Chapter 13 - THE MOTHER WHO KEPT HIM
Beatriz asked to meet Lucía.
Lucía refused.
Then reconsidered.
They chose a quiet room in Alejandro’s lawyer’s office.
No reporters.
No staff.
Only the two women and Alejandro.
Beatriz arrived first.
She had spent her life impeccably dressed.
That morning she wore no jewelry.
Lucía came wearing a dark wool coat.
She sat opposite Beatriz.
Neither woman spoke.
Thirty-two years stood between them.
Finally Beatriz said:
“I don’t know where to begin.”
Lucía answered:
“October 15, 1994.”
Beatriz lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
The answer startled her.
Lucía continued.
“You are sorry now because the truth has reached you.”
Beatriz looked up.
“I was sorry before.”
“But not enough to find me.”
Silence.
“I was afraid Ricardo would take Alejandro from me.”
Lucía’s expression hardened.
“So you let him take Mateo from me.”
Beatriz began crying.
Alejandro looked away.
Lucía did not.
“You had something I didn’t have,” she said.
“What?”
“Power.”
Beatriz shook her head.
“Ricardo had power.”
“You had his ear. His house. His money. His surname.”
Lucía leaned forward.
“I had a hospital gown and people telling me I was insane.”
Beatriz had no answer.
Then Lucía surprised them both.
“I don’t want him taken from you.”
Beatriz stared.
Lucía glanced toward Alejandro.
“He has loved you for thirty-two years.”
Beatriz covered her mouth.
“I spent decades dreaming about getting my son back,” Lucía continued. “But there is no way to return a thirty-two-year-old man to a twenty-four-year-old mother.”
Her eyes filled.
“That life is gone.”
Alejandro could barely breathe.
“What I want,” Lucía said, “is the truth.”
She looked at Beatriz.
“I want my name restored to his birth record.”
Beatriz nodded.
“I want the child you lost buried under his real name.”
Another nod.
“And I want every person who called me unstable to know I was telling the truth.”
Beatriz whispered, “Yes.”
Lucía sat back.
“Then we have nothing else to fight over.”
But Beatriz did.
She reached into her bag.
A small velvet box.
Inside lay a photograph Alejandro had never seen.
Beatriz holding him on the day they left Santa Isabel.
Around his wrist was the silver horse bracelet.
On the back, Ricardo had written a sentence:
Remove this before anyone sees it.
Lucía stared at the handwriting.
For the first time, her anger gave way to something colder.
Proof.
Not of a hospital accident.
Of a deliberate decision afterward.
Ricardo had known.
And Beatriz had preserved the evidence.
“Why keep this?” Lucía asked.
May you like
Beatriz looked at Alejandro.
“Because some part of me knew one day he would need to know who he was.”
