Chapter 6 - ROSA CHOSE THE WRONG SON AGAIN
Rosa refused to speak to Nina after Elena’s interview.
She called Mateo instead.
“You had no right to put her through that.”
Mateo held the prison phone so tightly his fingers hurt.
“I put her through it?”
“She’s having nightmares.”
“She watched her mother die, Mom.”
“You don’t know what she watched.”
“She saw Gabriel.”
Rosa went quiet.
Mateo waited.
“Say something.”
“She was five.”
“So?”
“Children remember things wrong.”
Mateo almost hung up.
Then he asked the question Nina had told him not to ask until he was ready for the answer.
“Was Gabriel with you that night?”
Rosa inhaled.
“Yes.”
“All night?”
“Yes.”
“Then how is he in Daniela’s kitchen?”
No answer.
“Mom?”
“He could’ve stopped by earlier.”
“You testified he didn’t.”
“I testified to what I remembered.”
“No. You testified he was sitting in your house.”
Rosa’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t speak to me like I put you in prison.”
Mateo felt something fracture.
“Didn’t you?”
She hung up.
Three days later Rosa restricted Elena’s visits with Gabriel.
Not because she admitted believing Elena.
Because Elena herself refused to see him.
Gabriel responded badly.
He drove to Rosa’s house.
Neighbors heard shouting from the porch.
Rosa called police only after he refused to leave.
No arrest followed.
He eventually drove away.
But for the first time, a police report existed describing Gabriel as furious about Elena speaking to investigators.
Then Vargas Construction began losing customers.
Word spread that an old murder case involving one of the owners had reopened.
Mateo’s cousin Luis blamed Mateo.
“You’re destroying Dad’s company from prison.”
Mateo almost laughed.
“That company mattered more than my trial.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither was twenty-two years.”
Luis stopped answering calls.
Even Rosa withdrew.
Only Elena continued writing.
Her letters were short.
School.
A science project.
A girl named Sophie who annoyed her.
Then one ended differently.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell sooner.
Mateo read that sentence until the paper blurred.
He wrote back:
You were five.
Adults were supposed to protect you.
You never owed me the truth before you were ready.
He mailed it.
Then he sat on his bunk and admitted something he had resisted since Nina asked.
May you like
Maybe Gabriel had not fooled Rosa.
Maybe Rosa had chosen not to know.
