Chapter 4: The Name on the Letter
We moved downstairs.
Lucy sat at the kitchen table wrapped in one of my robes, her hands curved around a mug of tea that Alejandro had made without being asked.
I sat across from her.
Alejandro remained standing, his back to the counter, the manila envelope on the table between us.
"My father's company was building the Dearborn tower in 2004," he began.
"It was the biggest contract he'd ever won.
Forty-two million dollars.
City-funded.
The kind of project that made careers."
"I know the building," I said.
"You've mentioned it before."
"What I never mentioned," he said, "is that the contract was obtained illegally."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"There was a city auditor assigned to review the bidding process," Alejandro continued.
"A woman who had discovered that my father had bribed two members of the contracts committee to secure the deal.
If she had filed her report, he would have lost everything.
The contract.
His license.
Possibly his freedom."
I looked at Lucy.
Her eyes were fixed on the table.
"That auditor was your mother," Alejandro said.
The mug in Lucy's hands tilted slightly.
She steadied it.
"She came to the site that night to document violations," he said.
"She had photographs.
A written report.
She was going to file it the following morning."
"But she never did," I said.
"No."
"Because someone stopped her."
Alejandro set both hands flat on the table.
"My father didn't hurt her, Mariana.
I need you to understand that.
But his site foreman — a man named Cutter, Dario Cutter — he found her on the site after hours.
There was a confrontation.
She fell.
Cutter panicked." He stopped.
"He left her there."
The word landed like something heavy dropped on stone.
"He left her," I repeated.
"She was alive.
He knew she was alive.
He called my father, and my father—" Alejandro's voice broke slightly.
He pressed his lips together and started again.
"My father called a private doctor instead of an ambulance.
By the time she reached a hospital, the trauma had already caused the memory loss.
My father paid the doctor to keep quiet.
He had her admitted under a false name.
And then he waited to see what she remembered."
"She remembered nothing," Lucy said softly.
"I woke up and I didn't know my own face."
I stood up from the table.
I couldn't sit still.
"Twenty years," I said.
"I spent twenty years thinking my mother walked out on me.
I thought she chose to leave.
I thought I wasn't enough reason for her to stay." My voice cracked on the last word.
"And she was alive this whole time.
She was on the streets this whole time."
"Mariana—"
"Don't." I held up one hand.
"Don't say anything yet."
I walked to the window.
Outside, the garden was dark and still.
I pressed my palm flat against the cold glass and breathed.
Behind me, Lucy's chair scraped softly against the floor.
Then I felt her hand on my back.
Gentle.
Uncertain.
The way you touch someone you are afraid of startling.
"I looked for you," she said.
"Even without my memory, I looked.
I didn't know what I was looking for.
I just felt it.
Every day.
Like something missing that I couldn't name."
I turned around.
Her face, clean now, looked nothing like the woman Alejandro had brought through our front door that afternoon.
She looked like the photograph.
She looked like the woman in the locket.
She looked like my mother.
"There's more," Alejandro said quietly.
"I'm sorry.
There's more."
I looked at him.
"Dario Cutter still works in construction.
He's been a licensed contractor in this city for twenty years.
And six months ago, he submitted a bid on a city project." He paused.
"My company is on the same bid list."
"You've been in the same room as him."
"Yes."
"Does he know who you are?"
"He knows my last name." Alejandro's eyes were steady.
"I don't think he's made the connection yet.
But if he does—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
May you like
He didn't need to.
If Dario Cutter realized that Alejandro had found the files, that Lucy was alive and in this house, that I was Elena Vasquez's daughter — the man who had left my mother to d*e on a construction site twenty years ago would have every reason to make sure none of us could speak.
