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Silas, who’d been quiet up until this point, spoke. “There’s more son.”
My hands dropped, and I looked at Silas blearily. “How much worse could it get?”
Do you know that saying... never borrow trouble? With that one statement I’d just uttered, I’d completely fucked myself. I’d opened a can of worms and they were all spilling out wiggling in opposite directions.
“The woman they transferred it to was named Rosalie Espinoza.” He said quietly.
I sat back in my chair, closing my eyes.
They all knew what happened to me when I was younger. Knew I’d lost my daughter. Knew about Rosalie. I’d never told them in detail, but they knew what had happened just by listening to the town gossip.
“That’s just perfect. Transfer everything over to her. She dies like she’s supposed to in a few months, and he gets it all back. Easy as pie.” I growled in defeat. “How the fuck did she get tangled up with him?”
Jack spoke for the first time. His deep voice resonated off the walls of the clubhouse’s conference room where we held all our meetings.
“From what I can understand, she was married to him. Has been for over a decade. They stayed married all through her time at the women’s correctional facility in Huntsville. She was released a year and a half ago. Gustavo was there to pick her up as soon as she got out, according to the guards.” Jack’s explained in low tones.
I’d known she’d gotten released. They’d invited me to the parole hearing, yet I’d declined to go. I didn’t want to see her for the rest of my life. She was dead to me, and always would be.
What I hadn’t known was that she was married.
However, now that I did, things started falling into place.
Things that had never made sense all those years ago.
Like why she moved on from me so fast. Why she let that happen. How she’d let that happen to our child.
Then a thought occurred to me. “Wait a minute, when does it say she got married?”
Jack started flipping through a pile of pages in front of him before stopping, when he’d gone through nearly half the stack. “It says here October 3, 1998. Why?”
A sick curdling feeling of dread started to swell in my stomach.
“My daughter died August 12, 1999. She was three weeks old.” I said woodenly. “Her boyfriend of nearly a year killed her. But it’s not making sense. If she was married, why would she have a boyfriend? Gustavo’s not the type to let that pass.”
When the last sentence slipped from my mouth, I stood and started moving towards the safe on the far wall.
It was a large safe nearly as tall as me. The keypad was the old-fashioned type that you had to turn with a dial.
Grabbing the lock between my thumb and pointer finger, I started the painstaking task of spinning the dial and stopping at the appropriate numbers.
After the third was inputted, I stopped, turned the large lock, and swung the door open.
The letter I’d set in my file folder at the top shelf was exactly where I’d put it.
Flipping it open, I began to read.
Tiago,
If you’re reading this, know that I’m too sick to say it to you in person.
I’ve been agonizing over this for sixteen years now, so I’m just going to tell you.
Gustavo Amadeus is the man who killed our child, not Mario Martinez.
I fell in with the wrong crowd before you left.
I can’t tell you how sorry I am for doing what I did. I didn’t know what else to do, I swear to God. I hope one day you find it in your heart to forgive me, but I know that I will be gone from this place when that happens. I’m sorry.
