the two young men in white t-shirts that Anthony had spoken to earlier, still holding their Pepsis.
***
The coffin was white and small, smaller than she had imagined for her ten-year-old son Lucas, who had died of leukemia and was about to be buried. Cristina stood petrified watching the narrow box, obsessed by the size of it; she wanted to throw herself at it, open the coffin and see once again, with her own eyes, that it was her Lucas who fitted in that tiny space.
The death of a child renders speechless those who insist on seeking meaning in life. In the last two days, Cristina had become lost in a dense fog, her blue eyes had darkened, her blonde hair had grown white reflections and was now held back in a tight, greasy and decentered ponytail. At thirty, she had aged one hundred years all at once. Fog. She could still feel the weak arm of the child with the worst diagnosis for AML, resting in her palm.
Lucas had started feeling exhausted, he had lost weight, suffered frequent infections, bleeding, bruises that appeared out of nowhere. To save his life, he had gone through chemotherapy, followed by radiotherapy and stem cells transplant. All without result. He had been in that one percent that statistics said would not survive. That horrible one percent that any successful statistic has, right next to the other ninety-nine.
Around her, dressed in black, with dark sunglasses and downcast faces, were friends, a few family members and her workmates, members of the narcotics brigade at the New Mexico Police Department.
The small tow truck started its engine and the lacquered coffin slowly descended the three and a half feet of dug earth. That was the space that separated the box from the surface, from the air, to become that something that accompanies the soft and velvety inside of the dead’s rest per secula seculorum. The remains of someone that had once been alive, that had breathed, smiled… fallen ill and… Cristina lifted her eyes and saw her partner, Álvaro Guzmán, in a black blazer and tie; he was clenching his fists and diverting his eyes from the hole that was being occupied. He lifted his eyes to the sky’s blue. She followed his gaze in its upwards escape and felt comforted by the feeling of a sun ray in her face. She was wearing polarized sunglasses, but still, it dazzled her. The fog would return soon.
She lowered her gaze and there was Guzmán again, trying to invent a smile that would tell Cristina that she would recover from this; that would tell a mother that has lost her child after two years of battling death, that there is hope… Impossible. The smile did not appear and they both turned their eyes to the white coffin as it touched the bottom.
The flowers would come later, tossed into the ditch, the shovel and the earth spilling over it; and then, the unbearable hugs, one after the other. A time for crying that would condense tears into a dense and salty fog. She had already experienced it two years before, a time when tears had surged from her eyes during her last goodbye to her friend and partner, Laura, ‘almost at the same time as they discovered that Lucas had cancer’, thought the lieutenant.
Cristina was immersed once again in the fog that the loss of a son generates, as she remembered her friend and workmate, Laura, who was buried close to here. ‘For the love of God, Laura, look after Lucas; now that you are both together, take care of him’. She held onto that thought while she went through the formalities of lost hugs and the ‘I’m sorry for your loss’s. She had met Laura Almillar in the Desierto de los Leones Police School, where they trained and studied every morning of the required twenty-one weeks that the course lasted. She had been forced to leave her child with the neighbors while they both worked as waitresses at Tapitas. Laura had been her only friend, Lucas had been everything else. After many hours directing traffic, their chance finally arrived and they took it at once. Cristina at Narcotics and Laura at the Criminal Brigade.
It had happened on the last day of September; Cristina remembered it well because it had been the day after Lucas’ birthday. Laura had been there with Albi, a German shepherd that was always stuck to her side; she called him her ‘novio’. The day after, during a simple routine assault, Laura, protected by her bulletproof vest, entered the house of a murder suspect through the garden door, an architect who’d presumably murdered his secretary. Inside, by the entrance, they were welcomed by a deflagration that shattered the entire glass door right before their eyes. A bomb programmed to end the life of the police who came to the house. The architect had committed suicide a few hours earlier, leaving that surprise behind to increase the hatred his memory might raise.
Laura died instantly. Afterwards, Lucas remembered her dog, Albi. But, when Cristina went to her house to fetch him, the animal was gone. She was convinced that a neighbor must have taken him.
Laura was buried close to Lucas, thought Cristina, next to the three fir trees at the back. ‘Laura, Lucas knows you; he’s alone now, but if he sees you, he’ll grow calm. Laura, be his temporary mother, please. He’s a good boy, you know him, a bit cheeky and absentminded but a good boy after all. He’s all yours.’
“Hello, Cristina; I’m sorry about your son”.
Cristina woke up from her trance. The guy in front of her was that two-faced worm, Alex.
“What are you doing here?” Cristina said, raising her voice, “what, you’ve come to your son’s funeral? Ten years ignoring him and now… you come here to meet him. Well, you’re late”. She lifted her hand, ready to unload her anger on his face with all her remaining strength. “Son of a bitch!”
Alex swallowed, ready for the slap.
“I only wanted to offer you my condolences. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry”.
Guzmán reached Cristina’s side and held her by the shoulders, trying to calm her down. He looked at Alex. The three of them were alone.
“You should leave. This isn’t a good time for surprises”.
Alex turned and walked away, slowly and downcast. Cristina was left alone with Guzmán; the spirit of the past was leaving.
She started to cry in anger.
“It’s OK. Calm down”.
“I’m calm. It’s just that son-of-a-bitch… He disappeared entirely from my life ten years ago when he found out that I was pregnant, and he turns up now. Today, the very day we bury Lucas, when he never even bothered to meet his son and in all these years we hadn’t heard anything from him, he appears out of nowhere to say that he’s sorry. This whole time I’ve been a single mother, making up stories about my life for a child who is no longer here and who asked about his dad… And now, the goddamn son-of-a-bitch turns up, here of all places…”
Álvaro Guzmán had no words for such pain, and offered a calm hug instead.
“A professional son-of-a-bitch… Let’s go”.
With the help of a dump truck, the men were pouring earth on the barely visible white coffin.
“Álvaro, I’m alone now”.
Cristina tried to recompose herself by wiping her face. She hadn’t applied mascara because she knew her whole face would end up covered in black stains. Her eyes were red and moist. Guzmán gave her some space.
“My car’s over there. I’ll drive you”.
“I’d rather stay a bit longer”, she said, and pointed at some trees. “I’m going to visit Laura; I need to ask her a favor”.
“You’re right. Lieutenant Almillar is in this cemetery. I’m sorry”.
She
