Chapter 14 - The Letter From My Father
Mauricio had opened it.
That alone felt like another violation.
Not equal to violence.
Still intimate.
Isabel recovered the envelope through counsel.
The seal was broken.
Inside was Dad’s handwriting.
Vale,
If you are reading this, I am sorry I missed the wedding.
I cried before reaching the second line.
Dad died four years before I met Mauricio.
He had written milestone letters during his final illness.
I knew they existed.
I had never opened them early.
Dad continued:
I hope you married someone who is impressed by your mind but not intimidated by it, grateful for your love but not dependent on it, and strong enough to hear no without turning it into rejection.
I stopped.
Of all the things.
No.
Dad had chosen that word.
Then:
You have a bad habit of proving love by making yourself easy to live with.
Camila would have enjoyed that.
You hide needs because you fear being called demanding. You forgive quickly because conflict exhausts you. Do not turn those traits into a cage.
My eyes blurred.
Then:
Marriage does not mean becoming smaller so another person can feel large.
I pressed the page against my chest.
Dad had never met Mauricio.
This wasn’t prophecy.
It was knowledge of me.
That was more useful.
Then came the line Mauricio apparently had also read:
If someone loves you only while they believe you need them, they do not love your dependence less than they love you.
I sat completely still.
Mauricio had opened this letter before I left the Ortega house.
When?
His lawyer eventually answered.
During the reception.
He found the envelope in my suitcase while looking for a charger.
He opened it.
Read it.
Put it back badly.
Then hours later told me I would come crawling back because I could not survive without him.
He had read the warning and stepped directly into it.
Why?
Maybe because people rarely recognize themselves inside advice meant for someone else.
Maybe he believed Dad was warning me about hypothetical monsters.
Not him.
Mauricio wrote a note accompanying the returned letter:
I read this before everything happened. I wish I understood it then.
I did not reply.
Understanding afterward was his work.
Not my reward.
Then the audit of MVO Strategy concluded.
Mauricio had taken 3.2 million pesos from the family company.
Some with Beatriz’s knowledge.
Some without.
Ernesto filed a civil claim against his own son.
The Ortega family finally split openly.
And Beatriz blamed me for all of it.
She requested a meeting.
I refused.
Then she sent a handwritten letter.
The first line surprised me.
May you like
I did not hate you because you were poor.
What, then, had Beatriz actually hated about me long before she discovered who I really was?
