena’s HouseCamila and Bia had moved in with Helena eight months earlier after Camila lost her apartment during a difficult divorce.
Ricardo believed the arrangement was temporary.
Helena called it necessary.
She handled bills, meals, school pickups, and most of Camila’s medical appointments after Camila developed severe migraines and periods of exhaustion.
At first Camila was grateful.
Then she began telling Ricardo that living with their mother felt “like being twelve again.”
Helena opened her mail.
Answered questions for her at appointments.
Decided when Bia could see her father.
Every objection became evidence that Camila was unstable.
“She’s overwhelmed,” Helena told relatives.
Camila started planning to move out.
She found a small apartment near Bia’s school.
Ricardo offered money.
Camila refused.
“I need one thing that doesn’t belong to Mom.”
Three days later, she collapsed at Helena’s house.
She was hospitalized and died from complications linked to an undiagnosed heart condition worsened by extreme physiological stress.
Doctors did not suspect murder.
Neither did Ricardo.
What troubled him later was timing.
Camila had told Helena about the new apartment the night before she collapsed.
And afterward, Helena repeatedly insisted Camila had been confused for weeks.
Ricardo accepted that until the funeral.
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Until Bia said her mother had not “gone alone.”
Until a hidden phone appeared from inside a doll Helena supposedly never touched.
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