PART 2
“Dr. Escobedo was a friend of your mother’s,” Lucía said, pointing to the papers. “It wasn’t a medical error. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a plan.”
I looked at the tests without understanding, or perhaps without wanting to understand. There were new analyses, stamps from another hospital, medical notes, dates. Everything said the opposite of what they had told me five years earlier.
Lucía could get pregnant.
Lucía had been healthy.
The diagnosis that destroyed our marriage was false.
I remembered that afternoon in the elegant office in Polanco. My mother sitting beside me, holding my hand with that soft voice she used to control everything.
“Son, we can’t force life. You’re young. You have a business to run. A family to continue.”
And I, a coward, listened to her.
I distanced myself from Lucía little by little. I made her feel guilty for something that wasn’t even true. I let my mother into our house, our bed, our decisions.
“When did you find out?” I asked, my voice breaking.
“When you were already asking for a divorce,” she replied. “I fainted at the Coyoacán market. I thought it was stress. I went to a doctor, and she told me I was pregnant.”
She was silent.
Then she added:
“With twins.”
The children stopped fidgeting with their juice boxes.
I looked at them. They looked at me too.
For the first time, I understood that I wasn’t uncovering a lie. I was discovering two lives that had been ripped from me.
“I didn’t know…” I murmured.
Lucía let out a bitter laugh.
“I tried to tell you.”
She pulled out more papers. Call logs. Sent emails. Screenshots of messages. Courier receipts.
My name appeared again and again.
My office.
My assistant.
My house.
My cell phone.
“I called you three days in a row,” she said. “They hung up on me. They told me you were busy. I sent emails. I left messages. I went to your office.”
“I never received anything.”
“I know that.”
Her response hit me harder than a shout.
“On the fourth day, your mother arrived.”
I felt nauseous.
“What did she say?”
Lucía looked down at the children and stroked their hair, as if she needed to remember why it hadn’t broken.
“She told me that if I showed up pregnant in the middle of the divorce, she was going to destroy your reputation.” Everyone would think I was trying to trap you for money. That I had connections to…
