I froze with the paper between my fingers and an idea pierced my head like broken glass: if Ivan was alive, then someone had decided to bury him anyway.
I looked through the foggy windshield and, for the first time in years, understood why my dad never returned to the cemetery.
I didn’t start right away. I forced myself to breathe, to count to ten, to wipe my tears with the back of my hand. It was eleven past twelve. Las Joyas was about twenty minutes away at that time if there were no checkpoints or trailers crossed. I could have gone home. I could have woken up my mom, told her that Ivan was alive, watched her break again, but this time in a different way. I could have called my dad, who surely at that time was still in the office or on one of his “work trips” of which he never gave details.
But the phrase was still stuck in my head:
If Dad finds out before you hear me, Mom is in danger.
I started.
All the way I looked in the rear-view mirror, as he asked me to. Every headlight looked suspicious to me. Every parked car, a threat. León at night had always seemed sad to me, but this time he felt watched. I passed through half-asleep neighborhoods, through vacant lots, through streets with skinny dogs sniffing garbage bags. When I finally found Mar de Plata Street, the clock on the dashboard read 11:29.
House 118 was not a house. It was an old neighborhood with a faded façade and a yellow spotlight trembling over the hallway. I played once. No one opened. I played another. Then I heard the creaking of a chain, and the door barely opened.
Ivan looked at me from the crack.
Closer he looked worse than at the OXXO. Tired. Sunken eyes. Like someone who had been sleeping for years with one ear awake.
I went in without saying anything and he closed again with two locks.
The room where he put me was minimal: a single bed, a plastic table, an old fan and a Virgin of San Juan hanging with a crooked nail. It smelled of reheated coffee and humidity.
I stood there, hugging my OXXO bag as if it were of any use.
“Speak,” I said. Before I pass out or slap you.
Iván almost smiled, but it didn’t come out.
“Yes, it’s you,” he murmured.
“Don’t you dare say it as if this were emotional. We buried you, Ivan. Mom got sick. I dropped out of high school for a semester because I couldn’t even get out of bed. And you—” My voice broke. Where were you?
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the floor.
“The body was not mine.
I felt the room shrink.
“I already know that.
“No, you don’t know. The body was that of a man who worked for your dad.
I didn’t understand at first. My mind took a long time to accommodate those words. When he did, I got nauseous.
“He worked in what?”
Ivan looked up. I was afraid. Not of memory. Of the present.
“Dad wasn’t just the owner of the repair shops.
I laughed, but it was an ugly, hollow laugh.
“Don’t tell me that he was a narco.”
“Not exactly. It was… link. He moved merchandise, money, favors. He washed the faces of people who didn’t want to get their hands dirty.
It made me want to leave. Because as soon as something monstrous takes shape with words, it ceases to be suspicion and becomes an inheritance.
“And how do you know that?”
Ivan swallowed.
“Because he put me in. At twenty-two I was already doing laps for him. He said that it was temporary, that he was trustworthy, that one day everything would be mine. I thought I was very smart. Until one night I saw something I shouldn’t.
There was such a heavy silence that even the fan sounded louder.
“What did you see?”
It took him too long to respond.
“Dad ordering someone to disappear.
I felt the pounding of those words in my chest.
“No.
“Yes. And it was not the first time. It was only the first time I was there. I wanted to leave. I told him I didn’t want to know anything anymore. He told me that no one left his side knowing what he knew. Two days later he asked me to drive Silao, to pick up some papers. On the road they blocked my way.
“Did they want to kill you?”
“Yes. But I was already suspicious. He had kept copies of some notebooks, names, deposits, plaques. In case something happened to me. When I saw the truck behind me, I got off before the bridge. I ran into the bush. I heard the knock. Then the explosion.
I couldn’t stop watching him. He was trying to find the brother who had stolen my shirts and taught me how to drive. Instead there was a man talking about his own death as if he were describing rain.
“And why didn’t anyone look for you?”
“Because Dad made sure they didn’t look for me. He closed the coffin, hurried everything and told everyone that they recognized me by my things. Surely he put someone in the prosecutor’s office. I tried to approach the house once, months later. I saw them at the window. I saw mom so bad… and I saw a truck outside, one of the same. I understood that they were still watching.
“Eight years, Ivan.
He closed his eyes.
“The first two I was in hiding in Aguascalientes. Then in San Luis. I changed my name, jobs, everything. Every time I thought about going back, someone let me know that they were still on the lookout. Once they left a photo of mom on the door of the room where she rented. Again they spoke to me just to tell me what time you were leaving the university.
My back froze.
“Me too?”
“You always. Mom always. Dad knew that the only way to keep me still was you.
I don’t know how long we were silent. I could hear my own breathing, fast, ridiculous. I wanted to hate him and hug him at the same time.
“Then why now?” I asked at last. Why do you let yourself be seen in an OXXO, just like that?
Ivan turned to the closed window.
“Because something has changed.
He took out a yellow envelope from under the mattress. He put it in my hands.
“Open it.”
Inside were copies of statements, blurry photos, and a folded sheet of paper with a list of names. In two of them I recognized surnames that appeared in the local newspaper. Entrepreneurs. A councilor. A commander.
“I don’t understand.
“Dad isn’t covering for others anymore. Now they are cleaning him up. For months he has been emptying accounts, selling things, closing deals. He wants to leave. And when someone like that leaves, he leaves no ends. Nor witnesses.
My stomach tightened.
“Mom.”
Ivan nodded.
“Mom knows something.
“He doesn’t know anything. My mom has been grieving for eight years.
—Precisely. Because she was never fully sedated that day.
I looked at him without blinking.
“What are you saying?”
Ivan ran his hands over his face.
“Before the burial, when Dad talked to the undertaker, Mom opened her eyes. Little. Enough to see that the watch and chain were not set on a burnt body… They were on a table. Dad didn’t notice. She did. I think that’s why she got trapped. Because a part of her knew something was wrong, although no one let her say it.
I felt like crying again, but nothing came out. Just a dry burn.
“Then you have to get her out of the house now.”
“Yes. But be careful. If Dad notices something off, he’s going to move everything before we can do anything.
“What?” Report it? With those filthy copies?
“Not only that. There is someone else.
His voice changed when he said that. Less fear. More anger.
“Who?”
Iván reached into his pants pocket and took a small photo, folded at the corners. He held it out to me.
I took it.
It was an old image, taken at what looked like a party or a barbecue. You could see my dad, younger, with a beer in his hand. At his side was Iván, still a teenager. And on the other side… a woman I didn’t know. Brunette, with a hard smile. In front of her, a girl about six years old, with two crooked braids and a pink jacket.
On the back was a date from nine years ago.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Ivan did not respond immediately.
“The reason Dad never let you near his office on Sundays.
Levanté la vista.
“No.
“Yes. That woman’s name was Rebekah. And that girl…
It was interrupted because outside, in the corridor, footsteps were heard.
We both stood still.
They were not the steps of a sleepless neighbor. They were slow. Heavy. As if someone was looking for a door number.
Iván turned off the fan suddenly. The room sank into thick silence.
The footsteps stopped just on the other side.
Then there was a sharp knock on the front door of the neighborhood.
One.
Dos.
Three.
Iván grabbed my wrist so tightly that it hurt.
His face had lost what little color he had left.
And then, from outside, a man’s voice said calmly:
“I know you’re there, boy. Open before it gets worse.
I recognized that voice instantly.
It was my dad’s.
