Part 4 — Five Years Later, My Former Friend Humiliated Me Again, but When Alvaro Saw My Knitted Scarf, His Smile Disappeared

When Dario said the last word, I was still speaking with Mother on the phone.

“Mother, lock the door and do not go near the window,” I said.

“Lucia, who are they?”

“I will explain soon. The police are coming.”

Dario called the hotel security, while Bruno raised both hands and stood against the wall. A few minutes later heavy footsteps and quiet radio voices sounded in the corridor.

Irene still did not move.

She was looking at the sealed envelope.

“Don’t open it,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because then everything will change.”

“Everything has already changed.”

The police officers entered the room. They began questioning Bruno, and from Irene’s bag they took out three phones and a small hard drive. One of the officers stayed with us while Dario opened the second sealed envelope.

It was one in the morning in the room. The rain had stopped, but drops of water were still falling from the roof and making an even sound against the window.

Dario carefully cut the seal.

“Lucia, are you sure?”

“For the first time after all these years.”

He took out the yellowish certificate inside. The corners of the paper were bent, and an old hospital stamp could be seen on it.

It was my birth record.

My mother’s name was written there. But the father’s field did not turn out to be empty.

It said Alvaro’s father, Ricardo Montenegro.

For several seconds I could not understand what I was reading.

Alvaro looked at the paper and lost color.

“This is impossible.”

Dario unfolded the second sheet.

Ricardo’s signature was there. It was a short statement saying that twenty-one years earlier he had been informed about Lucia’s birth, but had hidden the child’s existence in order to protect his family’s name.

Mother had not signed a denial. On the contrary, beside it was a doctor’s note that during her pregnancy the Montenegro family had offered her housing and work in exchange for silence.

“My father knew?” Alvaro asked.

“He knew,” I said.

“I did not know.”

“You did not need to know in order to behave like a human being.”

These words struck him the hardest.

Alvaro sat down in the chair. His hand was still gripping my scarf. Now that object no longer resembled an old memory. It was a symbol of the lie from five years ago that had hung around his neck.

Irene shook her head.

“This document is forged.”

Dario placed a new sheet in front of her.

“I already have the expert examination. The ink, signature, and archive seal are authentic.”

“Ricardo is dead,” Alvaro said.

“That is exactly why he cannot deny it.”

Irene looked toward me.

“Are you happy now? The Montenegro family is yours?”

“I never asked for a family. I only wanted the truth.”

That same night the police took Irene and Bruno away for questioning. Against Irene there was the recording, the falsified complaint, the money transfers, and Bruno’s testimony. Dario filed the lawsuit in my mother’s case, and immediately sent all the documents to the supervisory board of the Montenegro company.

Alvaro stood by the door.

“Lucia, can you talk to me for five minutes?”

“No.”

“Only five minutes.”

“I had a whole five years’ worth of things to say. You did not want to listen then.”

He lowered his head.

“I did not know that you were my sister.”

“But you knew that I was a person.”

That answer was enough.

The next morning I went to Mother. A police car stood in front of the house, and the hired men were no longer visible in the yard. When Mother opened the door for me, she was holding her old copper thermos.

“Will you tell me everything now?” I asked.

She looked at me for a long time.

“I was afraid that the truth would take your life away from you too.”

“The truth has already taken five years from us.”

Mother lowered her head.

“Ricardo promised me then that he would fix everything. Then his wife realized. They told me that if I raised my voice, they would cancel your scholarship and I would never find work again.”

“Did Irene know?”

“Yes. Everyone in Ricardo’s house knew. Only you did not.”

That day I cried for the first time. Not because of Alvaro. Nor because of Irene.

I cried for the girl who had spent years trying to earn the love of a person to whom she was already connected by blood.

Three weeks later the court left the preventive measure against Irene in force. Bruno confessed to the crime and received a reduction in punishment in exchange for cooperating with the investigation. He handed all the transfers over to the investigators.

The Montenegro company offered Mother compensation.

Dario placed the document in front of me.

“Do not sign if you simply want to take the money. Sign only if you want them to officially acknowledge what they did.”

I signed.

Not for revenge.

For my mother’s name.

Alvaro came to the office that same day. A cold November wind was blowing outside, and he was holding a small wooden box in his hands.

“This belongs to you.”

My old letter was in the box. The one I had added to the scarf.

The edges of the paper had yellowed. But I recognized my handwriting again.

“You seem like a good person. Keep it.”

Alvaro stood by the window and no longer interrupted my voice.

“On the day I found the scarf, I realized it was from you. Irene convinced me that she was mistaken. Then, after you left, every day I thought that one day you would return.”

“I did return.”

“I know.”

“But I am no longer the girl who was waiting for you to return.”

His eyes filled with tears.

“Can we start over?”

“We do not need to start over. We need an ending.”

“You are my sister.”

“That is a fact. A relationship is a choice.”

He nodded. For the first time there was no desire on his face to prove anything to me.

Several months passed.

Mother and I moved to a small town near the coast. In the mornings I worked at the courthouse on social-protection cases, and in the evenings I made soup with Mother in the kitchen. Her copper thermos always stood on the windowsill. Now the tea in it no longer grew cold, because Mother no longer rushed to work.

Dario called me once a week. Sometimes about the case, sometimes simply to find out whether I was eating normally.

“Do you still drink so much coffee in your new office?” he asked once.

“Now only four cups.”

“That is progress.”

The first snow came at the beginning of December. Mother stood on the balcony with her hands resting on the railing. And I was looking at a little boy’s drawing that we had received from a neighbor. It showed a house, two women by a window, and a large yellow sun.

“Why is there no man here?” I asked.

The boy shrugged.

“The people we love are the ones who are at home.”

His answer struck me more strongly than any words in court.

In January Alvaro sent me a letter. It was short.

“We have started Mother’s treatment. The company’s board has suspended all of Irene’s powers. I know this is not enough for you, but I want you to know that for the first time I am doing something without asking you for a response.”

I read the letter to the end and put it in a drawer.

The next day another message arrived.

“If you ever need me, I will be here.”

I looked at the screen for a long time.

Then I wrote to him:

“It is good for you that you learned how to be here. But I no longer need anyone to save my life.”

And I blocked the number.

This decision was neither cruel nor proud.

It was simply calm.

That evening I opened the box of old things. Inside there was still that letter and one loose thread from the scarf, which had come out at once when I left it in the desk years ago.

I did not return the scarf to Alvaro.

Nor did I throw it away.

I kept it on top of Mother’s wardrobe, where sunlight fell every morning on the uneven corner of the fabric. That small flaw, because of which I had unraveled the edge seven times, no longer seemed shameful to me.

Some things do not have to be perfect to become precious.

I tied the scarf.

This time, for myself.