Chapter 1 - THE FUNERAL THEY RUSHED TO FINISH
After seventy-two hours without phone service, I returned home expecting my wife and daughter to meet me at the gate.
Instead, I found funeral flowers, rows of plastic chairs, and my wife Mariana’s name written across a black sign.
Her coffin stood in our living room.
My mother, Teresa, wrapped her arms around me.
“You’re too late, Alejandro,” she cried. “Mariana took her own life.”
Nobody had called the police.
Nobody had requested an investigation.
My aunt Ofelia, who owned the local funeral home, kept insisting the coffin had to be closed and buried before sunset.
“Mariana had been depressed,” she said. “We should protect her reputation.”
I looked toward my father, Ernesto.
Since his stroke, he could barely move one hand and could no longer speak.
But he understood everything.
He struck the arm of his wheelchair three times and stared toward the third floor, where our bedroom was located.
Then Teresa fell beside the coffin and began wailing.
“Why did you do this, Mariana? Everyone here loved you!”
That was when my six-year-old daughter, Sofía, pulled away from her grandmother.
“Grandma is lying!”
The entire room went silent.
Sofía pointed at Teresa.
“Uncle Diego broke Mommy’s door. He hurt her and tore her shirt. Grandma took her phone and locked us inside.”
My brother Diego went pale.
“The child is confused,” Teresa said quickly.
I knelt before my daughter.
“What happened after they locked the door?”
Sofía buried her face against my chest.
May you like
“Mommy called your name all night.”
Continue to Part 2 to discover what Mariana recorded before she died—and why the family was desperate to bury her before I returned.
