PART 1
—Don’t come for me, Ricardo. You’re not welcome here.
That was the first thing Verónica told me when I went to see her at Balbuena General Hospital, after they called to tell me she’d crashed her car coming off the Viaduct. I’d crossed half of Mexico City with my heart in my throat, thinking I might lose the woman I’d been married to for twenty-three years.
And she received me as if I were a nuisance.
She had a bandage on her forehead, her left arm was immobilized, and she had bruises on her neck. The doctor said it wasn’t serious, but she needed to stay two nights for observation. They took her up to a shared room. On the other side of the curtain was an elderly man, thin, with gray hair, his hands trembling, completely alone.
Veronica didn’t want me to hold her hand. She didn’t want me to adjust her pillow. She didn’t even want a glass of water.
“I already told you I’m fine,” she said. “Go home.”
I stayed because she was my wife. Because you don’t abandon your family in a hospital, even if they treat you like a burden.
That night I saw her answering calls in a low voice. She was smiling. She was whispering. But every time I approached, she hung up.
The next morning I returned with clean clothes, his charger, and some conchas from his favorite bakery in the neighborhood. He didn’t even look at them.
“Who were you talking to?” I asked when he hung up again.
—With Laura, from work.
He said it so curtly that I was embarrassed to have asked.
Then I heard a faint voice behind the curtain.
—Young man, excuse me… could you help me with my glass?
I peeked in. The man was trying to reach the water on his small table. His name was Don Julián. He was seventy-seven years old and had a sad but clear gaze. I gave him the glass and he thanked me as if I had saved his life.
From that day on, I started bringing two cups of coffee and sweet bread: one for me and one for him. Verónica always said she didn’t want anything.
Don Julián told me that he had been an accountant in a textile factory in Iztapalapa, that his wife had died three years ago, and that his only son lived in Monterrey and almost never visited him.
One day he asked me:
—Ricardo, do you still feel loved at home?
I didn’t know how to answer.
He looked towards the window and said:
—Love can get tired, but respect shouldn’t die.
That sentence left me speechless.
The day Veronica was discharged, she told me not to come for her. I went anyway. I found her dressed up, wearing perfume, with a smile she hadn’t given me in months.
Then Laura arrived.
She wasn’t just a colleague. She came in without knocking, hugged Veronica around the waist, and said:
—My love, you gave me such a fright.
Veronica did not step aside.
And when they left together, Don Julián called me from his bed.
—Ricardo… what you just saw is not normal.
I wanted to defend her. I wanted to make up an excuse.
But for the first time in twenty-three years, I couldn’t lie to myself.
I couldn’t believe what I was about to discover…
