Chapter 11 - THE NOTEBOOK UNDER THE MATTRESS
Rosa called me that afternoon.
“You should come upstairs.”
Isabella was sitting on the hotel bed.
A purple notebook rested beside her.
“I forgot I had this.”
She looked nervous.
“It was in my backpack.”
I sat across from her.
“What is it?”
She pushed it toward me.
“My calendar.”
It wasn’t a normal calendar.
Each page contained dates and short sentences written in a child’s uneven handwriting.
Dad called.
Beatriz listened.
Dad asked if I was happy.
I said yes.
Had to clean windows because I forgot shoes.
Rosa got fired.
Beatriz said it was my fault.
Lucas came again.
I stayed upstairs.
Beatriz told him Dad signs anything if you ask at the right time.
Another page.
Beatriz said rich people only care about looking happy.
Another.
She said Dad likes work more than me.
I stopped reading.
Isabella watched my face.
“Is that true?”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“That you like work more than me.”
“No.”
“But you’re always working.”
There it was.
The truth I couldn’t blame on Beatriz.
She had manipulated it.
But she had built the lie around something Isabella could see.
My absence.
I took a slow breath.
“I made you feel second.”
She said nothing.
“That was my mistake.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“You’re not going to say Dubai was important?”
“It was important.”
I moved closer.
“But not more important than you.”
“Then why did you stay so long?”
Because the project was worth eighty million euros.
Because delays cost money.
Because I had always believed emergencies at home would be reported to me.
Because I trusted Beatriz.
Every answer sounded smaller than the question.
“Because I thought being a good father meant building a safe future for you.”
She looked down.
“And I forgot I had to be in your present too.”
She leaned against me.
I held her.
After a minute, she pointed toward the notebook.
“There’s more.”
The final pages contained something different.
Numbers.
Dates.
Names.
Isabella explained.
Beatriz sometimes made phone calls in the kitchen because she thought Isabella was watching television.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Aurelia Holdings.
Elena searched it.
Her face changed.
May you like
Aurelia Holdings was not Lucas’s company.
It belonged to Beatriz.
