“But, but it’s my house,” she sobbed. “It’s where I lived with your father, where you grew up. All our memories are there.” “Memories don’t pay the bills,” Rodrigo replied curtly. “And you’ve already lived your life. Now it’s our turn. So what?” “What’s going to happen to me?” Beatriz asked, though deep down she already knew the answer.
A heavy silence settled between them. Rodrigo and Patricia looked at each other, and in that exchange of glances, Beatriz saw the truth. They had no plan for her. They were leaving her there to die, for the desert sun, thirst, hunger, or some wild animal to finish what they didn’t have the courage to do directly.
“You can’t do this,” Beatriz whispered. “I’m your mother. I carried you in my womb. I gave you life, and now we’re returning the favor.” Patricia said with a cruel smile. “We’re freeing you from the burden of continuing to live a life that no longer has any meaning.” Rodrigo and Patricia began walking back to the car. Beatriz fought against the ropes, screamed, begged, cried, reminded them of every sacrifice she had made for them:
every sleepless night when they were sick, every meal she had skipped to make sure they had enough, every dream she had abandoned to give them a life. better education, but her words fell on deaf ears. Rodrigo started the car. Patricia got in without looking back even once, and then the black vehicle began to drive away, raising a cloud of dust that enveloped Beatriz in a golden mist that stung her eyes and throat. No, please, don’t leave me here, Rodrigo, Patricia.
Her cries were heart-wrenching, filled with a primal despair that only someone betrayed in the cruelest way by those they loved most can feel. The car grew smaller and smaller in the distance until it finally disappeared completely, swallowed by the undulating desert horizon.
And Beatriz was left alone, completely alone, in the middle of nowhere, tied to a rusty lamppost under the relentless midday desert sun. The silence that followed was deafening. There were no birds singing, no traffic noise, no human voices, only the whistling of the oc
He was no longer the little boy who sat in the kitchen telling her about his day while she prepared dinner. Patricia had always been the more ambitious of the two. From a young age, she had wanted more than they could give her. She was ashamed of the modest house they lived in, the clothes that weren’t designer brands, the old cars Raúl drove.
When she got her job at the accounting firm, she had practically cut all ties with her family, visiting them only on special occasions and always in a hurry to leave. Raúl had noticed it too in his last years of life, when the illness was slowly consuming him; he had expressed his sadness at the distance he felt from his adult children.
Beatriz had told him one night, her voice weak but full of emotion, “I worry about what will become of you when I’m gone. Rodrigo and Patricia are no longer the children we raised. They’ve changed. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself, that you won’t give them everything and leave nothing for yourself.” She had promised him, she had promised him she would be alright, that she would take care of herself.
But how could she have taken care of herself? How could she have protected herself from the wickedness of her own children? The hours passed slowly. The midday sun gave way to the afternoon sun, just as relentless. Just as cruel. Beatriz felt her consciousness begin to cloud over. Dehydration, the extreme heat, the emotional shock—everything combined to push her body beyond its limits.
Her head hung forward. Her breathing was shallow and labored. The ropes that bound her had cut off the circulation to her arms, which now felt completely numb. She no longer cried; she had no more tears to shed. She felt as empty as a vessel from which all its contents had been spilled.
At some point, she began to hallucinate. She thought she saw Raúl walking toward her across the desert, smiling with that warm smile she had loved so much. He reached out to her, and Beatriz tried to reach him, but the ropes held her in place. Raúl whispered, his voice breaking, “Raúl, help me.” But the figure vanished, dissolving into the hot air rippling above the pavement.
Beatriz felt a pang of disappointment so profound it threatened to plunge her into total darkness. And then, just as she was about to give up completely, to let the darkness envelop her and carry her away from this horrible place, away from the pain and betrayal, she heard a sound. A sound she initially thought was another hallucination, the sound of an engine.
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