Chapter 4 - SAN JERÓNIMO
Clínica San Jerónimo had closed nineteen years earlier.
The building still stood outside Madrid.
Barely.
Its windows were boarded.
Its plaster had peeled away in long gray strips.
But the institution had not disappeared completely.
Records from private psychiatric facilities were often transferred, archived, destroyed, misplaced—or forgotten.
Valeria found the forgotten part.
A former San Jerónimo administrator had donated boxes of nonmedical administrative material to a university archive after the clinic closed.
Three days later, Alejandro, Valeria, and Rosa sat beneath fluorescent lights while an archivist placed six dusty ledgers before them.
They searched for Lucía Herrera.
Nothing.
They searched by date.
October 18, 1994.
At 4:45 p.m., Valeria stopped turning pages.
“Here.”
The name was not Lucía Herrera.
It was Elena Martín.
But beside it was the exact Santa Isabel patient identification number from the transfer sheet.
Alejandro read the entry.
Admitted October 18.
Private room 17.
No visitors.
External correspondence restricted.
Then the payment code.
NH-44.
Navarro Holdings.
Rosa whispered, “They changed her name.”
The records continued.
Medication charges.
Private attendants.
Security fees.
Month after month.
Lucía had remained at San Jerónimo for eleven months.
Then, abruptly, the payments ended.
“What happened?” Alejandro asked.
The archivist brought another ledger.
Patient discharged — September 3, 1995.
No destination.
No family signature.
But a handwritten annotation appeared beside the discharge entry.
Refused vehicle. Departed on foot.
Alejandro stared at it.
Lucía had survived.
For eleven months after being told her baby was dead, she had been held under another name.
Then she had walked out alone.
Valeria turned another page.
A document had been tucked between the sheets.
It was a returned letter.
Addressed to Santa Isabel Hospital.
Sender:
Elena Martín — Room 17.
The envelope had never been opened.
On the front, someone had stamped:
RETURN TO FACILITY — RECIPIENT UNKNOWN.
Alejandro looked at the archivist.
“Can we see the contents?”
The archivist carefully opened the already unsealed archival sleeve.
Inside was one page.
Lucía’s handwriting slanted sharply across it.
Alejandro began reading.
I am Lucía Herrera. I am not Elena Martín.
My son Mateo Herrera was born on October 15 at Santa Isabel Hospital.
He has a crescent birthmark beneath his left shoulder.
He wore a silver horse bracelet.
I was told he died, but they will not show me his body.
Please tell me where my child is.
Alejandro could not continue.
Valeria took the letter.
The final lines were shorter.
If Mateo is alive, tell him I did not abandon him.
Tell him I asked for him every day.
Alejandro walked away from the table.
For thirty-two years, he had believed his life began in privilege.
A Navarro heir.
Private schools.
Summer homes.
A surname that opened doors before he reached them.
Now, in a dead clinic’s ledger, he had found a woman begging strangers to tell her where her baby had gone.
Valeria approached him.
“She was released.”
“That doesn’t mean she survived.”
“No.”
“But it means we can look.”
Behind them, Rosa was still reading the letter.
Then she noticed something on the back.
A pencil notation.
One name.
Sister Mercedes — Casa de Santa Ana, Ávila.
Valeria looked at Alejandro.
A trail.
May you like
Thirty-one years old.
But a trail.
