—To Mercedes.
Isabel nodded.
—He came to see me twice.
Gabriel
He leaned back on the back of a chair.
That was different from intercepting a letter.
Mercedes had seen Isabel alive.
I had found out she was pregnant.
He then called his own son and told him that his wife had disappeared during the flood.
Adrian looked at the letter again.
—So she knew Mom was alive when she told you she had died.
Gabriel felt that the word “dead” no longer belonged only to the memory of the empty coffin.
Now it was a lie uttered with intention.
—Yes —he replied.
Isabel slowly shook her head.
—There’s more.
Gabriel raised his head.
-Further?
She took one of the receipts that were inside the box.
It wasn’t a letter.
It was an old deposit slip.
—The money I received to disappear didn’t come from one of your accounts—Isabel said. —I only found that out years later.
Gabriel took the paper.
The amount wasn’t huge, but
At that time, it would have represented several months of expenses for Isabel.
—I never sent this.
-I know.
Adrian looked at both of them.
—Who did it come from?
Isabel replied:
—From an account controlled by Mercedes.
Gabriel clutched the receipt.
For years he had financed his mother’s comfort without scrutinizing his expenses too closely.
Mercedes lived in a property he paid for, used family accounts managed by his office, and enjoyed a life that Gabriel considered a natural return for having supported him when he was young.
I had never asked him too many questions.
I had never imagined that the woman who cried beside him in front of an empty coffin knew that the person they were saying goodbye to was still alive.
Adrian left the letter on the table.
—What are you going to do?
Gabriel took out his phone.
Isabel tensed up.
—I don’t want you coming here with people or turning our life into a spectacle.
Gabriel put the device away again.
I wasn’t going to call anyone to come over.
—So to whom?
—To my mother.
Isabel denied it.
—Not from here.
Gabriel frowned.
-Because?
“Because this house belongs to Adrián and me in every way that matters, even if the papers say otherwise. We grew up here. We ate here when there wasn’t enough to go around. We fixed the roof here. He got sick here. He celebrated his birthday here. I don’t want to hear Mercedes’ voice coming through that door again.”
Gabriel put the phone down.
-OK.
It was the first decision he made without trying to regain ground.
And Adrian noticed her.
Gabriel spent that afternoon reviewing only the documents that Isabel wanted to show him.
He didn’t open any drawers.
He didn’t ask questions about each year lost.
He did not try to touch Adrian or seek a familiarity that did not yet exist.
When it began to get dark, he left.
See more on the next page