I opened the door to our home in San Miguel with a bunch of white lilies in my arms, which I bought for my wife. For the past three weeks, I was in Monterrey trying to secure a business deal that would help us save our vineyard family business, and what kept me moving was the idea of returning to Camila and seeing her smile, listening to her laugh when she talks about our baby kicking.
But then, as soon as I went inside, my mother looked at me and said, “Your wife died during childbirth… the baby didn’t survive either.”
This place no longer resembled our home. Already, they had put these black curtains, candles everywhere and there was a coffin resting in the middle of the living room. My mother, Teresa, stood next to the fireplace. Was she grieving her unborn grandchild. Didn’t feel like it. She had a black dress, and a lipstick too bright and bold for a funeral. Not only she didn’t cry, but she acted as nothing was wrong.
I threw down the flowers and went over to the coffin. Camila looked perfect, as if she were only sleeping, yet from the first moment I knew that everything was wrong about her appearance. Camila always hated how people treated the dead, how they fixed their faces into expressions and made them look rigid. Her parting joke used to be, “When I go, don’t let them make me look like a piece of art.” Yet here she was, with her hand lying neatly on her chest and the other clenched in an unthinkably tight fist.
When I went closer and tried to touch her, my mother screamed, “Don’t disturb the dead,” and it really sounded like an order. Why wasn’t I surprised? Because she always treated me as the weak son compared to my brother Rodrigo. Of course I didn’t listen and opened Camila’s clenched hand.
She was holding a small navy-blue button. There were also threads in her nails, so I assumed it was torn forcefully from somewhere. And then it hit me. It was a button from my brother’s navy-blue jacket that he wore almost always.
I put the button into my pocket as Rodrigo stepped into the hallway carrying a glass of whiskey and wearing sunglasses inside the house. The fake and pre-planned speech that he delivered was about how unfortunate and disappointing it is that I was late for my wife’s funeral. But while Rodrigo spoke, I saw a new scratch underneath his chin. I simply nodded my head without saying anything. They thought they had broken me; however, I did not tell them that Camila and I had secretly signed a power of attorney a few months back when we learned that there was an embezzlement of funds from the company.
That night, I contacted Dr. Ana Lucía Méndez, Camila’s close friend, she managed the private hospital where all the events had allegedly taken place according to my mother. Ana Lucía picked up right away and spoke in a whisper, terrified. According to her, Camila wasn’t admitted to the hospital regularly, there was no registration, no identification, nothing. My mother was pushing for an urgent cremation, but the hospital declined. Ana Lucía asked me to meet her at the emergency entrance at 6:00 a.m. the following morning. And I did as I was told.
Before I left for the hospital the following morning, my mother wanted to make sure that we got a quick read of what she claimed was Camila’s will—which, conveniently, left everything Camila owned to her. “Show me the document,” I said. When I saw the signature, I knew right away that it was forged. Camila was left handed, and this signature was definitely written by someone using their right.
Ana Lucía was waiting for me in a secluded hallway. She led me to a locked office and gave me an evidence bag with Camila’s phone. The phone had been discovered by a nurse who made sure it didn’t reach my mother, hidden among Camila’s belongings. There was one video on the device.
I donned my headphones, and then I heard my wife’s heavy, strained breathing. Then Rodrigo’s voice rang out in the speakers: “Sign it, Camila. Julian will never know.” And then my mother’s voice followed: “We’ll say that it was a complication when the baby is born. No one ever doubts a grieving mother.” Camila somehow managed to breathe out that her son wasn’t theirs, and Rodrigo told her he’d never allow that child to inherit anything.
“Where is my son?” I cried.
Lucía opened another door and took me into the NICU. My son was there in an incubator. The doctor had put him under a temporary medical hold because my mother had tried to register him as stillborn to avoid an autopsy.
The wake was the next day. My mother kept it small. Rodrigo showed up late, wearing a new navy jacket because his other one was obviously missing a button.
When the priest asked if anyone wanted to say anything, my mother tried to stand up. I walked right past her to the front, turned around to face the vineyard workers and old family friends, and held up the button.
“This is what Camila had in her hand,” I said. “She tore it from the person she was with when she died.”
Rodrigo tried to laugh it off, but right then two state police officers walked in with a prosecutor and a forensic expert.
My mom screamed that this was a total disrespect to the funeral, but the prosecutor cut her off. He said they were investigating a murder, document forgery, and a hidden child.
When they asked them about the video, Rodrigo went crazy screaming that it was all fake, but the forensic team had already authenticated the audio and matched the DNA found under her fingernails.
As soon as the handcuffs came out, Rodrigo completely broke down. He burst into tears, pointed directly at my mother, and yelled that she was the one who told him it would all end for him if the baby arrived. Our family notary, who was sitting in the third row, slumped forward and started stuttering that he didn’t know she would die, and that they had just asked him to take care of some documents.
As they were leading my mother out in handcuffs, she turned and yelled, “Julian! I am your mother!”
I just looked at Camila’s casket. “And she was my wife.”
Six months later, my brother is still waiting for his trial, my mother’s legal case is falling apart, and the notary lost his licence. Camila’s recovered shares didn’t go to me, instead, I put them in a foundation I started in her name which helps vulnerable pregnant women that have no one to turn to.
And yes, my son and I started our life from scratch, free from the family that caused his mother’s death. I still keep that blue button. Not because of rage, but because it serves as a reminder that my wife never stopped fighting for us.
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