The next sheet contained a drawing of me standing at an empty table, a gray cloud overhead, while two figures laughed in the distance. Below it, I wrote: "It wasn't funny."
"Why did you write this?" I asked him.
Mateo looked down.
—Because my father kept saying nothing had happened... but something had. And because I apologized to you and he told me I shouldn't feel guilty if you deserved it.
I felt such a strong mixture of anger and sadness that I had to sit down.
I called Paola right away. She arrived twenty minutes later, furious, disheveled, and more worried about the scandal than the fact that her son had traveled halfway across town just to tell the truth. She grabbed Mateo's arm, but before leaving, the boy stepped back for a moment and said to me:
—You were right. They need help.
That same night, I scanned the letters and sent them to the lawyer to add to the file. Then I called Ricardo.
—Did you know your son took the bus just to come visit me? —I asked him as soon as he answered.
Silence.
