"And I..." Her voice cracked. "I saw you so alone, my daughter. So broken. I thought you'd be better off with her. With a father. With a home. I thought it would be better for everyone."
I was twelve years old. My mother left me there crying for a son who was alive, asleep two blocks away.
"What's best for everyone, Mom?" were the only words I could utter. "For everyone?"
I saw Jimena again. Not to ask her questions, but to say goodbye to the one I considered a sister.
"You lost a child," I told her. "I'm sorry. Truly. But what you took was mine."
And that's when her victim act fell apart. The one she'd been playing since the night before.
"You were planning on taking him to daycare so you could reach your destinations," she spat in my face. "I sang him songs every night. I took him to school. I'm his mother."
—You stole him.
"I raised him. And I gave him things you would never have given him. Leave him where he is, and you'll both thank me."
Twelve years later, she still talked to me as if taking my son away from me had done me a favor.
My hands weren't shaking. They had at the party. But not in front of her that afternoon.
"I'll take him back, Jimena. But not to punish you. For him. So that the day he asks me, he'll know his mother never gave him to him. That he was taken away from him."
I filed a complaint. And it's the worst thing I've ever done.
Because filing a complaint would have implicated Diego in this case. A judge would have asked a twelve-year-old boy whom he loved more.
Seven months have passed. Hearings. A court-ordered DNA test, for real this time. Jimena fought for every document. Her lawyers painted me as the resentful aunt who, after losing her husband, wanted to kidnap her sister's son out of revenge.
Half the world believed it. At family gatherings, they stopped talking to me.
One night, I called my father crying. I told him I couldn't take it anymore. That Diego looked at me with contempt, that it wasn't worth it anymore.
"If you give up," he told me, "he'll grow up believing his mother never truly loved him. Do you want to leave him with this wound too?"
NO.
For this alone, I had to endure another seven months.
The court-ordered DNA test gave the same result as mine. Diego is my son. Mine.
The judge corrected the document. Where it had previously said "Jimena's son," my name now appeared. He read aloud that I had been informed of my son's death. That I had never signed, that I had never given up, that I had never let go of this child.
For twelve years, I carried a guilt that wasn't mine: the guilt of not having felt my baby's breath. That day, I let him go. He was taken away from me. I didn't fail.
But there were no hugs like in the movies.
Diego didn't throw himself into my arms. That day, he didn't even want to see me. In his mind, the judge had just taken his mother away from him. He walked out of the courtroom holding my father's hand, without looking back.
I got my son back. And that day, my son hated me.
I could have had Jimena locked up. My lawyer had told me that what she had done would land her in prison for years. I already had the complaint ready. I just needed my signature.
One afternoon, Diego uttered the only thing he'd said to me in the last few weeks:
—If you put my mother in prison, I'll never forgive you.
I didn't sign.
Maybe I was wrong. Many tell me, "That woman deserved to rot in hell." And maybe they're right. But I couldn't have gotten my son back by taking away the woman he called mom for twelve years. I'm the one who has to suffer the consequences. Not him.
Jimena went to Guadalajara. She stayed with Mateo; Ricardo didn't stay either. Even now, she blames me for everything. "If only I hadn't been so perfect," she told me the last time. I didn't welcome her properly. It's her fault.
I stopped seeing Fernando the day of the divorce. Later, I discovered that Jimena had also taken advantage of him: she had deceived him with fake messages, making him believe I approved of their relationship. This doesn't absolve him of his guilt, of course; He slept with my sister knowing she was my sister. But now we each have to deal with our own problems.
It was harder for my mother. And it still is for me. Forgiveness never comes completely. It comes little by little, drop by drop.
Diego came to live with me. At first, he barely spoke. He closed his bedroom door. He called me "Sofia." That's all.
I didn't pressure him. How could I? I've had twelve years to love him. He's had twelve years to believe a different story.
Last Sunday, I made him eggs and beans. Just the way I like them.
