My Mother Exchanged My Wedding for a Rich Man, but When the Door Opened, My Mother’s Smile Suddenly Disappeared

My mother smashed my phone on the floor at exactly the moment I told her that I was going to marry a man who lived on the street.

A heavy silence descended over the house. The fragments of the broken screen lay on the white kitchen tiles, and each of them reflected the yellow ceiling lamp.

“Have you gone crazy?” Estela shouted. “You’re marrying a beggar?”

“He is not a beggar, Mother. He simply has nothing right now.”

There was calmness in my voice, but my hands were trembling so much that I could barely hold the teacup standing on the table. Three weeks earlier, I had seen Santiago in front of the “Hidalgo” metro station. His beard was unkempt, his shoes covered with dust, and his old tracksuit top was torn at the shoulder. He was holding a cardboard cup.

“Help me for food, please. May God multiply it for you,” he repeated quietly.

At first I did not recognize him. Then I looked into his eyes and realized that he was Santiago Villareal, the most brilliant student at my school. The boy who helped everyone but never showed his own pain.

“What happened to you?” I asked then.

“My business collapsed,” he answered me.

I asked nothing. I bought hot soup at a nearby café, took him home, and gave him the bathroom. His clothes became so wet from the rain that a small puddle formed on the floor. That night I put my savings—eighty thousand pesos—in an envelope.

“This is not assistance,” I told him. “It is a push to start again.”

Santiago looked at me for a long time.

“Would you have done this even if I never had money again?”

“A person’s dignity is more valuable than money.”

The next day he asked me to marry him. Perhaps another woman in his place would have thought that desperation was making him speak, but I saw some strange firmness in his eyes. I agreed. A simple civil ceremony was supposed to take place the following week.

But my mother accepted my decision as a deadly insult.

Lorena showed me a video on her phone. Some woman was laughing and filming Santiago as he begged for alms.

“Here is your fiancé,” she sneered. “The whole city will see whom you are marrying.”

Estela rewound the video several times. Finally she snatched the phone from me and smashed it onto the floor.

“As long as you live under this roof, I will decide your life.”

“You cannot marry in my place.”

“No, but I will put your place in order properly. Tomorrow Mauricio Ledes will come. He is rich, influential, and will secure your future.”

That night they locked me in my room. I heard my mother’s voice from under the door.

“Call Santiago and tell him that Valeria changed her mind.”

“Didn’t he call himself?” Lorena asked.

“I cannot risk his voice. He will realize that we are lying.”

I sat down on the bed and touched with my fingers the small copper key hanging from the pendant. Father had given it to me on the day I graduated from school. A small crescent-moon sign was engraved on it, and I always held it when I was afraid.

Soon I heard the sound of a car below. My mother seemed to be expecting a guest. Then I heard Lorena whisper.

“Santiago is already calling.”

Estela picked up the phone and said to him in a cold voice:

“Valeria no longer wants to see you. Do not come here tomorrow.”

The door handle slowly went down. I gripped the key and realized that on the other side of the door stood someone whom Mother was not expecting at all…

The door handle went down again, but the door did not open. Mother quietly said from outside that nobody should enter the room. I held my breath and listened against the wall.

“I want to hear this from Valeria,” Santiago’s voice sounded through the phone.

“She has nothing left to say to you,” Estela answered. “She is ashamed of you.”

“That is a lie.”

“If you have any sense, you will not come back here.”

After the call ended, I heard my mother’s steps for a long time. My phone was broken, and the door lock was locked from outside. I went to the wall and knocked three times. It was our old sign; Santiago and I used to tell each other at school this way that everything was all right.

There was no answer.

The next morning music began playing in the yard. From the window I saw them bringing in large pots, white tables, and an arch decorated with red flowers. Mother told the neighbors that my engagement was being held. My wedding, apparently, had become someone else’s celebration.

“You will not leave here today,” Lorena told me when she brought breakfast into the room.

“Tell Mother that this is illegal.”

“We are keeping the family alive. You, however, are planning to sink into poverty.”

“Poverty is not shameful. Forcing someone else is.”

Lorena put the plate on the bed and locked the door again. The sharp smell of coffee remained in the room. I was looking at the street from the window when I saw two men at the yard gate. They were not letting Santiago in.

“Beggars do not enter here,” one of them told him.

“I only want to speak with Valeria.”

“She has already refused you. Leave before we drag you out by force.”

Santiago was not shouting. That frightened me more. Several people stood beside him in ordinary clothes, as if they were ordinary guests.

At that moment a neighbor, Mrs. Meche, fell near the stairs. Her body was seized by trembling. Everyone stepped back.

“Do not stain my car!” one of the guests shouted.

Santiago immediately dropped to his knees. He put his bag to the side, protected the woman’s head, and ordered someone else to call an ambulance.

“Do not put anything in her mouth!” he said. “Just clear some space for her.”

I pressed my forehead against the window glass. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Santiago was still the same man who did not leave an unjustly humiliated old person alone in the rain on the street.

When Mrs. Meche opened her eyes, she grabbed Santiago’s hand.

“This man will enter inside,” she said. “Whoever prevents him must first walk over me.”

The gate opened.

Mauricio was standing in the yard at that moment. Beside an expensive car, wearing a gold watch and with a smile as if everything already belonged to him. He put a bundle of money on the table.

“One million pesos for the future mother-in-law,” he said.

My mother smiled at once.

I was forcibly brought out of the room. Mauricio looked me over from head to toe.

“You will soon get used to resisting when you live in my house.”

“I am not marrying you.”

“Today you will say that differently.”

At that very moment Santiago entered the yard. When I saw him, I ran and hugged him.

“Mother lied to you,” I told him. “They smashed my phone and locked me here.”

Mother’s face tightened. Lorena played the same video again, in which Santiago was begging for alms.

“Here is your future husband!” she shouted.

Mauricio laid documents, jewelry, and apartment keys on the table.

“A real life comes with this. And you, beggar, what do you bring?”

Santiago calmly looked toward the man standing behind him.

“Director, you can begin.”

Mauricio chuckled.

“Who are you talking to?”

Santiago looked at his watch. From the street came the sound of one engine, then another, and then so many that the windowpanes rattled. The entire yard was filled with vibration. Meche, standing in the corner, rushed to the window.

“My God… how many cars there are!”

Black automobiles stopped one after another at the gate. A famous businessman got out of the first car. He ran to Santiago, bowed his head, and said loudly:

“President, we have all come to your ceremony.”

The glass fell from my mother’s hand. Mauricio stopped laughing for the first time. And I looked at Santiago and realized that he had a much greater secret than the man I had seen on the street…

“President?” I repeated, as if the word referred to someone else.

Santiago looked toward me. There was apology in his eyes, but neither fear nor confusion.

“Valeria, I have to explain everything to you.”

The yard became so quiet that everyone even heard the fall of the silver spoon lying on the table. Then a young woman got out of the second car, holding a dark folder in her hand. She turned out to be Santiago’s assistant.

“Mr. Villareal, all the documents are ready,” she said.

Estela stepped forward.

“This is impossible. Santiago is a penniless man. We all saw the video.”

“The video is real,” Santiago answered. “But the conclusion was wrong.”

He removed the beard with his hand, then took off the old tracksuit top. Under it he wore a simple but perfectly tailored shirt. The assistant opened the folder and placed the first document on the table.

“Santiago Villareal is the founder and chief executive of Horizon Group. The group owns technology, energy, and construction companies. His fortune is a thousand times greater than the amount you proudly display here.”

My mother’s face changed.

“No… who are you?”

“The same person whom you passed beside the metro and did not even look at.”

Mauricio grabbed the documents.

“All of this could be fake.”

Santiago looked at him.

“That is why the auditor, the notary, and the members of my company’s board came. And your bundle of money came from the bank that has been investigating you for money laundering for the last three years.”

Mauricio smiled, but the smile immediately disappeared when the assistant opened another folder.

“Besides, Mr. Ledes signed a document yesterday by which he transferred Valeria’s mother’s house as a debt. The document is forged. The bank has already been notified.”

I looked at Mother. Her face became gray.

“Mother, did you try to sell my house?”

“I was doing it for your future!” she shouted. “You do not understand what you were doing with this man!”

“I knew exactly what I was doing,” I answered. “For the first time in my life, I chose for myself.”

Santiago took my hand. The dust of those days was still visible on his fingers. Then I understood the most important truth: being on the street had not been his hardship, but a test that he had created for himself.

He conducted a one-month experiment. He asked hundreds of people for help. Only one hundred gave him food, water, a coin, or a human word. He funded each of them through a foundation.

“But you gave me eighty thousand pesos when it was almost all of your savings,” he told me. “That is why I did not fall in love with you because you had no money. I fell in love with you because you did not see money in me.”

Mother sank into a chair. Lorena was crying. Mauricio closed the folder and walked toward the door.

“I will not leave this like this,” he whispered.

Santiago looked at the security guards.

“Do not stop anyone. Whoever puts himself in danger must leave by his own steps.”

At that moment Santiago’s phone rang. The assistant answered, heard several words, and turned pale.

“Sir, there is a fire at the city warehouse. In the branch where all the accounting archives were kept. The fire department says the fire was deliberately started.”

Santiago looked toward me. In his hand I saw my small copper key—it had probably fallen from me when they brought me out into the yard.

“This was only the beginning,” he said. “Someone knew that today we would reveal everything…”