You know, it’s funny how you think you know someone until the moment the dirt actually hits the casket. Grief is this unifying force, everyone always says, but in reality it was when the mask slipped from my son’s face.
The day we laid Eduardo to rest, the atmosphere seemed… thick. One of those muggy days that carry a scent of fresh soil and flowers at a funeral. I stood there in my dark dress and shook violently under a shawl, which did nothing to protect me from the cold.
Diego was standing right beside me. My only son. He had frozen like a statue, staring at the coffin with a firm jaw. I thought he was just trying to keep things together for me. I pitied the poor boy. All I could think about was how much he was like his father, bottling up his emotions.
But then he came closer.
He did not put his arms around me, and he did not give me his shoulder. He simply grabbed my hand, squeezing it hard enough to bruise and whispered to me that I am no longer part of his family. In six little words, he took away thirty years of me being a mother.
My brain must have simply gone dead for a moment. It happens, doesn’t it? The rest of the world goes on turning, but all you can do is sit there and ponder one damn sentence. Before I knew it, before I had time to blink or question him, he opened up my purse and pulled out my keys. Without a word, without a by-your-leave, he took an envelope straight out of Eduardo’s lawyer’s hand.
And it was the will. I knew Eduardo’s wobbly signature on the seal.
I attempted to speak, something feeble about there possibly being a misunderstanding, but my voice sounded like that of a specter. The lawyer would not meet my eyes; instead, he mumbled something about “terms being clear” and “Diego being the only heir.” I felt the stares of our relatives and friends upon us. You know that unmistakable change in air that happens when people sense that the one they’re expected to console is really just being embarrassed.
I did not cause a spectacle. I could not. There was too much pride in me to give him the pleasure of watching me crumble underfoot. Instead, I simply nodded. I played my part as if I were a mother tucking down her son’s lapel one final time. I went through the motions, smoothing his jacket and patting his breast pocket before, in that brief moment, slipping the minuscule GPS tracker that had been sitting on Eduardo’s desk for weeks straight into his pocket.
He hadn’t felt anything. Just smiled smugly at me, confident that he won.
I left the cemetery gates by myself. The phone vibrated in my pocket, indicating the connection was established. There was no point for me going back to his place because he had the keys. I chose this tiny café near the train station instead and ordered a coffee that I did not intend to drink, watching a red dot appear on the map on my cell.
He didn’t go home to mourn. He went straight to Colonia Roma.
I sat there watching the monitor, and my mind started racing with everything I was denying. The gossip about the business. The presence of Eduardo’s girlfriend, Valeria, in the last few days. I kept telling myself I was being paranoid, but seeing the red dot lingering outside of the notary’s office made it clear what was happening.
I went there for the view; I didn’t go inside. I watched from the other side of the street through the glass window. Diego, the attorney, and Valeria were inside. They weren’t sobbing or weeping. They were filling out paperwork while laughing and smiling. It appeared to be a corporate merger and not a family grieving their loss. It was ruthless.
I felt sick. But then I remembered one thing.
However, in the few weeks leading up to his heart attack, Eduardo started behaving oddly. He gave me access to his email account and also a key to one of his safety deposit boxes at the bank. “If you ever feel like something is off, do not look within,” he would say. “Look outside.” I thought that he was simply exaggerating because of his old age; little did I know how wise that advice really was.
Back at the café, I opened up my computer and got into Eduardo’s account. The account featured a draft folder. Within it, there was a scheduled email. Should Eduardo not log on after thirty days, the email would be sent automatically, saying nothing more than, “If you’re receiving this message, then Diego has made his play. Don’t sign a single paper. Go to the bank.”
Early the next morning, I arrived at the bank before it opened its doors. Box 317.
It contained a USB stick and a bundle of papers. After viewing the footage on the stick once I returned to my hotel room, I got to see my husband in a light that I hadn’t seen in ages—tired, but keen-eyed. He revealed how he uncovered their attempts to steal from the company and how he had been forced into altering the will during his illness.
Then, he pulled out the real will, which had been executed in private under the watchful eyes of witnesses Diego could not bribe.
In the aftermath, there was no screaming matches, no confrontation with Diego. There was only the lawyers’ business, where I froze the accounts, disputed all of the documents that Diego waved around at the funeral, and left the rest to them.
Diego contacted me after four days. He wasn’t trying to apologize at all; he was raging. He yelled that I was “ruining everything” and it was “his birthright”. I never tried to argue. I just heard him breathing for a moment before hanging up. What can you say to a person trying to bury you while you’re alive?
It took me two weeks to get injunctions served to both of them. Two weeks of sleeping in a hotel, not knowing what to do with my son who was at home drinking Eduardo’s fine scotch, no doubt plotting how to spend the loot.
However, today, I walked in my own house at last.
The smell of cigar smoke and Valeria’s perfume lingered around the house. The violation was palpable. I opened the windows in every room to let the stink of them out. I called the locksmith and changed all locks – the gate too.
It is unclear what is going to happen to Diego; this fraud investigation is going to be messy, but in a way, it is also his fault for bringing this upon himself. While a part of me – a mother – is experiencing some feelings resembling sorrow, another part feels exhausted with the events that are unfolding.
Yesterday, for the first time since all of this happened, I have fallen asleep peacefully without any nightmares involving the funeral, marigolds, and his shocked face while handing over my keys. He believes himself to be too clever, thinking he managed to take advantage of me during my most vulnerable moment and strip me of all I owned before anyone else.
What Diego does not realize is that by the time I left his father’s grave behind, he lost everything he ever had. This time, it is him who no longer belongs to the family. Only, he cannot quite comprehend yet that the locks have been changed.
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Bored Daddy
Love and Peace
