But that Friday, traffic was unbearable. Forced to take a detour, Eduardo turned into streets he had avoided his entire life.
That detour changed everything.
“Dad, stop the car!” his five-year-old son Pedro shouted, his face pressed against the window.
Eduardo barely braked in time. Pedro opened the door and ran toward the sidewalk.
“Pedro! Come back right now!”
But the boy had already dropped to his knees beside an old mattress lying among trash bags and wet cardboard.
Two children were sleeping there.
They were barefoot. Their clothes were torn. Their faces were covered in dirt.
Eduardo grabbed Pedro’s arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Pedro didn’t move.
“Dad…” he whispered. “Why do they have my nose?”
Eduardo felt a sudden pain in his chest.
He looked again.
One of the boys had the same eyebrows as Pedro. The same dimple in the chin. The same face.
The same eyes.
Those children didn’t just look like Pedro.
They looked exactly like Eduardo.
And like his wife, who had died two years earlier.
Eduardo’s legs weakened when one of the boys opened his eyes.
Honey-colored eyes. The same eyes Eduardo saw every morning in the mirror.
“Do you have food?” the boy asked softly, his voice tired and hoarse.