Because I had a son. Nobody in this story knew that.
Twelve years ago I still hadn't met Fernando. I was in the army, and my baby's father, a soldier, was killed in an accident three months before the child was born.
I gave birth alone. In a small clinic, at night. I lost a lot of blood, I fainted. When I woke up, the only thing next to my bed was Jimena, holding my hand.
"She's gone, Sofi," he told me. "She didn't even get a chance to breathe."
I never saw him. Not even in death. “So you don’t keep that image in your mind,” she said, and she took care of everything. There was no wake. No grave. Only her word.
I believed her, because she was my sister, and because I was too broken to ask.
For twelve years I kept that little hat without even having a grave to mourn him at.
That night, for the first time, I didn't hold him to my face. I just stared at him. And I wondered why, in twelve years, they had never let me see my son.
I didn't tell anyone. They would have said I was crazy. That the scandal at the party wasn't enough, that now I was digging up dead bodies.
But I remembered one thing.
Jimena's "son," Diego, was born that same week. Just when she was supposedly going to give birth too. Twelve years later, Diego has my dad's eyes. And the same birthmark on his chin that I have.
One afternoon I went to my parents' house, where Diego stays on weekends. I grabbed his toothbrush from the bathroom. Some hairs. I put them in a small bag.
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