PART 3
“You have no right to call him your son,” I told her, gripping the phone until my hand ached.
On the other end, Marisol let out a dry laugh.
— I’m his mother. Legally, I outweigh you.
Santiago was asleep in his crib, unaware of everything. I looked at him and felt a deep, instinctive fear — the kind that makes you feel a presence behind you.
— You tried to kill him.
“It was a mistake,” she replied. “I had just given birth alone. I was in distress. But I’ve thought it through now. I want the child… and I want the money Daniel left in his name.”
There it was, stripped bare.
No love. No remorse. Money.
“You will never touch him,” I said.
Her voice hardened.
— Tomorrow at midnight. At the old pier where Daniel used to fish with you. Bring the baby and the inheritance documents. If I see any police, I disappear. And when I come back, I won’t ask for anything.
She hung up.
I was trembling. But this time I was not alone. I called Detective Laura and sent her the recording — I had put the phone on speaker from the start, instinctively, out of fear.
“You did exactly right,” Laura told me. “We’ll set a trap.”
The following day, a trusted nurse took Santiago to a safe place. I kissed him on the forehead, breathed in the scent of milk and talcum powder, and felt my heart split open.
“Grandma will be back soon, my love,” I promised him.
At half past eleven that night, I arrived at the dock. I had a small microphone hidden beneath my blouse. Police were positioned all around me in the dark, but I could not see them. I could only see the stillness of the lake, and the old wooden shed where Daniel and I used to keep our fishing rods.
I went inside.
Marisol was waiting at the back. She had cut her hair and dyed it blonde, but her eyes were the same — cold and calculating.
“Where is my son?” she asked.
“First I want to know why,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “Why did you kill Daniel?”
She smiled.
— Because he got sentimental. I didn’t marry him to change diapers or spend my life raising children. Daniel was a good arrangement, until he decided to leave everything to the baby.
Every word was poison.
— And the brakes?
“A mechanic with debts will do anything for a few pesos,” she said without feeling. “Daniel died quickly. That was the only decent thing about this whole story.”
I wanted to throw myself at her, but I forced myself to keep going.
— And you put Santiago in a suitcase.
“Don’t name him after yourself,” she snapped. “He was a problem. You turned him into a tragedy.”
Then she pulled out a gun.
— Last chance, Elena. Where is the child?
I pressed the panic button once, twice, three times.
— Somewhere you will never be able to reach him.
The shot came before I finished the sentence. I felt fire in my shoulder and went down. Then it was all screaming, lights, and running footsteps.
— Police! Drop the weapon!
I watched Marisol try to run. She did not make it to the door. They brought her to the ground and handcuffed her while she screamed that it was all my fault, that I had stolen her life.
When I woke up in the hospital, Santiago was beside me in a nurse’s arms. The bullet had missed the bone. I survived.
Marisol was never released. The recording held her complete confession — Daniel’s murder, the attempted murder of Santiago, the threats against me. The mechanic who had tampered with the brakes was also arrested. At trial, Marisol wept before the judge, but her tears convinced no one.
Months later, I was granted permanent custody of Santiago.
It has not been easy. Raising a baby at sixty-four is exhausting. There are nights when my knees ache, days when fear returns every time a car slows down in front of the house. But then Santiago looks up at me with those eyes just like Daniel’s, wraps his fingers around mine, and smiles.
And then I understand that love does not erase pain.
It simply gives it somewhere to rest.
Marisol wanted to bury the truth at the bottom of a lake.
But what she did not know was that a shattered grandmother can still run, and fight, and face the world when the only thing left of her son is breathing in her arms.
