The House of Black Curtains
Chapter 13 - The House of Black Curtains
I returned to the Mendoza house alone.
Not legally alone. Arturo waited outside with two officers. Marisol knew where I was. Valeria had threatened to sedate me if I did anything foolish, which I believed was only half a joke.
But I entered alone.
The black curtains from Lucía’s staged wake still hung in the living room. No one had removed them because no one knew whether the room was a crime scene, a family shrine, or a place everyone wanted to avoid.
I opened them one by one.
Light entered rudely.
Good.
Dust floated in the beams. The floor still held faint wax marks from candles. Near the center of the room, where the coffin had stood, the rug had a rectangular indentation.
Absence has weight.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I carried the rug outside and told Arturo to burn it.
He looked at me.
“Señor?”
“Not evidence. Marisol cleared it.”
He nodded.
We burned it in the courtyard brazier my mother once used for dried rose petals after parties.
I watched until the last corner curled black.
Then I went upstairs to the nursery.
Lucía had painted one wall herself. A pale green vineyard under a soft blue sky. Tiny birds on a fence. A sun in the corner with a face too mischievous to belong in a formal Mendoza room.
Mercedes had hated it.
“She paints like a schoolteacher,” she said once.
Lucía answered, “Good. Children like schoolteachers more than matriarchs.”
I laughed then.
My mother did not.
Now the nursery looked half-finished and violently interrupted. A drawer stood open. Baby shirts folded by Inés. A silver rattle from Mercedes still in its box. A rocking chair Lucía bought from an old carpenter instead of the Italian one my mother ordered.
On the chair sat a notebook.
Not hidden.
Waiting.
Lucía’s pregnancy journal.
I sat on the floor and opened it.
Week 26: Rafael worries too quietly. Must teach son to annoy him loudly.
Week 29: Mercedes says the baby should wear family christening lace. I say the baby should first wear spit-up and democracy.
Week 31: Esteban came to the nursery drunk. I did not tell Rafael because he is already carrying Monterrey. This was a mistake. I am writing that down so future Lucía stops confusing love with silence.
I stopped reading.
Future Lucía.
She wrote to herself as if she would have time to become wiser.
I forced myself to continue.
Week 33: Found more invoices. San Telmo. Azul Meridian. Salazar signed notes I never approved. Mercedes watches my belly like it is a document she wants notarized.
Week 35: If something happens, Mateo, know this: you were wanted before you were useful. That matters in this house.
I pressed the notebook to my chest.
Wanted before useful.
That sentence would become law in my home.
At the back of the notebook, a folded page fell out.
A list.
People to trust if Rafael is not here.
Valeria.
Marisol.
Inés, if protected.
Tomás.
Paloma at hospital, maybe.
Sister Beatriz, if baby moved.
Sister Beatriz.
Lucía had anticipated even that.
Below the list was one final line:
Do not trust kindness from Mercedes when cameras are present.
I almost smiled.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
I turned.
Esteban stood in the nursery doorway.
Impossible.
He was in custody.
Then I realized it was not Esteban.
It was his son.
I had forgotten about Diego.
Esteban’s twelve-year-old boy from a relationship my mother had paid to keep quiet. Diego had lived mostly with his mother in Guadalajara, appearing at family events only when Mercedes wanted to display generosity without responsibility.
He stood thin and pale in the doorway, school backpack over one shoulder.
“Are they taking my father to prison?” he asked.
The question entered a room already full of ghosts and made another one.
I closed the notebook.
“Diego.”
“My grandmother’s driver dropped me at the gate. Nobody answered.”
Of course.
Mercedes, from detention, had found another child to move like a piece.
I stood carefully.
“Where is your mother?”
“She said abuela told her I needed to be with family.”
He looked around the nursery.
“Is this where the baby was?”
“Yes.”
“Did my father hurt the baby’s mother?”
I closed my eyes briefly.
No child should have to ask that.
But lies would harm him more.
“The court is deciding exactly what happened. But your father hurt Lucía.”
Diego nodded as if he had expected this.
“He hurts people when abuela says he is weak.”
The sentence chilled me.
I crossed the room and crouched so I was closer to his height.
“Did he hurt you?”
Diego looked down.
Not answer.
Answer enough.
May you like
The Mendoza family had more buried rooms than I knew.
And my mother had just opened another one from jail.
