For years he hired investigators, chased false leads, changed names. He never married, never loved again without feeling he was betraying a ghost.
And now, a girl wearing Ximena’s ring had appeared selling bread in the rain.
The next day, Diego called a discreet man—one of those who don’t ask questions.
“Find Cecilia. Carefully. Don’t scare her. She must not know anything.”
Three days passed like three months. The report came: Cecilia lived on the outskirts of San Miguel with her mother. Her mother cleaned houses, was ill, and the registered last name: Salazar. There was a photo. Cecilia smiling, with Ximena’s identical features.
Diego did not wait.
He arrived at their small house one cloudy afternoon. Dirt road, puddles, chickens pecking among old cans—but also flowers: bougainvillea climbing the gate, white roses in improvised pots.
He knocked.
“You… the bread man,” Cecilia whispered.
“Yes. I need to speak with your mother.”
Ximena appeared, thinner, face marked, eyes sunken. Their gazes collided, and the world vanished again.
“Diego…” she whispered.
“Why didn’t you ever come back?” His voice broke.
She told him everything: fear, danger, cancer.