Adrian received that second piece of paper from Isabel without knowing that, upon opening it, he would stop wondering only why his father had never returned.
The question that was about to arise was much more difficult: who had decided, over nineteen years, what each of them could know.
The paper was yellowed at the edges and folded so many times that one of the corners was almost coming off.
Adrian looked at his mother first.
Then to Gabriel.
-What is this?
Isabel pressed the basket against her hip, as if she needed to hold something while he read.
—It arrived a few weeks after you were born.
Gabriel took another step closer, but did not try to take the document from her.
Adrian unfolded the sheet.
The handwriting was firm, slanted to the right.
Gabriel recognized her before reading a single word.
It was Mercedes’ lyrics.
His mother.
Adrian
He began to read silently.
The letter did not say that Gabriel had died.
Nor did it say that he was missing.
He said something worse because he turned abandonment into a conscious decision.
Mercedes claimed that Gabriel already knew about the birth of the child, that he had received news from Isabel, and that he wanted no connection with them.
Then a phrase appeared that Gabriel remembered hearing hundreds of times during his youth, although never in that way.
A man who aspired to build something important could not allow an early mistake to decide the rest of his life.
Gabriel closed his eyes for just a moment.
Mercedes had used almost the same words when he accepted that temporary job in Madrid.
“Don’t waste your future on a farm and a life that’s too small,” he told her.
At the time, he had interpreted it as the usual harshness of an ambitious mother.
Now it sounded different.
Adrian lifted the
—It says here that you knew I had been born.
-I didn’t know.
—You already said that.
—And it’s true.
Adrian clutched the letter between his fingers.
—I grew up thinking that my father knew perfectly well where we were and simply didn’t want to come.
Gabriel swallowed hard.
He could buy hotels, buildings, and land without hesitation.
He could sit in front of investors and discuss enormous figures without his voice trembling.
But he could not defend himself against that statement because he understood that, for Adrián, nineteen years of absence weighed more than any explanation uttered in an afternoon.
“I’m not going to ask you to believe me today,” Gabriel said. “I’m only asking you not to destroy that letter.”
Isabel looked at him suspiciously.
-So that?
Gabriel pointed to the envelope he was still holding.
—Because I supposedly wrote the first letter. My mother wrote this one. If they’re both part of the same thing, I want
to understand how he did it.
Adrian let out a dry laugh.
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