When I put my phone away, I saw that I had a new message from Diego.
"Is everything alright with Dad? Remember not to be alone with him. He gets easily upset and then can't sleep."
I read that message with different eyes. The words, which had previously seemed protective, now sounded like a warning. Not for me. For him.
I closed the notebook decisively. I leaned towards Don Manuel.
"I promise I'll find out the truth," I said, more to convince myself than him. "And if Diego has hurt you... I'm not going to look the other way."
Her eyes moistened. A slow, grateful blink.
What I didn't know then was that seeking the truth meant not only confronting my husband, but also confronting the version of myself that needed to believe I was married to a good man.
I couldn't sleep that night. I made Don Manuel as comfortable as I could, spoke to the nurse on the phone to explain what had happened, and pretended everything was normal. I didn't mention the bruises. Not yet. I wasn't ready to hear "I saw them too" or, worse, "It's none of my business."
Sitting in the kitchen, with a rapidly cooling cup of coffee, I opened the photos on my phone again. The bruises, the notebook, the half-finished sentences. I reread one in particular:
“I saw him let go of the steering wheel… he needed the money.”
Diego worked in the family business; I knew that. After the "accident," he was the only son left capable of taking care of things. The insurance company had paid a substantial sum, and some controversial financial decisions were justified by the need to adapt the house, hire caregivers, and pay for therapies. I never suspected a thing.
I opened the bank app where we shared an account. I started reviewing past transactions, transfers, expenses. I wasn't a hacker or an accountant, but something caught my eye: exactly one month after the accident, a large transfer to an account I didn't recognize. Sender: the company. Beneficiary: Diego. Description: "extraordinary bonus."
My stomach sank.
I spent the next few hours cross-referencing data: messages, old emails where Diego complained about his "controlling" father, conversations with my mother-in-law who had passed away years before (she said that "Manuel was always very tough on business, but fair"). Each piece seemed to fit into a picture I didn't want to see in its entirety.
The next day, I made a decision.
I called my sister.
"I need you to come to the house," I told him. "Don't ask too many questions on the phone. Just... come."
When she arrived, I showed her everything: the bruises, the notebook, the photos, the bank transactions that seemed strange to me. She listened silently, frowning.
"Ana, this is very serious," she murmured finally. "You can't handle this alone. Talk to a lawyer, the police... someone."
“He’s my husband,” I replied, feeling the weight of that word again. “If all this is true, he hasn’t just mistreated his father. He tried to kill him. And maybe he killed my mother-in-law, who knows…”
—Don't beat around the bush. Stick to what you know, to what you can prove.
He was right. All he had, for the moment, were words written by a paralyzed man, a pattern of bruises, and some suspicious transfers. It wasn't insignificant, but it wasn't enough to point to Diego as a criminal beyond any doubt.
Even so, we called a lawyer recommended by an acquaintance of my sister's. We had a video call that same afternoon. I told him everything, without embellishment. He took notes, serious.
"The first thing is to protect Mr. Manuel," he said. "Is there any way Diego can avoid being alone with him until this is sorted out?"
I thought about her message, about her insistence that I not enter the room alone. Ironic.
"Yes," I replied. "I can coordinate schedules with the nurse and the caregiver. And me. But if Diego insists..."
