“My husband,” she says. “Julián.”
The name means nothing to you.
It means everything to her.
“He did not approve of Lucia,” Mercedes continues. “Your mother worked at a diner near Roosevelt Avenue. Gabriel loved her. He wanted to marry her. Julián said she was beneath our family, even though we had nothing but a small grocery store and his pride.”
She laughs once, bitterly.
“Pride makes poor men pretend they are kings.”
You say nothing.
Mercedes looks at the photograph.
“Gabriel died in a crash on the Grand Central Parkway. He was twenty-six. After the funeral, Lucia came to our apartment. I was destroyed. I don’t remember half the faces from those days.”
Her voice shakes.
“Julián told me she came asking for money. He said she insulted Gabriel, said she was glad she never married into our family.”
Your hand tightens around the letter.
“That doesn’t sound like my mother.”
“No,” Mercedes whispers. “It wasn’t.”
She looks at you.
“Years later, after Julián died, Elena found one of Lucia’s letters hidden in his old lockbox. Your mother had written that she was pregnant. She had asked if we wanted to know the child.”
You feel Mateo breathing against your chest.
The apartment seems to shrink around that sentence.
You were not abandoned by your father’s family.
