The wife, in labor, called her husband. He, with one hand embracing his lover and the other holding the phone, answered coldly: “If you’re having a girl, I don’t want to raise her. She’ll just take up space in the house… Go live with your parents!”—and hung up.

That night, in Guadalajara, the sky opened with a furious storm. Thunder crashed across the rooftops as Lucía doubled over in pain in the small apartment she shared with her husband, Tomás. With trembling hands, she dialed his number:

“Tomás… please, come. I’m in so much pain… I think I’m about to give birth.”

On the other end, his voice was as cold as the rain pouring from the sky:

“Calling again? I already told you, if you’re having a girl, you’d better go live with your mother. I’m not going to raise daughters who are just a waste of money.”

“How can you say that? She’s your daughter too!” Lucía sobbed. “I’m busy. You’re on your own,” he said before hanging up.

Lucía stared at the blank screen, tears mingling with sweat. Clutching her stomach, she ran soaking wet into the street, knocking on the door of her neighbor, Don Ernesto, who immediately took her to the public hospital.

Meanwhile, Tomás was in a luxury hotel in Puerto Vallarta, in the arms of Valeria, his young secretary. Between laughs and glasses of wine, she said to him,

“Aren’t you afraid karma will make you pay dearly for lying to your wife like that?”

He burst out laughing.

“Lucía? That woman is a burden. Poor, ugly, and unambitious. When you give me a son, I’ll get rid of her.”

He didn’t know that, at that very moment, his wife was in the operating room, fighting for her life. His daughter was born weak, but alive. Lucía lost consciousness.

The next morning, Tomás returned to Guadalajara. But when he arrived at his house in Zapopan, he saw something that froze him to the spot: strangers were loading furniture onto a moving truck.

“Hey! What are you doing? That’s my house!” he shouted.

A man in a real estate company uniform calmly replied,

“Not anymore, sir. The property was sold yesterday. Here’s a copy of the notarized contract. The new owner is Mrs. Carmen Ortega… your mother-in-law.”

Tomás went pale. He pulled out his phone and called Lucía, but the number was disconnected. Just then, another ringtone sounded: it was his mother.

“Tomás! What have you done? Lucía almost died last night in the hospital!” she cried through her tears.

“She had a baby girl, Mom! And the house? That house is in my name!”

“Not anymore,” she retorted, her anger barely contained. “The house was in my name, and I sold it. I bought Lucía and my granddaughter a new apartment. And you… don’t you ever come near it again.” I don’t want such a miserable son.

Tomás collapsed in the middle of the street, under the relentless rain.

Three months later, everything fell apart. The company where he worked investigated him for embezzlement. Valeria disappeared with all the money from the corporate account. She had used her signature to divert funds and fled to the United States with another man. Tomás lost his job, his reputation, his home… and even his mother had rejected him.

One sunny afternoon, in front of a new building in the city center, Lucía appeared. She wore a simple white dress and held her baby in her arms. Beside her, Mrs. Carmen was chatting with a neighbor. Seeing them together, anyone would have thought they were mother and daughter.

The mother-in-law, with tears in her eyes, took Lucía’s hand.

“Daughter… I misjudged you. I thought my son was a good man. I was so wrong…” Lucía smiled at her tenderly:

“Don’t worry, Mom.” Life always puts everyone in their place. And a woman, no matter how weak she may seem, can rise again when everything has knocked her down.

The wind blew softly, drying the last of her tears. In her mother’s arms, the little girl slept peacefully. And across the clear sky of Guadalajara, a rainbow streaked across, a promise of a new beginning.