PART 2
The lunch continued, but it was no longer a lunch: it was theater. My aunt Patricia pretended to talk about the chiles en nogada, my grandmother shook her head as if she were praying inside, and my dad walked around the living room with a broken smile. No one dared ask me anything while there were guests, but everyone knew something had cracked.
When the last cousin left, my mom closed the door and said:
“Diego, sit down.”
I sat on the couch. Mateo stayed by the dining room. Dad stood by the window, his hands in his pockets.
“Why did you call him ‘Mr. Roberto’?” my mom asked.
“It’s a respectful way to speak to an adult.”
“It’s a way of treating him like a stranger.”
I looked at Dad. His eyes were red.
“What did I do to you?” he asked. “I’ve spent years trying to get close to you, and you look at me as if I’m nobody.”
“I look at you as what you are to me.”
“And what am I?”
“A man who lives in my house.”
My mom let out a small sound, as if she had been hit. Mateo lowered his gaze. Dad said nothing.
“Diego,” my mom insisted, “this started when you were fourteen. Don’t tell me it didn’t. One day you were a boy waiting for his father at the door, and the next you turned into ice. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie.”
I stood up.
“I’m leaving for Monterrey in five days. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Of course it matters,” she said. “This family is falling apart, and no one wants to say why.”
Then Mateo spoke, almost in a whisper:
“It was after my final in Toluca, wasn’t it?”
Dad turned around sharply. Something crossed his face. A memory. A fear.
“What final?” Mom asked.
“The regional one,” Mateo said. “Diego once told me he was only giving Dad what he wanted.”
My dad went pale.
“Roberto,” my mom said. “What happened that day?”
“I don’t know,” he answered too quickly. “It was years ago.”
“Think.”
“Laura, there were a lot of dads there. I can’t remember every conversation.”
“I didn’t ask you about every conversation. I asked you about the one that turned your son into a stranger.”
Dad rubbed his face. I noticed that he did remember. Maybe not every word, but he remembered the exact place where he had buried the knife.
I went up to my room before I broke down. I closed the door and sat on the floor. Ten minutes later, I heard footsteps. It was my mom.
“Open the door.”
I opened it. She came in with an old notebook in her hands. My notebook. The one from middle school. The one I thought was lost.
“I found it in a box with your school notebooks,” she said, her voice trembling. “There was a folded page.”
I felt the blood drain from my body.
She didn’t read it. She just looked at me.
“Downstairs. Now. Your father is going to hear this too.”
And when I went down to the living room and saw Roberto sitting in front of that open notebook, I understood that no one would be able to stop what was coming.
