And there was an old photograph.
In the photo, Carmen appeared much younger—perhaps in her forties, vibrant and alive in a way that seemed impossible given what I had known of her. She was smiling beside a young man who looked to be about twenty years old.
Thin. Dark-skinned. With a calm expression that suggested an inner peace.
On the back, in almost faded ink, it said:
Tomás, 1991. My pride.
I broke down right there in her bedroom, surrounded by her things, holding a photograph of the son she had lost and couldn’t save.
Not because of the money.
Not because of the house.
But because I suddenly understood that during all those months I had not been simply helping just a sick old woman.
I had been walking through the guilt of a mother who was trying, through me, to do the thing she had failed to do with her own son.
