Page 14 of The Night We Became Strangers

Matías

W hen my mom woke up at the hospital, I’d been sitting by her side for over eight hours. There was still no word from my father.

I should have gone back into the Crónicas building.

The nurses and doctors had been busy all night tending to women in premature labor, people who had suffered various accidents—in cars or on bicycles—while trying to escape “the invasion,” and victims of heart attacks who’d panicked after they’d heard Valeria’s dad apparently being disintegrated by an unidentified hyper-advanced weapon.

I still didn’t know if Leopoldo Anzures or his wife had made it. At the moment, my biggest concern was my father.

“Mati,” my mom said, her voice hoarse. “What happened?”

She was asking me ? That was what I wanted to know. I was the one full of questions.

“They burned the building,” I said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. People who were mad.”

“Mad?”

Had she lost her memory?

“Wait. You don’t know about the broadcast? You were inside,” I said.

“What broadcast?”

“The radio drama where they said Martians were invading Ecuador?”

She let out a slight smile, a crease of confusion in her forehead. “You’re joking, right?”

I leaned forward. “No, I think you are. You really don’t remember anything?”

She hesitated. “I wasn’t … I wasn’t at the station. I was talking to your dad in his office.”

Of course, not everyone had been listening to the radio. So many people inside the building must have not known what was going on, especially the newspaper employees who only shared the building with La Voz. The puzzled look of the linotypist came to mind.

“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked.

“I was about to ask you. He was fine when I left the office.”

What had been so important that my mom had to speak to my dad there and not at home? “Why did you go there, Mamá?” I said, cautiously.

She averted my gaze. “It’s grownup stuff, Mati.”

There was nothing that infuriated me more than when she treated me like a child. For God’s sake, I’d just carried her out of a burning building! There was a soft knock on the door. The person didn’t even wait for an answer before opening it.

“ Hola, prima. ”

The man walking in wasn’t really my mother’s cousin, though they affectionally called each other by that term of endearment. Julio Montero was, in fact, my father’s cousin, son of his late younger uncle.

“How are you feeling?” he said, doing a terrible job at hiding a despondent expression.

“Hi,” she said, her voice a whisper.

He patted my back. “Mati.”

My mom and I both stared at him in silence, bracing ourselves for what was about to come out of his mouth.

“I’m afraid I have some sad news.”

I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to run out of the room and never come to this rotten hospital again. But Julio couldn’t hear my thoughts.

“Unfortunately, my cousin passed away last night in the fire. They just found his body.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He gave me a mystified look. “I wouldn’t be telling you if I weren’t sure, Matías.”

“But how can they know?” I said. “I mean, wasn’t he burned?”

Julio, usually a jolly man who loved a good party, with tasty hornado and imported whiskey, had never looked so ashen and disconcerted to me. It was almost as if he’d lost ten pounds overnight, not that he was thin from any point of view.

“I haven’t seen his body yet, but as far as I know, a few employees have identified him.”

“I want to see him,” I said, feeling a rubber ball stuck in my throat.

“No!” Both of them yelled in unison.

“You don’t need to see that, hijo ,” Julio said.

I’m not your son . I pulled away from him.

“Don’t call him that ,” I said. “He’s not a thing. He’s my father.”

“Mati,” my mom said, sitting up, not a single tear in her eyes. “Julio didn’t mean it that way. It’s best that you don’t see him.”

I needed to get out of this place—now. I had an almost uncontrollable desire to break every object in the room. I turned around and ran as far away from that hospital as I could.