Rubén was the one who insisted that my mother was guilty.
And now, in front of everyone, he was trying to get to the door.
“Don’t pay attention to him”, he said, his voice breaking. “Was a child. He’s confused.”
But Mateo shook his head, put his hand in his pocket and took out a small plastic bag.
Inside was an old brass key.
“Dad told me that if mom was in danger, to open the secret closet drawer.”
My uncle Rubén stopped breathing.
And I understood that the worst was not what Mateo had just said.
The worst thing was that we were just beginning to find out.
PART 2
My mother’s execution was not cancelled.
Was suspended.
That word, “suspended”, stuck in my throat. It didn’t mean freedom. It didn’t mean justice. It meant my mom had a few more hours to stay alive while others decided if the truth was worth hearing.
The director ordered that no one leave the building. Rubén was seated in a separate office. He kept repeating the same thing:
“That child doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
But Mateo did know.
And that was what was scariest.
They took him to a psychologist and two researchers. I asked to be with him, but at first they wouldn’t let me. Then, when he started shouting my name, a gray-haired woman came out and said:
“You can come in, but don’t suggest anything. Just accompany him.”
Mateo was sitting in a huge chair for his small body. He had red eyes, cold hands and the bag with the key on the table.
“Tell it again, Mateo”, the researcher asked him.
He looked at me as if asking permission.
I nodded, although inside I was falling apart.
“That night I heard dad scream”, he said. “I went down because I thought he had fallen. I saw blood on the floor. Dad was lying around. My uncle Rubén was next to him.”
The researcher did not blink.
“Was your mom there?”
“No. Mom was upstairs. I had seen her asleep.”
I felt my stomach turn.
Matthew continued:
“My uncle saw me and told me to go back to bed. But I hid on the stairs. I saw him grab the knife with a towel. Then he went up to my parents’ room. I followed him slowly. He put it under mom’s bed.”
I closed my eyes.
Because suddenly I remembered something I never wanted to think about.
The blood on my mom’s robe didn’t seem splattered.
It looked muddy.
As if someone had put her there while she slept.
“Why didn’t you say it before?”, the researcher asked carefully.
Mateo began to shake.
“Because my uncle told me that if I spoke, Sofía was going to end up like a dad. And then… then she showed me a photo of her leaving high school. He told me: ‘I always know where they are’.”
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I approached and hugged him.
For six years, I had thought my little brother was too little to remember. For six years, we all said “poor thing, he doesn’t understand”. But I did understand. He had only been surviving.
Meanwhile, they sent police to the house that had been ours.
The same house that Rubén kept closed since the trial.
The same house I never returned to because every wall accused me of something.
The key that Mateo kept opened a hidden compartment in my parents’ closet. My dad was meticulous. He kept receipts, contracts, photos, copies of everything. My mom always joked that Arturo could lose his car keys, but never an important role.
Hours later, an officer returned with a sealed box.
Inside were documents, photographs and a USB flash drive.
The first photo left us frozen.
Rubén appeared next to a burly man that I didn’t know, in a black shirt and gold chain. Behind them, blurry, was my dad, as if he had taken the photo without them realizing it.
On the back, with my dad’s handwriting, it said:
“If something happens to me, Lucía didn’t go.”
My mom put her hands to her face.
