Page 46 of The Night We Became Strangers

I was still livid, which was part of the reason why I’d mocked his decision to broadcast that show after the chaos it created in New Jersey and New York, but I wanted to know more before he vanished again. “What about my mother? Are you sure she died?”

“Not a hundred percent, but that was the rumor back then. I couldn’t find her anywhere on the third floor, and when I tried to go downstairs, the smoke had taken over.

I just saw a couple of people fleeing the newsroom in the staircase.

It was so chaotic. All of us had been locked in the studio, recording, and when the mob started throwing rocks and burning newspapers, everyone panicked. ”

“Was she there”—I interrupted—“during the recording?”

He shook his head. “Well, at first, yes, but she left after a while.

She”—he cleared his throat—“she didn’t have an important role.” “How come?”

He shrugged. “Just the way the script went. There weren’t strong female lead roles, and she was used to being the star, so she wasn’t too happy to be an extra.”

“But Beatriz Lara was.”

He looked stunned. “Yes …”

I examined his every expression. I hadn’t seen him in eight years, but I was almost certain he was hiding something else.

Once my father and I parted ways with a robotic wave, I let out the tears I’d been holding back for the past hour.

What was wrong with me? Now I was feeling bad for not hugging him, for being so unforgiving.

He’d asked me not to tell Tío Bolívar or anyone else that he was still alive.

But how could he expect me to keep something so important to myself?

Honestly, I didn’t think I could hide it for long, especially from Graciela.

He’d said that even though things had died down in the last few years, there were still some who were seeking justice for the events of February twelfth.

I was openly sobbing now. What if he never came back?

He’d left me once before, and I didn’t even know how to find him.

He was staying at a hostel, but he wouldn’t tell me which one or how long he was planning to remain in Quito.

Furthermore, he wouldn’t tell me the pseudonym he’d been using since he left.

It was understandable that he would change his name, as his real one had lost all credibility from the public, even internationally, but it hurt that he wouldn’t share this detail with me.

Did he really believe I would send the police over?

What kind of daughter did he think I was?

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he’d said. “But it would be best for you not to know too much.”

I didn’t think he was only talking about the hostel where he was staying.

There was more, and what I really wanted to do was call Matías and tell him everything.

He would know what to do. But with our families’ mutual hatred, things were getting awkward between us.

My cousins had manhandled him, and I’d been rude to his mom—with good reason—but who knew if she’d poisoned him against me after I walked out?

Maybe I should’ve asked my dad more about that night or mentioned my suspicions regarding my mom and Agustín Montero, but I’d been so angry when I found out he’d lied and left me here alone that I couldn’t think straight.

My stomach started hurting again. I’d let my pride take over.

I’d missed my chance to fix my situation.

If anyone could help me, that was my father.

He could talk to Tío Bolívar about my engagement.

If things went bad, I could always move to Lima with him and work at the newspaper he mentioned—not that I had forgiven his abandonment—but Lima was a big city with several newspapers that hadn’t branded me as a pariah.

Yes, I would tell him about my conundrum.

Wiping my tears, I turned around, but my dad was gone—the street behind me eerily empty.

A thump outside the window woke me up. I sat up as another pebble hit the windowsill. There was no denying the person’s intent. I rushed to the window.

Matías!

He was standing by the light post, looking up.

I waved back at him.

Madre mía , what was I going to wear? I was most definitely not going downstairs in my nightgown. But I had to hurry up before my uncle saw him or Mati got tired of waiting and left.

In the dark, I pulled out the first shirtdress and sweater from the armoire, and rushed to the lavatory to wash myself and spray some of my aunt’s violet perfume.

It wasn’t until I was downstairs that I realized I was wearing a lavender dress with an orange sweater.

Not the best combination, but commendable given that it had taken me only five minutes to look relatively decent and well-groomed.

As I stepped outside, I rearranged the buttons of my sweater, which were mismatched.

Leaning over his sedan with his arms crossed, Matías looked at me with an amused smile.

“What are you doing here?” I said, making sure no one was watching.

The street was relatively empty, except for a drunkard singing out of tune at the end of the block.

“I need to show you something.”

“I appreciate the urgency to share, but couldn’t this wait until the morning?”

“Yes, but I didn’t want anybody to see me here. Your uncle and your cousins have you well guarded in your tower. I figured I had a better chance to reach you while everyone was sleeping.” He caressed my cheek, smiling. “Come on.”

He opened the passenger door.

“What? I can’t go anywhere at this hour. My uncle will kill me.”

“Come on, Juliet. I know you’re not afraid of anything.”

Juliet? My heart was thumping against my rib cage. He was implying that we were— what? More than friends? I closed the front door and against my better judgment, I got inside the car.

“Wait, how am I going to get back in?” I said, realizing in my haze that the door had locked behind me and I didn’t have a key.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said with a wink, and drove away. He parked in a dark, empty street and looked at me.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

He leaned over me and gave me the kiss I’d been waiting for since I saw him.

It was better than the first time, maybe because we weren’t interrupted by some brutes who wanted to kill him.

Tonight, he had time to linger in this kiss he seemed to be wanting as much as I did.

He undid the top button of my shirtdress and kissed my neck.

What was this strange sensation? I felt it all the way to my knees.

I couldn’t believe I’d been missing out for so many years.

With his lips trailing down my neck, he spoke.

“What are you going to do about,” another soft kiss on my collarbone, “about your engagement?”

Why did he have to bring up that subject at a moment like this? I pulled back. “I don’t know. Do we have to talk about this now?”

“Vale, your wedding is in, what? A couple of weeks?”

I sat back. “What do you propose I do, then?”

He didn’t say anything. Of course he wouldn’t ask me to marry him. It was too soon, and besides our families would kill both of us.

I buttoned up my shirt and folded my arms.

“What did you want to show me?” I said.

Sighing, he removed a small wooden chest from the glove compartment and handed it to me.

“What is it?”

“I found it buried at the bottom of my mom’s armoire. Open it.”

There were over a dozen photographs of two girls in various stages of their lives, from puberty all the way to their late teens.

“It’s my mom,” I said, recognizing the dimples in her cheeks, her sweet smile that I had seen so seldomly toward the end of her life. The last photo showed Mati’s mom in her wedding gown, hugging my mom.

“At one point, they loved each other,” he said.

Underneath all the photos was a folded powder blue scarf with meticulously illustrated doves.

“And this?”

“I have no idea. My guess is it was a gift.”

“If your mom is still holding on to all this stuff, she must not hate my mother as much as she says.”

I felt an inkling of hope. Perhaps there could be a future for us.

“Well, she does a good job at hiding it. I wanted you to see it before my mom notices it’s missing. I know there are no big revelations here, but I thought you would like to see those photos nonetheless.”

“Thank you, Mati.” I folded the scarf back into the chest. “I do have a big revelation of my own.” I stopped fumbling with my mom’s photos. “It turns out my dad is still alive.”

His mouth gaped open. “What?”

I went on to explain—as best as I could—my encounter with my father that afternoon, but before we could make sense of my dad’s presence in our lives and what that could mean for all of us, a knock on the window startled both of us.

A policeman.

“You can’t be here,” he said, gesturing for Matías to roll down the window and spewing something about indecent acts and nothing good happening after midnight . As much as Matías tried to explain that we weren’t doing anything wrong, the man wouldn’t hear him.

“Do me a favor and scram!”

Well, at least he kicked us out politely.

And so, we left. Now the only problem was how to get back into my uncle’s house?

As soon as we arrived at my uncle’s house, Mati and I used the “pebble on the window” trick to try to wake up Graciela, but there was no response. I should’ve known better—she was a deep sleeper: She never heard her alarm clock in the morning.

At some point I accidentally hit my uncle’s window, which was next to ours. I covered my mouth with both hands to keep from laughing.

“Let me try,” Mati said. He squinted one eye as he aimed at the perfect angle of Graciela’s window. He threw the pebble and hit the middle of the window, causing a minor thump that died next to the engine of a car roaring behind us.

Ever so slowly, I turned around only to see Tío Bolívar’s Ford Fairlane parking in front of Matías’s car.

“My uncle,” I said, dropping my stone on the ground.

Invoking all the saints in the heavens that might be available, I waited for my uncle to get out of his car. My face had never burned more. I pictured my head rolling into a wicker basket, like Marie Antoinette’s.

“What’s going on here?” he said aloud. “Didn’t you have enough the other night?” He was coming toward Mati, gesticulating with both arms. But this time I was prepared. I lunged toward my uncle, standing between the two men.

“Stop it, Tío!” I turned to Matías. “Please leave, Mati.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“You are engaged, Valeria. And these are not visiting hours!” my uncle was saying.

I kept blocking him until Matías got inside his car.

“If these aren’t visiting hours, then who were you with tonight, Tío?” I asked.

My uncle frowned. “What? I wasn’t visiting anybody.”

“No. You were you just dropping someone at her hotel, right?”

He took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tío, I saw you the other night with Juliana Isabel.”

He stuttered. “Well, I was just … just—she needed a r-r-ride.”

“And my aunt knows about this grand favor?”

The color drained from his face.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell her anything, and I suggest you don’t say anything about Matías, either. Look, it’s late. We’re both tired. What do you say we just go to bed and forget about all this?”

He nodded, removing his keys from the pocket of his trousers. Neither of us said another word as we entered the foyer, our quiet steps weighing heavily on the creaky wooden floors—the only discernable sounds in the stillness of the house.