PART 2
The police arrived before sunrise.
A young officer began taking notes while another photographed the bruises on Valeria's wrists.
The doctor pulled me aside.
"Your son has a severe infection caused by dehydration and prolonged exposure to high temperature," she said. "Another twelve hours, and we might not have been able to save him."
The words hit harder than any punch I'd ever taken.
Another twelve hours.
I looked through the nursery window.
Santiago lay inside an incubator, his tiny chest rising and falling beneath a maze of tubes.
I had promised to protect him.
Instead, I had handed him to the very people who nearly killed him.
Hours later, Valeria finally opened her eyes.
The first thing she whispered wasn't my name.
It was our son's.
"Is Santiago... alive?"
I squeezed her hand.
"He's going to make it."
She burst into tears.
"I tried to call you."
My heart stopped.
"What do you mean?"
"They took my phone."
She struggled to breathe between sobs.
"Your mother said I didn't deserve to bother you while you were working."
I felt sick.
"They locked the bedroom door whenever they left."
My blood turned cold.
"They said I was weak... lazy... that I needed to learn to be a real mother."
She slowly pulled back the hospital blanket.
Purple bruises covered both arms.
"When I begged for water, Brenda laughed."
Another tear rolled down her cheek.
"She said if the baby cried long enough... I'd eventually stop caring."
The room fell silent.
The detective standing near the door lowered his notebook.
Even he looked horrified.
Then Valeria whispered the sentence that shattered whatever remained of my loyalty.
"I heard your mother praying."
I frowned.
"Praying?"
Valeria nodded.
"She said... 'Lord, if one of them has to die, let it be her.'"
May you like
For the first time in my life...
I hated my own mother.
