I looked at him.
His jaw was tense.
“He lied,” I said.
“Yes. When my wife died, I went looking for you. But Ernesto had already left the village. He disappeared with Clara and you. They changed the documents. They changed your last name. And for years I couldn’t find you.”
The pain that had been repressed suddenly manifested itself.
I collapsed on the table and started crying.
I didn’t just cry for the woman in the photo.
I was crying for the girl I went to.
For every insult.
For every dish washed with fear.
Every night I thought it was worthless.
I was crying because they had even stolen my name.
Don Ramon didn’t try to touch me.
He stood there motionless, letting me collapse.
When I finally raised my face, my throat felt burning.
“Why now?” I asked. “Why look like this? Why buy me?”
His eyes were in shadow.
“Because I went to visit them yesterday.”
My heart started pounding in my neck.
“What?”
“A man from the village told me you were still with them. I went to check. And I heard what they were planning.”
A shiver ran through my whole body.
“What were they planning?”
His silence lasted only a second.
But it was enough to make my blood run cold.
“She marries an old man from the sawmill to pay off a debt.”
I remained still.
Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fit together.
Clara’s strange looks.
Ernesto’s whispers with unknown men.
The urge to make me leave the house.
I had not been sold to Don Ramon out of pure greed.
I was already finished before I turned into something worse.
“When I realized that,” he continued, “I offered them money right then and there. More than they would have received. Not because it can buy a life, but because it was the only way to get them out of that house without them running away again.”
I looked down at the envelope.
To the coins.
To the newspapers.
To the photo.
My whole life had been a series of lies constructed by cowardly adults.
“So… you saved me.”
Don Ramon clenched his jaw.
“I couldn’t save your mother. I was too late. I didn’t consider the possibility of failing again.”
Something inside me wanted to believe him completely.
Another part was still made of fear.
“What if you lied to me too?”
He nodded, as if that doubt were well founded.
“Then tomorrow I’ll take you to the judge of Real del Monte, to the doctor who treated your mother, and to the midwife who attended you on the day of your birth. They’re all three still alive. All three can talk.”
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