Page 51 of The Night We Became Strangers

Like my almost suegra said, the house was unmistakable.

It stood out like a flower in the middle of the dessert.

From my parents’ conversations, I remembered that Beatriz had been a young widow.

Her husband, who’d also been an actor, had some kind of odd accident a few years prior to my dad purchasing the radio station.

In fact, my parents had never met him when Beatriz came looking for a job.

We rang the doorbell. The woman from the photo at the radio station materialized in front of me, but this was a faded version of her—unlike Alicia de Montero, who had gotten more attractive with age.

The roots of Beatriz’s hair were darker than the rest of the dried-out, strawlike dye in her bob.

It gave me an urge to drive her to Peluquería Florencia immediately.

Also, something had happened to her skin.

There were blemishes scattered throughout her cheeks.

In her defense, we hadn’t warned her of our visit, and in the past, she’d used layers and layers of foundation.

Now I could see why. For a second, I wondered what my mother would’ve looked like now, nearing forty.

“Can I help you?” she said, twisting her full lips.

“Senora Beatriz?” I asked. “I’m Valeria Anzures and this is Matías Montero. My mother was Marisa del Valle. You know, the director’s wife?”

A significant pallor came to her face.

“We were wondering if we could have a word with you,” I said before she shut the door.

She watched us both. Matías flashed her one of those smiles capable of disarming any woman.

“It’ll be quick,” I said.

“Yes. Valeria, of course,” she said.

“We met when I was a little girl.”

“Yes, yes.” She seemed nervous.

Matías attempted to shake her hand. “My dad was Agustín Montero, the newspaper owner.”

She hesitated, but took his hand, nonetheless.

“We just wanted to talk for a few minutes,” Matías said.

“Five minutes, no más ,” I requested.

She forced a smile. “All right.”

The floors had been recently waxed, as they felt slippery under my slip-ons, and a strong scent of wood polish invaded the entire living room.

“I came here once with my mom,” I said, recognizing the heavy cherry furniture. “For a rehearsal.”

“I’m sorry the house is such a mess,” she said, turning off the console radio and picking up a set of playing cards from the coffee table. “Had I known you were coming, I would’ve worn something nice.”

When she smiled, I finally recognized the pretty young woman she once had been.

Her face had aged some, but her body hadn’t.

She was still the curvaceous woman I remembered who used to turn heads in the streets of Quito.

She wore a fitted beige blouse with buttons barely closing over her ample bosom.

It didn’t escape my notice that Matías gave her a once-over. Ugh.

“Would you like something to drink?” she said. “I have this Portuguese oporto I’ve been waiting to open for when I have company.”

We thanked her. She turned toward her cupboard and removed the wineglasses.

Matías helped her uncork the bottle and served the three of us the burgundy liquid.

I sat on a stiff leather sofa. Around us were photos of people I’d never met and behind the dining room table hung a large wedding photo of a very young Beatriz with a man who I assumed to be her late husband, the actor.

She grabbed one of the wineglasses Matías had set on the coffee table and drank greedily. “So, to what do I owe this honor?”

I tried my oporto . It was surprisingly good, sweet with a slight taste of passion fruit. “Well, I just moved back to Quito from Riobamba and was curious to meet some of my mother’s friends.”

I wasn’t sure if “friend” was the right term to describe her, but Beatriz had been present for many years of my mom’s life. She sat on a chair in front of me and grabbed a cigarette box from the end table. She offered us one, but we declined.

“Your mother was kind,” she said, as Matías lit her cigarette. “But she kept her distance, you know? I don’t know if it was because she was the director’s wife or because we were surrounded by men all the time. She couldn’t be too friendly, or they might have taken it the wrong way.”

“You weren’t close then?” I said.

She served herself more Portuguese wine, the top of her teeth turning maroon. “Not really.”

I glanced at Matías, pleading for his help with my eyes—uncertain of how to continue.

“So,” he said, sitting next to me. “Valeria and I were talking about how little we know about what happened that night at the radio station. When our parents died, we didn’t know many people who worked with them, so we didn’t know whom to ask.

But Valeria remembered coming here once, and we thought—well, maybe she knows something about that night, about why her father went along with the broadcast.”

She blinked repeatedly. “I don’t know why he did it. He changed his mind barely an hour before transmission.”

“And my mom. Did she participate in the show?”

“For a little bit, but then she left.” She drank some more.

“When the fire and smoke reached the inside of the building, it was utter chaos. People were running in all directions. Some went to the roof, others jumped to adjacent buildings. Some even attempted to form human chains outside the windows to escape.”

“They did,” Matías said, pensively.

She took a long drag of her cigarette. “People like to speculate that Crónicas had political enemies who used the radio hoax as an excuse to burn the building.”

This was the first I’d heard of such conspiracy.

“And you believe that?” Matías said, leaning forward.

She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to think. It’s been eight years, and I still cannot make sense of that night.”

“How did you escape?” I asked.

She avoided our gaze. “By the stairs. I was fast enough to leave the building before the fire got too bad. Unfortunately,” she finished her drink, “your parents didn’t have the same luck.”

Though her behavior was somewhat erratic, I couldn’t blame her. The memories of that night were probably traumatic. A heaviness came over me. My mother’s last minutes alive must have been horrific. For months after the incident, I had nightmares about my parents.

“So you stopped acting after that?” Matías said.

“I took a break after the fire. I didn’t have the need to work since my late husband”—she made the sign of the cross—“left me this house and an adequate inheritance.”

I looked around the large home. How strange that a radio theater actor in this country would’ve made enough money to afford such a nice house and sustenance for his wife for so many years.

“After your mother’s passing, other radio stations contacted me,” she said. “It’s not a lot of money, but I like it, and I’ve done well for myself.”

“What about your other colleagues who were there that night?” Matías said. “Are you in touch with them?”

“Not really, but your Tío Bolívar contacted me recently for a new radionovela , which we’re starting in a couple of days.”

“As the protagonist?” I said, unable to hide the bitterness in my voice. She was booking all the jobs my mom should’ve had.

“Yes.” She smiled, proudly.

“What about the newspaper people? Are you still friends with anyone there?” I said.

“No.”

I finished my drink so I could gather the courage to ask the next question, the reason for us being here. “But you were friends with Matías’s dad, right?”

She scraped the label of the oporto bottle with her nail.

“Not really. I mean, I knew him for years. But who didn’t?

” She studied one of her chipped nails. “He came a couple of times, because he was interested in purchasing some paintings my husband had left me. My Lorenzo had inherited them from his grandfather, and they were valuable pieces from the Escuela Quitena in the nineteenth century.”

Matías looked surprised. “Did he buy them?”

“No,” she said, avoiding our gazes. “I ended up selling them to the city’s museum.”

Well, that explained Agustín’s visits. Now what?

We left Beatriz’s house disappointed. Our investigation had led us nowhere, and we didn’t know what to think of our parents.

Per my request, Matías parked a block away from my uncle’s house.

He held my hand for a moment and kissed it.

He was about to say something else—I knew it—but he changed his mind and simply uttered a goodbye.