Page 36 of The Night We Became Strangers

Matías

I couldn’t stop thinking about Valeria since last night. She was still the same rambunctious girl I knew as a child. She’d always had the exceptional quality of making me laugh, even at the most critical moments—like when her uncle caught us outside his house after midnight.

“Good morning,” my mom said, entering the dining room in a gray two piece-suit, silk stockings, heels in place, and her mane already fixed in the tight chignon she wore daily. As usual, she was ready for work before anyone else.

“ Hola, Madre, ” I said.

At forty, she was still a good-looking woman, but that shouldn’t have come as a surprise given the way she cared for herself.

She meticulously watched everything she ate—nothing greasy or sweet, not too much salt, and cigarettes only on occasion.

She never exceeded one glass of red wine per night, and she only drank because the doctor had said it was good for reducing cholesterol.

Ever since she’d turned forty, she’d become fanatical about her health and Julio’s.

There had been a time when she’d been lenient about the sim- ple pleasures in life: preparing succulent new meals for friends, staying up until the last bottle of aguardiente or vodka was empty, filling an ashtray with cigarette butts until the last of the gossip was shared, dancing until her heels broke.

But that had been years ago, before my father died.

In spite of not engaging in social events ever since she’d become a widow, the vices had continued in private.

Everything had changed after her fortieth birthday. No matter how many times Julio and I told her how young she looked, or how often people in the street assumed she was my sister instead of my mother, she didn’t believe us.

“You say that because you love me” or “They are just being polite” became her standard answers every time someone voiced a compliment. But the truth was she did look younger and she could pass as my sister. After all, she’d had me when she was barely nineteen years old.

I’d often wondered if her preoccupation with her health had to do with the fact that her mother had died young, a fact she mentioned often.

“You came home late last night,” she said, taking her seat at the head of the table. “Where were you?”

“ Senora , don’t ask what you don’t want to know.”

“Fair enough.” She clicked her glass with a knife, making a bell-like sound.

Delia, in her maid uniform—which wasn’t too different from the one Valeria had been wearing last night—entered the dining room.

“ Buenos días, senora . Would you like your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“Sí, senito.”

“What’s with that smile?” she told me as Delia went back into the kitchen.

I hadn’t even realized I was smiling.

“A smile like that has to do with a woman.”

I took a sip of my coffee. “Not necessarily.”

“I know you better than anyone else, corazón . When you smile like that, it means there’s a new girl in your heart. That also would explain how late you came home last night—even if you don’t want to tell me why.”

My mom did know me well, but if she even suspected that the woman occupying my thoughts was Valeria Anzures, she would throw a fit.

The name of anyone in that family had been forbidden in this house for years.

Just the other week, after Valeria showed up at the newspaper, Mamá had been in a terrible mood for days.

I waited to speak until Delia brought my mom’s café con leche and diced papaya—I knew better than to bring up a sore subject when my mom was hungry.

“Mamá?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve never told me what you were doing at the radio station the night of the fire.”

She nearly choked on her coffee. “This is too hot! Delia!” She hissed at me. “Where is this coming from? You know I don’t like to talk about that night.”

“And why is that?”

She looked over her shoulder. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t want Delia or Julio to hear her. “Because it’s painful. Why should we talk about hurtful things?”

“Because, Madre, I want to know. You’ve been drilling in me the importance of good reporting and sharing information.

You’ve wanted me to learn first-hand every aspect of working at a newspaper, with a special emphasis on journalism over everything else.

It is ironic that you would be so cryptic about this. I’m an adult now. You can tell me.”

She tossed the napkin on her plate—still halfway full—and got up.

“Well, I don’t have time for memories and reminiscing right now. I have to go to work. Julio! Julio! Are you ready?” she shouted toward the staircase.

“You know I’m going to keep asking until you tell me,” I said.

“We don’t talk about that night, Matías.” She turned to me, eyes glinting. “The past is gone. Let it be.”

My stepfather, Julio, entered the room, fixing his comb-over hair with chubby hands, briefcase falling off, tie crooked.

What a contrast the two of them created.

My mother was the epitome of class and beauty.

My stepfather was a walking disaster, short and chunky.

But how he loved her. He would do anything to please her.

Even working at the newspaper when he was, in fact, a lawyer.

He’d come to her aid immediately after my father passed away.

My mother, of course, was strategic and knew she couldn’t possibly run one of the biggest newspapers in the country by herself without any prior experience in the field.

She knew, however, that the paper was going to stay in the family.

Julio Montero was my father’s first cousin, the only one who could take charge until I came of age, as my aunts were nowhere in sight and had no interest in the business, particularly after the scandal that ensued after the fire.

Julio, on the other hand, had been a bachelor, with nothing going for him. He’d always been especially attentive to my mother. I wouldn’t be surprised to know he’d always loved her. Many men did.

Julio Montero had also taken the role of my father.

At first, our relationship had been forced and awkward, as I had been resentful that my mother had remarried so quickly after my father’s passing, but Julio had been kind to me, and from the first day, he’d recruited my help to complete his daily crossword puzzle, which I suspected he was perfectly capable of finishing on his own.

He’d also invited me with him to Café Chapineros, where he would meet on weekends with his friends for coffee and political conversations.

I’d been extremely bored at first—being only fourteen years old—but with time, I’d gotten to know and love his idiosyncratic friends: the Italian immigrant who always told stories about the war, the consummate Communist who constantly fought with the car salesman with a boisterous laugh, the dentist who couldn’t be a minute late for lunch or his wife would cut him off sex for days, the postal worker who would only come for thirty minutes during his lunch break, and many, many others who were instrumental in my formative years.

And yet, in all my conversations with Julio, I’d never asked him if he knew what really happened the infamous night of the fire. Maybe my mother had shared more with him.

“Ready?” my mother told Julio, running her hands over her hips, and picking up her purse from the cupboard.

“Ready!” he said, like a conscript responding to his sergeant.

“Don’t take too long, Mati,” my mom instructed me as the two of them walked to the front door.

There had been no question that I would run the paper one day.

Ideally, I would’ve had a choice between Crónicas or my grandfather’s soda factory—which sometimes seemed more appealing to me—but my mother had deemed the newspaper a more worthy cause.

I suspected her choice also had to do with the fact that she had been estranged from her father for a few years after he remarried a woman close in age to her.

They hadn’t made their peace until after he finally divorced said woman.

Now my grandfather had sold his company and retired.

From the window, I watched my stepfather open the passenger door for my mother as she reprimanded him for whatever it was he did wrong.

Clearly, I was going nowhere with my mother, but Valeria had managed to make me curious about a night I had tried to forget a long time ago—a night that had been pivotal in my life.

I didn’t know if there would ever be the perfect words to persuade my mother to tell me what happened, but that didn’t mean I would give up.

I might just have to find a different course of action.