Left Alone with His Sick Mother, an Unknown Man Quietly Helped Him, but at the Sound of His Name the Director’s Face Changed

They refused me money for my mother’s treatment at the very moment when her doctor was saying the worst words in the hospital corridor.

“Mrs. Martin, the program helps only those patients who have complete documentation,” the administrator told me at ten in the morning, sliding the papers across the table as if they were dirty.

“All the documents are here.”

“One signature is missing.”

“My mother is lying in the ward. Please tell me how I can resolve this.”

The woman shrugged. A silver ring on her finger gleamed coldly.

“Come tomorrow.”

But another transfusion was scheduled for tomorrow. Another medicine. Another sum of money that I no longer had.

I went out into the corridor and stood by the wall. In my hand I held an old brown wallet, with a small copper talisman hanging from its zipper. Mother had given me this talisman when I was twelve and told me that as long as it was with me, I would never lose the way home. That morning the zipper was stuck. It was as if even the wallet no longer believed I had anywhere to return to.

Pilar was lying on the bed and still trying to smile.

“Elena, why do you have such a face?”

“Nothing happened.”

“When you say ‘nothing,’ something very bad is always happening.”

“I am just sorting out the documents.”

Mother held out her hand to me. Her wrist was so thin that the hospital bracelet looked too large on it.

“Do not ask anyone for charity.”

“I am not asking for charity. I am asking only for what belongs to you.”

“People love debts, child. They give you help and then enter your life.”

At that moment I still did not know that Mother was speaking literally.

At five in the evening I saw the same man again in front of the hospital. He was standing beside a black car. The wind moved the edges of his coat, but he himself seemed motionless. His driver, Niko, was waiting several steps away.

“You are still here?” I asked.

“So are you.”

“Are you planning to interfere in my life?”

His eyes hardened.

“I have not interfered yet.”

“You returned my wallet, allocated money to my school, covered my mother’s treatment… What do you call that?”

“I did not touch the first two matters.”

“That is a lie.”

Niko slightly raised his head, as if he had been angered by my words, but Vincenzo Romano stopped him with a hand.

“If you want, stop helping,” I said. “But first tell me why you are helping me.”

He did not answer me. He only looked at the hospital card hanging from my neck. Then he noticed my bag, from whose pocket the corner of an old photograph was visible.

“Where was this photograph taken?”

“In Asturias. In childhood.”

“Who is with you?”

“My mother.”

Something changed on his face. For a moment he had an expression as if he had heard a voice from twenty years ago.

“This woman… was she always your mother?”

“What does ‘always’ mean?”

Vincenzo leaned toward me.

“Has Pilar ever said the name Lucia to you?”

My blood froze. I knew this name. In childhood, when Mother had a bad dream at night, she repeated in her sleep: “Lucia, forgive me.”

“Who is Lucia?” I asked.

He stepped back.

“Ask your mother this question.”

“How do you know this name?”

For the first time he lost his composure. Niko approached the car door.

“Do not go home alone today,” Vincenzo told me.

“Are you threatening me now?”

“I am warning you.”

“From whom?”

He took a white folder from his pocket, but did not have time to open it. At that very moment the hospital’s main door opened noisily and a man in a black uniform walked toward me. He held a folder sealed with a court stamp. Vincenzo looked at him and his face suddenly went pale.

The man stopped in front of me.

“Elena Martin?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“This is for you.”

Vincenzo reached toward the folder, but the man was already beginning to undo the lock…

The small metallic sound of the lock rang through the corridor louder than it should have.

“Do not open it,” Vincenzo said.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The man looked at the document.

“I am a lawyer. I have a message left for you.”

“From whom?”

He looked at Vincenzo and immediately looked away.

“You will find that in the folder.”

“I asked you, who is it from?”

“Mrs. Martin, I advise you to open it at home or in the presence of a lawyer.”

Vincenzo said calmly:

“Jacob, leave here.”

“Mr. Romano, this time your instruction will not help us.”

It was the first time someone had refused him. Such coldness appeared in Vincenzo’s eyes that for a moment I forgot even my own anger.

“Elena,” he told me, “do not trust this man.”

“And should I trust you?”

He had no answer.

I took the folder home. In the old district of Madrid, on the fourth floor, our small apartment seemed strangely empty that night. The kitchen clock ticked loudly. Mother’s medicines lay on the table, and beside them was Vincenzo’s black business card.

Pilar was sitting by the window. Fatigue could be seen on her face.

“Who was that man?”

“I do not know.”

“Elena, do not lie to me.”

I put the folder on the table. Mother saw its seal and lost color.

“Where did you find this?”

“They gave it to me in front of the hospital.”

“Did you open it?”

“Not yet.”

Mother placed her hand on the wallet. The copper talisman touched the table and a ringing sound was heard.

“That sound…” she said quietly.

“What sound?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know Vincenzo Romano?”

Mother lowered her eyes.

“Do not mention that name again.”

“Why?”

“Because that man does not help people. He buys them.”

“Then why did he cover my treatment?”

Mother fell silent.

“And why does he know Lucia’s name?”

Her fingers were trembling.

“Lucia is not your business.”

“I am her business if half of my life rests on her secret.”

Mother raised her head.

“You do not know what you are playing with.”

I could not sleep that night. At two in the morning I heard the sound of a car below. I went to the window and saw a black car in the courtyard. Vincenzo was not there. Two unknown men were talking beside the car. One of them looked up at our entrance.

The telephone rang.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Do not turn on the lights,” Vincenzo said.

“Is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you near my house?”

“Because this evening someone requested information about you.”

“Who requested it?”

“A person who believes that you have something that he lost twenty years ago.”

“What is it?”

From the other side of the line I heard heavy breathing.

“Talk to your mother first.”

“She tells me nothing.”

“Then force her.”

“Who are you to speak to me like that?”

There was silence for several seconds.

“A man who found out far too late that his child was alive.”

The line went dead.

I entered Mother’s room. Pilar was asleep, but immediately opened her eyes.

“Who called you?”

“Vincenzo.”

Mother clutched the blanket.

“What did he tell you?”

“That twenty years ago someone lost something. And that this something may be me.”

Pilar sat up in bed.

“Elena, if you love me, you will not meet that man again.”

“Mother, you are afraid of him.”

“No. I am afraid of what will happen when you learn the truth.”

In the morning, before going to the hospital, I found a small wooden box in Mother’s old wardrobe. At the bottom of the box a birth certificate was hidden, on which my surname was still written as Martin. But it did not have Mother’s signature.

On the back of the document one sentence was written: “If he has returned, do not wait for the blood result anymore.”

At that same moment I received a message on my phone. It was from an unknown number.

“Today, at eight in the evening, come to the old railway warehouse. Alone. If you do not come, they will tell your mother the truth in the way that suits them…”

“…and then you will no longer be able to change anything,” the message ended.

At eight in the evening I went to the old railway warehouse. The rain was like a thin curtain, and the smell of oil hung on the paving stones. I knew I was not alone. Vincenzo’s car was parked nearby.

“You should not have come,” he told me.

“You are here too.”

“I came to protect you.”

“No. You came to hide the truth.”

Vincenzo lowered his eyes. Jacob stood behind him, holding the same folder.

“Open it now, at least,” Vincenzo said.

I opened the folder. On the very first page I saw a laboratory seal. Genetic testing. My sample and Vincenzo Romano’s sample.

My eyes dried on the page.

“What is this?”

“The answer I have been waiting for twenty years,” Vincenzo said.

“How did you take my sample?”

“When I held your hand in the hospital, you had a small cut on your finger. The doctor offered to take a sample because I thought that…”

“You took it by deception?”

“No. You signed.”

Jacob turned over the second page.

“The probability of kinship is ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent.”

Raindrops ran down my face, but I no longer felt the cold.

“Are you my father?”

For the first time Vincenzo did not dare look into my eyes.

“Yes.”

The word remained in the air.

“No,” I whispered. “That is impossible.”

“I thought your mother was Lucia. Twenty-four years ago she worked in my family. We loved each other, but I was already in that world from which it was not easy to escape. When she learned she was pregnant, she left me.”

“Who is Lucia?”

“Your biological mother.”

Everything collapsed in one moment.

“Pilar is not my mother?”

“Pilar raised you. Lucia was her sister.”

“Where is Lucia?”

Vincenzo’s face became tense.

“She died.”

“When?”

“Several months after your birth.”

“And you thought that I had died too?”

Vincenzo closed his eyes.

“Pilar sent me a letter. It said that Lucia and the child had died in a fire. I stopped searching.”

“She lied to me.”

“She saved your life,” Vincenzo said. “My enemies were looking for Lucia. If they knew the child existed, you would also have become a target.”

“Then why did you help me now?”

“I saw your photograph. It was an old picture of Pilar. You have Lucia’s eyes.”

I looked at my hands. They were still trembling.

“Mother knew that you were alive.”

“She knew.”

“And for twenty years she told me nothing.”

“Because she was afraid.”

“Of you?”

“Of my name.”

Suddenly Vincenzo’s phone rang. He answered, and his face changed.

“What happened?” I asked.

He listened for several seconds.

“Pilar has been taken from the hospital.”

“Who took her?”

Jacob picked up the phone. An unfamiliar video began on its screen. Pilar was sitting on a chair, and behind her stood two masked men.

“If Romano gets the girl back, we will lose the mother,” one of them said.

Then he approached the camera and added:

“Elena, tell your real father that the debt begun twenty years ago must be paid today…”