“Don’t you ever say his name again.”
“Don’t threaten me. If you want to go down, go down alone. I’m not going to ruin my happiness just because your son died.”
I hung up without saying goodbye. That night I didn’t scream. I didn’t break anything. I just sat in Mateo’s bedroom, surrounded by his trophies, his baseball glove, and his notebooks, and I understood something terrible: I hadn’t lost my family that day. I had seen them for the first time.
Mateo’s funeral was on a Thursday morning. Solana came with me. So did his teacher, Mrs. Moreno, who drove for over an hour with red eyes and a letter written by his classmates. My son’s coffin was placed next to Joaquín’s. While the priest spoke of reuniting in heaven, I thought about Cancún. About my mother putting on sunscreen. About my father ordering seafood. About Verónica smiling, her hand cradling her pregnant belly as my boy descended to earth.
After the burial, Solana wanted to stay with me.
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m not alone,” I told him. “I’m awake.”
I went straight to the apartment Joaquín had left me. Verónica and Rubén had been living there rent-free for years. I unlocked it with my key and started packing. Clothes, shoes, dishes, photos, cheap decorations, documents, everything. I didn’t break anything. I didn’t scream. I was organized, precise, cold. I hired a moving company and paid extra to have everything taken to my parents’ house. I used the emergency key they’d given me and asked them to leave the boxes in the middle of the living room, one on top of the other, like a shrine to their shamelessness.
Then I called a locksmith.
“Do you just want to change the lock?”
“Everything,” I said. “I don’t want any of the old keys to work again.”
When I finished, I went home, opened my computer, and canceled every payment I made for them: my parents’ car insurance, health insurance, supermarket card, Veronica’s cell phone bill, Ruben’s car payment, gym membership, utilities—little favors that added up to almost $3,000 a month. As I clicked “cancel,” I remembered every time I gave them money, thinking it was love.
That afternoon, the photos appeared. Veronica at the beach. Ruben wearing sunglasses. My parents raising their glasses. “My family always supports me,” she wrote.
