PART 1
“Those children have your face… and you swore she could never be a mother.”
I told myself that, standing in the hallway of San Ángel Inn Hospital, the smell of chlorine, burnt coffee, and wet rain on my shoes tightening in my throat.
I had gone to visit a business partner who had just come out of surgery. I walked in wearing my expensive suit, my cell phone vibrating incessantly, with that false sense of security you build when you think you’ve buried your past.
But the past was walking toward me.
Lucía.
Five years without seeing her.
Five years since we signed the divorce papers.
Five years since my mother convinced me that my marriage was doomed because Lucía “couldn’t give me children.”
She was coming quickly down the hallway, holding two children’s hands. Two children around four years old, with dark hair, big eyes, and that way of pursing their mouths that I saw every morning in the mirror.
I felt the world crumble around me.
Lucía saw me and froze.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything. The children looked from her to me, as if they understood that something terrible had just shattered.
“Lucía,” I said, but my voice sounded like a stranger’s.
She squeezed the children’s hands tighter.
“Not here, Alejandro.”
I swallowed.
“Who are they?”
Her eyes filled with a weary rage, the kind that no longer screams because it has been surviving for years.
“You have no right to come in like this and demand answers.”
“They look like me,” I said, almost breathless.
One of the children looked up. The more restless one stared at me without fear. The other clung to Lucía’s leg.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“Ten minutes,” she said. “In the pediatric waiting room.” My children stay where I can see them. And if you try to manipulate the conversation, I’m leaving.
My children.
That word pierced me like a knife.
We walked in silence to an almost empty room. Cartoons played on the television with the sound off. Outside, the rain pounded against the windows as if it wanted to listen too.
The children sat across from me with their juice boxes. I couldn’t stop staring at them.
It was impossible to deny.
The same chin.
The same eyes.
The same serious expression when something made them uneasy.
“Lucía…” I began.
“Shut up and listen,” she interrupted. “Because you’ve talked enough for five years without knowing the truth.”
My hands went cold.
She took an old folder, its corners folded, from her bag and placed it on the table.
“Your mother and Dr. Escobedo lied to you.”
I felt my heart give a sharp blow.
“What?”
Lucía looked at me as if she were finally seeing my family’s facade crumble.
“I was never infertile, Alejandro.”
And then she opened the folder.
I couldn’t believe what was about to happen…
