Part 4 — I Fell Powerlessly to the Ground with Three Children, but When the Ranch Owner Saw the Medallion, the Color Drained from His Face

“He said that one of the children is his son.”

For several seconds everything became silent in the clinic corridor.

Only the tapping of rain on the window could be heard, and the toe of Jacinta’s wet shoe touched the chair.

“Do not believe him,” I said immediately.

Donasiano looked toward me.

“I do not intend to.”

“But what if he says this in court?”

“Then we will bring evidence too.”

The investigator placed the letter on the table.

“Let us read this first.”

The envelope trembled in my hand. The paper was thin, and dried mud lay along its edges. I knew Aurelio’s, Mauro’s, handwriting. I had seen his short, hurried letters so many times that before reading the first sentence I already understood—this was his letter.

“Remedios, if this letter reached you, Esteban will use my death against you. He will say that I did not know the children and that you will not be able to protect them. Do not believe him. All three children are mine. But the birth certificate of the youngest child is registered under another name, because Esteban gave the midwife money and wanted to hide my family line.”

My fingers stiffened.

“What family line?” I asked.

Donasiano took the letter from me and read the next lines.

“Our father had three children, but only two remained in the documents. The third was our mother’s daughter, who was given to someone else in childhood. It is precisely that land and the water rights that belong to her descendants. Esteban is doing everything to hide this.”

The investigator opened an old record.

“Mauro wanted this story to be confirmed. Your children are considered the lawful heirs of this property if the kinship is proven.”

I looked at Donasiano.

“Did you know about this woman?”

“No,” he said. “My father hid this story until his death.”

At that moment Esteban appeared in the doorway. Two policemen stood behind him, but he still entered as if the whole clinic belonged to him. He held a wet hat in his hand and had an ironic smile on his face.

“Mrs. Remedios,” he said, “your husband was a criminal. The land is mine. And the children cannot be safe with you.”

“Did you know Mauro’s real name?” I asked.

His smile disappeared for a moment.

“I do not know what you are talking about.”

The investigator turned on the audio recording.

Esteban’s voice sounded again: “No one will protect your wife and children either.”

Those words spread through the corridor as if someone had opened all the windows at once.

Esteban went pale.

“It was edited.”

“The laboratory confirmed that the recording is continuous,” the investigator replied. “The number of your vehicle is also recorded at the scene of the incident.”

“I have a lawyer!”

“We have already called him,” Donasiano said. “He advised you to say nothing more.”

Esteban leaned toward me.

“These children still will not receive your land.”

For the first time I was no longer afraid.

“My children do not need to receive anything from you. You only have to return what you stole.”

The policemen put handcuffs on him. He shouted that all this was a mistake, but now everyone had already heard his voice in his own recording.

The next day Donasiano submitted the documents to a notary. Mauro’s letter, the medallion, the audio recording, and the old church record matched one another. The lost daughter of the family turned out to be my mother’s mother. I and my children were recognized as the lawful heirs of the Ibarra land.

But that evening, when I thought the hardest part was already over, Donasiano’s telephone rang again.

This time the call was from his former wife.

“I need to talk to you about Beninio,” the woman said. “He was taken by the same people who killed Mauro.”

Donasiano’s face became gray.

Then I understood that our peace was still in someone’s hands…

The next morning Donasiano started the car. I sat in the back with the children. The road led north from the town, between stones and dried ravines.

“Where is Beninio?” I asked.

“I do not know. Consuelo said that the child was taken from school. She thought my enemies were looking only for the land.”

“And what if they too were connected with Esteban?”

“Then we must find my son alive.”

Three hours later we reached an old warehouse. The police broke down the door. Inside we found an empty chair, a piece of rope, and one word written in charcoal on the wall: “Ibarra.”

A small wooden ball lay on the ground.

Donasiano picked it up and lowered his eyes.

“This is Beninio’s ball.”

A vehicle track led behind the warehouse. The investigator transmitted the information by radio. Several hours later a boy was found in a neighboring village—by an abandoned church, tired, hungry, but alive.

Donasiano ran toward him.

“Father?” the boy asked, as if he had been waiting for this word for years.

Donasiano fell to his knees and held his son to his heart. I stood beside them and for the first time felt that I was no longer a guest in this man’s house.

Esteban’s case went to court. His lawyer resigned after several weeks. He refused to defend his client after hearing the audio recording in which Esteban himself admitted his threat.

In the courtroom Esteban heard his own voice from the large speakers for the first time.

“No one will protect your wife and children either.”

He sat in the chair and clasped his fingers together.

The judge stopped the recording.

“Is this your voice?”

Esteban raised his head.

“It has been taken out of context.”

“Is it your voice or not?”

He was silent for a long time.

“It is mine.”

That one word proved to be the heaviest evidence against him.

Several months later, the room at the ranch where they had first brought us was empty again. Only one nail remained on the wall. The brown blanket, washed and dried in the sun, hung on that nail.

Thomas found the old ball there and returned it to Beninio.

“Now it belongs to both of you,” he said.

Beninio nodded.

Jacinta was already running freely in the cornfield. And I gave the baby a name—Elena, in honor of my mother. Donasiano checked the water tank every morning, as if he were afraid we might ever run out again.

I began working in the ranch kitchen. In the mornings I baked bread, at midday I taught the children to write letters, and in the evenings I checked the accounts. For the first time in my life money remained in my hands, and no one asked me where it had gone.

In winter the first snow came. The children made a small man in the yard. Thomas hung the wooden medallion around its neck.

“It belonged to Father,” he told me.

“Now you keep it.”

“Will I lose it?”

“No, if you keep it close to your heart.”

That same evening I received a letter. It was not from Esteban. His former lawyer sent it to me and said that Esteban was asking for negotiations from prison. In exchange for a share of the land, he offered to confess everything.

The next day he himself called me.

“Remedios,” he said in a tired voice, “you can make all this end. Your children need money.”

I looked out the window at the yard. Thomas was painting the wooden fence together with Beninio. Jacinta was rocking Elena.

“No,” I told him.

“You do not understand what you are losing.”

“For the first time I know exactly what I am choosing.”

“I will change your life.”

“You already tried. Now my life belongs to me.”

I ended the call.

In the evening I took the blanket down from the rope and carefully folded it. The thing that on the road had reminded me only of a mother’s smell and my old home was now proof of the rescue of three children.

Donasiano stood in the doorway.

“Tomorrow we will open the water channel,” he told me.

“The children will come.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

I pressed the blanket to my chest.

This time the road belonged to us.