Elena looked away.
“I only did what was necessary to protect you.”
Alejandro’s voice dropped.
“What did you do?”
Valeria suddenly remembered the unanswered calls, the letter that never reached him, the doorman who claimed Alejandro refused to see her.
Her heart sank.
Maybe Alejandro hadn’t just ignored the truth.
Maybe someone had stolen it from him.
Elena finally admitted that after the divorce, Valeria had gone to Alejandro’s house three times.
Alejandro stared at Valeria.
“You came looking for me?”
“Yes,” she said. “Three times.”
“I was told you didn’t want to see me.”
“I was told you had ordered them not to let me in.”
Alejandro turned to his mother.
“Where are the letters?”
Elena said nothing.
“Where are they?”
At last, she confessed.
“I destroyed them.”
Valeria felt something inside her collapse.
“The envelope?” Alejandro asked.
“Yes.”
“The ultrasounds?”
Elena lowered her eyes. “Yes.”
Alejandro covered his face with both hands.
“You stole five years from me.”
“I was trying to save you.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You were trying to control me.”
Elena insisted Valeria would have taken everything from him.
Valeria laughed bitterly.
“I left without asking for anything. I gave birth alone while your family smiled for cameras as if I had never existed.”
Alejandro looked broken.
“You were alone?”
“Not completely,” she said. “My mother and brother were there. But you weren’t. And even if lies kept us apart, you were the one who shut the first door.”
He nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
Elena tried to approach the car.
“Let me see them.”
Valeria stepped in front of her.
“No.”
“They are my grandchildren.”
“They are children who don’t even know your name,” Valeria said. “And no one who erased proof of their existence has the right to demand their love.”
Alejandro looked at his mother.
“Leave.”
When Elena was gone, Alejandro turned back to Valeria.
“Forgive me.”
“Don’t ask me that here,” she said.
“I won’t ask you to erase five years,” he replied. “I only want a chance to earn a place, if you allow it.”
Valeria stayed silent.
She had imagined this moment for years. She had imagined punishing him, rejecting him, making him feel the loneliness she had felt through fevers, hospital stays, first steps, and Father’s Day events with an empty chair.
But revenge didn’t comfort her.
