Chapter 3 - THE UNCLE WHO ARRIVED TOO QUICKLY
“Do not let him in.”
Alejandro said it before I could.
I looked at him.
Gabriel had attended every birthday after my mother disappeared.
He had walked me down the aisle at my wedding because my father was recovering from heart surgery.
He had held my sonogram when Alejandro and I briefly thought I was pregnant twelve years ago.
He had cried with me after the miscarriage.
He was family.
Yet Alejandro’s face had gone completely cold.
“He’s my uncle.”
“He somehow knows Rosa is here.”
I hated hearing my mother’s name attached to the problem like evidence.
“Maybe someone from the shelter called him.”
“How would the shelter know she was Rosa?”
I stopped.
They wouldn’t.
Until the DNA result, only four people knew.
Me.
Alejandro.
The lab.
And Lucy.
Mom.
I still had trouble thinking it.
Alejandro called security.
“Keep Mr. Delgado outside. No exceptions.”
I turned toward him.
“You cannot imprison me inside my own house.”
“I’m not.”
“I’m going to talk to him.”
“Then I’m coming.”
“I don’t need protection from Uncle Gabriel.”
Alejandro looked at me.
“Twenty years ago your mother vanished from one of his company sites.”
“My father owned Delgado Industrial.”
“Gabriel ran field operations.”
I stared.
“How do you know that?”
“I pulled the archived corporate filings.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“You investigated my family all night?”
“Mariana, your dead mother is sleeping upstairs.”
Fair.
I hated that it was fair.
We met Gabriel outside the gates.
He stood beside a dark Mercedes.
Sixty-two.
Perfect silver hair.
Camel coat.
The same expensive watch he had worn for at least fifteen years.
When he saw me, his face arranged itself into concern.
“Mariana.”
I did not hug him.
He noticed.
“Why are you here?”
He looked at Alejandro.
“I received a strange call.”
“From who?”
“A contact.”
“What contact?”
Gabriel sighed.
“May we go inside?”
“No.”
The answer came from Alejandro.
Gabriel’s eyes cooled.
“I asked my niece.”
“And her husband answered.”
“Please.”
I stepped between them.
“Who called you?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“A man from an old shelter.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know his last name.”
“Then how did he know to contact you?”
“He said an older woman resembling Rosa had been taken to your home.”
My heartbeat changed.
Resembling.
Not identified.
“How would a random shelter worker know what my mother looked like twenty years ago?”
Silence.
Gabriel smiled faintly.
“You’re upset.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Mariana.”
“Is she alive?”
His face changed.
Just slightly.
Not shock.
Not disbelief.
Fear.
I saw it.
Alejandro saw it too.
“Why aren’t you surprised?” I asked.
Gabriel stared at me.
“Of course I’m surprised.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You asked whether she was alive.”
“What else would I ask?”
“If you believed she died twenty years ago, you would say impossible.”
Gabriel looked away.
My stomach turned.
“What did you know?”
“Nothing.”
“Uncle Gabriel.”
“I told you what your father told me.”
“My father told you she was dead?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
His pause lasted too long.
Alejandro spoke.
“Careful.”
Gabriel glared at him.
“This is family.”
Alejandro’s voice stayed calm.
“So is Rosa.”
For the first time, Gabriel’s composure cracked.
“Where is she?”
I stared.
“You’re not seeing her.”
“I have a right.”
“No.”
“She was my sister-in-law.”
“And she doesn’t remember you.”
His face went pale.
There.
That mattered.
“You knew about the amnesia.”
He said nothing.
I felt sick.
“How?”
“Mariana—”
“How did you know she doesn’t remember?”
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward Alejandro.
Then back.
“I assumed.”
“No.”
My voice shook.
“You knew.”
Alejandro stepped slightly closer to me.
Gabriel exhaled.
“This is not the place.”
“It’s exactly the place.”
Cars passed behind him.
Cold Chicago wind moved through the gates.
Twenty years of my life stood between us.
Finally Gabriel said, “There was an accident.”
My body went numb.
“What accident?”
“At the Halsted redevelopment.”
Alejandro’s eyes hardened.
Gabriel continued.
“Your mother came to the site.”
“Why?”
“She was looking for Ernesto.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t there.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Gabriel looked older suddenly.
“A retaining wall failed.”
I stopped breathing.
“Was she hurt?”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I saw her after.”
My knees almost buckled.
Alejandro grabbed my arm.
“You saw her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“When?”
“That night.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
The world tilted.
For twenty years, I had believed my mother disappeared without a trace.
My uncle had seen her alive.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
His face tightened.
“Because everything became complicated.”
I laughed.
A terrible sound.
“My mother vanished and things became complicated?”
“Your father was being investigated.”
“For what?”
“Safety violations.”
Alejandro went still.
Gabriel continued.
“The wall failure could have destroyed the company.”
“So?”
“So your father panicked.”
I stared.
“What did he do?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“He told me Rosa had been taken to a private clinic.”
My heart pounded.
“She had head trauma. Confusion. She didn’t know her name.”
My hands began shaking.
“And?”
“Ernesto told me he would handle it.”
I whispered, “Did he?”
Gabriel looked away.
“No.”
Cold moved through every part of me.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw her.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she had amnesia.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“She disappeared from the clinic.”
“Which clinic?”
His silence returned.
Alejandro’s voice hardened.
“Name it.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You think money makes you intimidating?”
“No.”
Alejandro’s expression became almost blank.
“Knowing when people lie does.”
Gabriel buttoned his coat.
“This conversation is finished.”
I grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked down at my hand.
“You do not walk away from me.”
My voice broke.
“Twenty years.”
His expression softened.
Or performed softness.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He whispered:
“Your father.”
I let go.
“What did Dad do?”
Gabriel glanced toward the house.
“Ask Rosa.”
“She doesn’t remember.”
“Then maybe that’s a mercy.”
Alejandro stepped forward.
“You need to leave.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“You have no idea what you brought into your home.”
That sentence frightened me more than anything else.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your mother was not innocent in what happened.”
Then he got into his car.
The Mercedes pulled away.
I stood in the cold until my hands hurt.
Alejandro wrapped his coat around my shoulders.
I pushed it away.
“Don’t.”
“Mariana.”
“My father knew?”
“We don’t know.”
“Gabriel says he did.”
“Gabriel also lied to you for twenty years.”
I turned.
“Why did you really bring her here?”
He frowned.
“I told you.”
“No.”
Something had been bothering me.
“You volunteered at that soup kitchen once.”
“Yes.”
“And happened to meet the one homeless woman in Chicago connected to my family?”
His expression changed.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh my God.”
“Mariana.”
“You were looking for her.”
Silence.
I backed away.
“You knew before yesterday.”
“Not who she was.”
“How long?”
Alejandro rubbed his jaw.
“Three weeks.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He exhaled.
“An old property file surfaced during an acquisition.”
“What property?”
“North Halsted.”
My father’s old site.
“The environmental review included a sealed incident report mentioning an unidentified injured woman removed before emergency responders arrived.”
I stopped breathing.
Alejandro continued.
“The description matched your mother’s age and clothing from the day she disappeared.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know enough.”
“So you went searching.”
“Yes.”
“And you found Lucy.”
“Yesterday.”
I felt betrayed.
Again.
“Everyone decided what I could handle.”
“That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”
“My father. Gabriel. You.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I turned toward the house.
He called after me.
“Mariana.”
I stopped.
His voice softened.
“I was afraid of giving you hope and being wrong.”
I looked back.
“You don’t get to protect me with silence.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
I hated how quickly tears came.
“Never again.”
“Never again.”
That night, Mom woke screaming.
I ran into the guest room.
She was sitting upright.
Hands covering her face.
“Fire.”
I sat beside her.
“What happened?”
“Fire.”
“There’s no fire.”
She shook her head.
“Truck.”
Her breath came in panicked bursts.
“Blue truck.”
I held her hands.
“You’re safe.”
She looked at me.
Then suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Ernesto.”
My father’s name.
“What about him?”
Her eyes widened.
“He told Gabriel to move me.”
My blood froze.
“Move you where?”
She began crying.
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
“Basement.”
“What basement?”
“I don’t know!”
I stopped pushing.
She rocked.
Then whispered:
“He said if I remembered, we’d lose everything.”
I stared at her.
“Dad said that?”
She looked straight through me.
“No.”
A pause.
“Gabriel.”
My heartbeat stopped.
May you like
Then she whispered the words that changed the entire story.
“Gabriel told Ernesto I was already dead.”
