My heart began to pound. I glanced at the clock: it was barely ten in the morning. Diego, in theory, was thousands of miles away on a business trip. The door closed, and I heard footsteps in the hallway. I stood still, my notebook still open in my hands, my father-in-law half-naked, covered only by a towel.
“Maybe it’s the nurse,” I thought, trying not to panic. I took a deep breath.
"I'll be right there," I shouted, discreetly placing the notebook under the folded towel on the chair.
I went out into the hallway. It wasn't Diego. It was the neighbor across the hall, Mr. Julián, with a set of keys in his hand.
—Ana, forgive me—he said, somewhat embarrassed—. Diego asked me to drop these papers off at the office and see if you needed anything from Don Manuel.
I looked at him with a mixture of relief and distrust.
—Thank you, I was a little scared —I confessed—. I thought Diego had returned.
—No, no, he texted me an hour ago. He says his return flight is the day after tomorrow.
I nodded, my heart still racing. We exchanged a few brief sentences, and then he headed toward the office. I returned to my father-in-law's room with the feeling that I had stepped into something much bigger than a simple family misunderstanding.
I closed the door slowly, as if someone might be spying. Don Manuel was still staring at me with that almost painful intensity. I went back to my notebook. I sat down in the chair next to the bed and resumed reading where I had left off.
“If you’re reading this, it’s because I’ve managed to convince someone other than Diego to help me change or shower,” the next line read. “My son doesn’t want anyone to see me shirtless. That’s why he insists on doing it himself, or having someone he trusts do it. If you’re here, you’re his wife. I’m asking you to listen to me.”
I swallowed and continued.
“I’m not crazy. I’m not delirious. I can think. I can’t move well, but my mind is still working. The car accident wasn’t an accident. Diego…”
The sentence was left unfinished; the pen had slipped downwards. There were a couple of hesitant lines, as if the pen's strength had run out. Further down, in even more uneven handwriting, it continued:
“Diego hates me. He thinks I didn’t notice, but I saw him. I saw him let go of the steering wheel, close his eyes, smile before the car went off the road. He wanted us both to die. He needed the money.”
I felt a chill run down my spine.
I knew Diego's version: an unexpected downpour, a puddle, the car skidding, the impact against the guardrail. His father survived, but was paralyzed from the neck down. Diego always told the story with a restrained pain, as if he blamed himself for not being able to prevent it. Now, those crooked lines in the notebook told a different story.
I got up and started pacing the room, notebook in hand. What if it was all delusions? What if the old man, filled with resentment, was making things up? But the bruises were still there, silent, dark, forming a map of pain.
—Don Manuel… —I approached him again, leaning over—. Did you write this?
He blinked twice in quick succession, clearly. The nurse had explained that they used a code: one blink for “yes,” one for “no,” when they did communication exercises. I never paid much attention to it because “Diego says he doesn’t even understand that anymore.” Now I realized that perhaps he had never really tried.
"Diego... does he hurt you?" I asked, my voice breaking.
Two slow blinks. “Yes.”
I felt something inside me break. I sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, cold and lifeless.
"Since when?" I whispered, unsure if it was a silly question.
He glanced down at the wall, where a calendar hung. His eyes stopped on the current month, then traveled upward, as if mentally counting backward. Finally, they settled on March, three months ago. He blinked twice again.
Three months of beatings, of bruises hidden under a shirt buttoned up to the neck. Three months in which I had lived in the same house, without seeing anything.
Guilt crushed me.
I grabbed my phone and, without thinking too much, started taking pictures of the bruises. I zoomed in, making sure the colors and shapes were clear. Then I photographed the notebook, page by page. For the first time, I considered something I was afraid to even say aloud: what if I had to report my own husband?
