I stayed still for a long time.
I don’t know how long.
I only remember the distant noise of the alley, a dog barking outside, and the unbearable weight of that letter on my knees.
Then I stood up, went to the wardrobe, and found the false drawer.
Behind it was the metal box.
I opened it with the key.
Inside were several bundles of neatly wrapped bills, the house deeds, and an old photograph.
In the photo, Doña Carmen appeared much younger, smiling beside a young man of about twenty.
Thin.
Dark-skinned.
With a calm expression.
On the back, in almost faded ink, it said:
Tomás, 1991. My pride.
I broke down right there.
Not because of the money.
Not because of the house.
But because I suddenly understood that during all those months I had not been helping just a sick old woman.
I had been walking through the guilt of a mother.
And in her own way, she had tried to heal with me something she could never repair with her son.
The next day her children arrived.
Two well-dressed men and a woman wearing dark glasses, all in a hurry, smelling of expensive perfume and looking annoyed.
As soon as they saw me inside the house, one of them asked,
“And who are you?”
“Diego. I helped her.”
They didn’t even say thank you.
They started checking drawers, opening furniture, talking among themselves about selling the house, about “settling this matter quickly,” and about how much the cheapest funeral would cost.
Then I handed them a copy of the letter and the deeds.
The daughter was the first to go pale.
“This can’t be legal.”
“Yes, it is,” I said with a calmness I didn’t know I had. “Your mother had everything notarized three months ago. I went with her.”
It was true.
One afternoon she had asked me to take her to see “a lawyer” downtown. I thought it was just some routine paperwork.
It wasn’t.
The eldest son clenched his teeth.
“You manipulated a sick old woman.”
My blood boiled, but before I could respond, the neighbor across the street spoke from the doorway with a firm voice:
“The only thing that young man did was take care of her when none of you bothered to come see her.”
A heavy silence filled the room.
Doña Carmen’s children understood they had little to do there.
They left with the same hurry they had arrived with.
They didn’t even ask how her final days had been.
After the funeral, I returned to the house alone.
I sat at the table where I had served Doña Carmen so many meals.
I opened the letter again.
And I cried until my head hurt.
With that money I paid my university debts.
I fixed the roof of the house.
Painted the walls.
Replaced the gas installation that had been dangerous.
I kept the old radio, the faded photographs, and the wooden bed, because throwing them away felt like erasing something sacred.
I continued studying.
More peacefully.
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