Part 2
That same night I called Doña Lupita.
I didn’t want to frighten her, but I had to warn her. I told her that Daniel and Fernanda had appeared at my house asking for Camila, offering money, crying, and claiming they were ready to be parents.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
Then I heard Don Ernesto’s voice — firm but broken.
“Don’t say anything to them, Mariana. They have no right to go near that girl.”
I already knew it, but I needed to hear it from them.
Camila was not a forgotten doll left in a box. She was a little girl who had spent months crying at night, asking why her father hadn’t come back. She was a little girl who for a long time covered her ears whenever someone mentioned trips, suitcases, or doors closing.
Doña Lupita told me that Camila had made tremendous progress. She walked better with support, spoke more, and smiled more. She had a routine, a special school, and a therapist who truly cared for her. She had regained her trust.
“We are not going to let them break it again,” she told me.
I thought it would end there.
I was wrong.
Two days later, my mother called me. Her voice was heavy with reproach.
“Your father and I found out what you did to Daniel.”
I felt a hollow open in my stomach.
“What did I do?”
“You lied to them. You had no right to deny them information about their daughter.”
I froze.
My parents, who had watched me cry for months, who had read Daniel’s letter, who knew how he left me shattered with an abandoned child in the house, now felt compassion for him.
“Mom, they abandoned her.”
“Yes, but they regretted it.”
That phrase hurt me more than a slap.
“Does regret erase two years? Does it erase the nights Camila cried asking for her father?”
My mother sighed, as if I were a child throwing a tantrum.
“Don’t be cruel, Mariana. Everyone deserves a second chance.”
I hung up before saying something unforgivable.
The next day, Fernanda showed up at her parents’ house. She arrived alone and knocked on the door for almost ten minutes. Doña Lupita wouldn’t let her in.
“Mom, I know Camila is here,” Fernanda shouted from the street. “I’m her mother. I have the right to see her.”
Don Ernesto came out just far enough to speak from the gate.
“You had rights when you had responsibilities. You lost them when you abandoned them.”
Fernanda pounded on the door with both fists. She cried, pleaded, and accused her parents of being monsters. She said Camila needed her mother. She said no one could separate them.
Camila was asleep in her room. Thank God she didn’t hear.
When Fernanda refused to leave, Don Ernesto threatened to call the police. Only then did she go.
They called me immediately to warn me.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt as if I were reliving the days after everything fell apart. I checked windows, doors, messages. The wound that had taken me so long to close was reopening.
And then Daniel appeared again.
This time he came alone.
I didn’t open the door completely. I spoke to him from inside, phone in hand.
“You have thirty seconds to leave or I’m calling the police.”
Daniel raised his hands.
“Just listen to me. Fernanda is sick.”
“She has cervical cancer,” he said. “The doctors told us she may not be able to have more children. She believes this is punishment for leaving Camila.”
I felt a deep revulsion. Not because of the illness, but because of the way it was being used.
“Now they want Camila because maybe they can’t have another baby?”
Daniel cried.
“We want to repair the damage.”
“Damage is not repaired by using a child as medicine for your guilt.”
He asked me to speak with Fernanda’s parents. He said they would listen to me. He said one visit, one chance, one conversation would be enough.
Then he said the thing that shook me.
“Your parents told us that Camila is with Fernanda’s parents.”
The blood drained from my face.
“What did you say?”
Daniel looked down.
“They think you’re being unfair. They gave us the address.”
I don’t remember exactly what I said. I only know that I slammed the door so hard the frame shook.
That night I called my parents. My father answered as if nothing had happened.
“Did you give Daniel the address?”
Silence.
“Mariana, we understand you’re upset, but that girl has parents.”
“No. That girl had parents. And they abandoned her.”
My mother picked up the phone.
“And what if someone took us away from you? Wouldn’t that hurt you?”
I laughed bitterly, with a rage burning in my chest.
“You are choosing them over me.”
I hung up.
For the first time in my life, I understood that betrayal doesn’t always come from the person who abandons you. Sometimes it comes from those who were supposed to protect you when the past comes knocking again.
But what none of them knew was that Daniel and Fernanda had just made the worst mistake of their lives.
Because Don Ernesto was not only willing to close the door on them.
He was ready to take them before a judge.
