Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO OPENED THE GATE
Casa de Santa Ana had once been a refuge for women leaving hospitals, prisons, violent homes, and nowhere else.
The original convent had closed.
But Sister Mercedes was still alive.
Ninety-one.
Nearly blind.
Her memory wandered through some years and returned sharply to others.
The moment Alejandro showed her Lucía’s photograph, she stopped smiling.
“Lucía.”
Alejandro’s heart struck hard against his ribs.
“You remember her?”
Sister Mercedes touched the edge of the photograph.
“She arrived with no coat.”
September 1995.
Lucía had walked nearly six kilometers from San Jerónimo before a truck driver found her beside a road.
She had no money.
No identification.
No family willing to take her in.
“They told her parents she had become unstable,” Mercedes explained. “Her mother was frightened of her.”
“What did Lucía say?”
“That her baby had been stolen.”
The sister looked toward Alejandro’s face.
“For months, everyone treated that as evidence of illness.”
“And you?”
“I thought sick people can still tell the truth.”
Lucía stayed at Santa Ana for fourteen weeks.
She regained strength.
She began writing letters.
Hospitals.
Police stations.
Civil registries.
Newspapers.
Lawyers.
Almost none answered.
One lawyer did.
His name was Tomás Vega.
He investigated Santa Isabel.
Then suddenly withdrew.
“Why?”
Mercedes shook her head.
“He came here one evening badly frightened. He told Lucía she needed to stop asking questions.”
“Did she?”
A faint smile crossed the old nun’s face.
“No.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left.”
“Where?”
“Barcelona first.”
“Then?”
Mercedes closed her eyes.
Alejandro thought he had lost her memory again.
Then she spoke.
“Years later, she sent me Christmas cards from Galicia.”
Valeria leaned forward.
“Which town?”
“I don’t remember.”
Mercedes became frustrated.
“Sea. There was always the sea.”
She reached for a small wooden drawer.
Inside were photographs, prayer cards, letters.
After several minutes she found an envelope.
Postmarked eleven years earlier.
A Coruña.
Alejandro felt hope rise.
The return address was incomplete.
But the surname was clear.
Lucía Herrera.
She had not changed it.
Before they left, Mercedes touched Alejandro’s arm.
“There is something you should know.”
He waited.
“Lucía became pregnant again many years later.”
Alejandro blinked.
“She had another child?”
“A daughter.”
Alejandro had not expected the information to hurt.
It did.
Not because Lucía had another child.
Because suddenly his unknown mother was no longer a frozen figure from 1994.
She had lived.
Loved.
Perhaps married.
Perhaps laughed.
Perhaps built a life around the wound of losing him.
“What is her daughter’s name?”
May you like
Mercedes smiled.
“Clara.”
