Chapter 3 - THE ROOTS OF CRUELTY
We drove back to my small rented house in silence.
My father’s pickup truck trailed right behind my sedan. When we parked in the driveway, Santiago was already looking out the living room window. When he saw his grandfather step out of the truck, the boy’s face lit up with a mix of surprise and relief.
We spent the next hour sitting in my small, modest living room. The furniture was second-hand; the walls were painted a cheerful yellow that I had applied myself with cheap rollers from the hardware store. It wasn't the grand, sprawling estate in the upper-class neighborhoods of Guadalajara where my parents lived, surrounded by imported tile and manicured gardens bought with decades of my father’s hard work and my mother’s iron-fisted frugality. But here, there was no fear.
Don Mateo sat on the worn sofa with Santiago sitting timidly beside him. My father held out a small wooden carving of a horse—an old toy he had brought from his workshop—and Santiago accepted it with both hands, a tiny smile touching his lips.
—Santi, go to your room for a little while, okay? Mom and Grandpa need to talk —I said gently.
The boy nodded and retreated down the hallway, taking his new toy with him.
Once he was out of earshot, I turned to my father. He looked older today. The afternoon had aged him by ten years.
—Why, Dad? —I asked, crossing my arms as I leaned against the kitchen counter. —How long has she been doing things like that when I’m not around?
My father rubbed his face with both hands, staring down at the scuffed linoleum floor.
—Not just him, Valeria —he sighed, his voice raspy. —Your mother… she has always believed that love is something you earn through obedience and perfection. When you were little, if you didn't get the top grades, you sat at the small table in the pantry. Remember?
I froze. A long-buried memory surfaced—cold, dark, and stinging. I did remember. When I was nine years old and failed a math test, my mother had made me eat my meals standing by the pantry door while my brothers and sister sat at the dining table. I had thought it was normal. I had thought it was what good parents did to fix a broken child.
—She thinks she’s building character —Don Mateo continued, his voice heavy with self-loathing. —And I… I let her. For forty years, I let her rule that house because it was easier than fighting her. But when I saw her look at Santiago today… when I saw her treat your boy like a stray dog on my own patio… something broke in me, Vale. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror anymore.
—She’s never going to change, Dad —I said, my voice steady. —And I am never letting Santiago near that house again.
My father didn't argue. He slowly nodded.
—I know. And neither am I.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his house keys, and set them gently on the kitchen counter.
—I packed a bag before I left. I’m not going back to Elvira’s house, Valeria. Not tonight. Not ever, unless she realizes what she has become.
I stared at the keys on the counter. My father, who had lived under my mother’s thumb for four decades—who had swallowed every insult, every public humiliation, every rigid demand—was finally walking away.
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Little did we know, back at the estate in Highland Park—or rather, the affluent neighborhood in Guadalajara—Doña Elvira was already mobilizing her counterattack. She wasn't a woman who accepted defeat. She was a woman who believed her survival depended on absolute dominance.
And she was about to launch a campaign that would tear the rest of our extended family completely apart.
