Chapter 6 - THE GHOSTS OF THE PATIO
I spent the next week cleaning out the house.
I hired a crew to pack Renata’s things.
I didn't want to touch them.
I didn't want the scent of her perfume on my hands.
As they moved the heavy wardrobe in our bedroom,
a small panel in the wall fell loose.
Inside was a box.
I opened it,
expecting more financial documents.
Instead,
I found letters.
They were addressed to Renata from a man in prison.
I read them,
my stomach churning.
It turned out Renata had a husband before me.
A man she had framed for a crime he didn't commit,
just to take his inheritance.
The letters were full of his pleas for mercy,
and her cold replies telling him to 'rot.'
She was a professional predator.
I had been her second major score.
I immediately called the lead investigator.
"I found something new,"
I said.
This wasn't just about my mother anymore.
This was about a pattern of destruction that went back a decade.
The evidence was handed over to the district attorney.
Renata’s 'unimpeachable' background was revealed to be a lie.
She had changed her name.
She had erased her past.
But she couldn't erase the letters.
When the news reached her in jail,
she reportedly had a breakdown.
She realized the smoke detector had been the least of her problems.
Her own history had caught up with her.
I went back to the patio where my mother was waiting.
I told her about the box.
"She was a wolf, mamá,"
I said.
"And I let her into our home."
My mother took my hand.
"A wolf only enters where the door is left open, hijo."
"But the shepherd is the one who closes it."
"You closed the door."
"That is all that matters."
We left the house in Colonia Del Valle that afternoon.
We didn't take much.
Just the photos of my father.
My mother's kitchen tools.
And the jasmine plant from the courtyard.
As we drove away,
I looked back at the smoke detector above the patio door.
The red light was no longer blinking.
The recording was done.
The truth was out.
And the house was just a shell.
I drove toward the mountains,
toward the fresh air,
leaving the smoke and the lies behind.
I felt a lightness in my chest I hadn't felt in six years.
I was Alejandro again.
Not a victim.
Not a puppet.
May you like
Just a son,
taking his mother home.
