I mean, I guess it was nice, but it was depressing as hell, too, like this was the end of me as a person.
I looked at the rest of my notifications and messages, but there was nothing there that mattered. I expected that since I hardly ever posted. On an impulse, I unblocked my mother’s account and found myself reading her posts. The last one was from December 31, just before midnight struck. She was with Alexis, the guy she’d been withfor the past ten years, on a beach with a bag of grapes in her hand. Guille, my little brother, was between them.
My brother.
That word still got stuck in my throat. He was five now, and I’d only ever seen him once. I took a deep breath and slid my finger over the screen, looking at photo after photo. Faces, gestures, laughter, hugs. Special moments. They looked so happy.
Even though I didn’t want to, a part of me envied that boy for having with him the mother I never did. She had never looked at me with that light in her eyes, with that genuine smile. She had never hugged me so tight I struggled to get away, or kissed me until my cheek ached.
I stopped on one picture of my mother’s face and peered in close. We basically had no relationship apart from the birthday present she usually sent me and a couple of phone calls every few months that lasted just long enough to ask how we each were amid awkward silences and pointless phrases that left a bitter taste in my mouth.
She didn’t come see me when I had the accident, and in a way, I was even grateful.
They say time heals all, and I wondered all the time how much time I would need to get over her abandoning me. Leaving me there like a hostage so she could be free.
For a moment, I wanted to call her.
For a moment, I wished I was brave enough to go look for her.
But I didn’t. I just stood and carried out the first box.
I grabbed the key to the storage room, which was hanging on the door of a cabinet near the apartment door. I walked out, got into the elevator, and went down to the garage. The door to our storage closet was a little tough to open—the lock clearly hadn’t been used for years. The air inside smelled dry and dusty. The light blinked, and I looked around. It was a little bigger than I’d expected. If I moved the bikeand piled up the plastic crates on the floor, I could make a place for my things on the shelves.
A half hour later, my entire bedroom’s contents were piled up there in that unventilated concrete room. I set down the last box and rubbed my chest. My pride felt wounded, and I was angry and heartbroken.
When I turned around to go, my pants pocket caught on something. I jumped back just before a wooden box fell and landed on my foot. It struck the floor and cracked open, the lid tearing free from the hinges. And from inside, I heard a series of harmonious notes, as from a barrel organ.
It was a music box.
I crouched down and picked it up, regretting my clumsiness.
It was precious, painted blue and gold. I looked closer at it. It must have been very old. Inside it held a porcelain ballerina. I touched it and sighed with relief. Miraculously, it hadn’t broken. I turned it over and over in my hand to see if I’d damaged it and saw the bottom part pulling slightly away. A piece of paper peeked out.
I pulled it open and found several photos inside. In them were my mother and a brown-haired guy. I stood and looked closely at them under the bare bulb hanging above. I was stunned.
The guy…
The guy in the photos looked exactly like me.
I’ve always struggled to see it when someone says so-and-so is the spitting image of their dad or their uncle, but in this case, it was so clear… As if someone had taken my face and plugged it into one of those apps that show you what you’d look like if you were the opposite sex. He even had the same mole over his eyebrow that I did.
I picked up the pieces of the music box and put them back on the shelf. Then I stuffed the photos in my pocket and walked out,confused. My hands were shaking as I entered the elevator, and my body was in a cold sweat.
My mother had always told me she had no idea who my father was, that she got too drunk one night and had sex with a guy she didn’t know from Adam. She didn’t know his name, his age, or where he was from. He was a ghost.
No one ever questioned that.
It never occurred to anyone that what she said might not be true.
But the photos told a very different story.
I grabbed my purse and went out impulsively. I knew Matías would still be up, and I needed someone to tell me if I was going crazy, seeing things. I caught a cab, and five minutes later it stopped in front of his building. I sent a message asking him to come down, and soon he was there.
“What’s up? Are you OK?” he asked, worried. I reached out and handed him the pictures. Confused, he said, “What are these?”
“Just look at them and tell me what you see.”
Matías blinked a few times and looked attentively at the photo. Even in the shadows beneath the streetlights, the resemblance was evident. “That’s your mom, right?”
