The cheap hotel room smelled of dampness and stale coffee. I gripped the edge of the Formica table, heart hammering, trying to make sense of the revelations Marcos had just spoken.
“What do you mean, that he’s afraid of what he might see?” My fingers dug into the table. Every word he said felt like the floor had been pulled out beneath me.
Marcos took a deep breath, his voice steady, measured, no trace of the street slang I had known before. “Your blindness, Elisa. It wasn’t an accident of birth,” he said firmly.
I froze. My pulse thundered. “Explain.” The room felt colder, shadows thicker. Everything I had believed about my parents, my life, my own body, seemed suddenly suspended in a vacuum of lies.
He leaned closer. “Your father wasn’t always the man you knew. He built his fortune on smuggling, on betrayal, on secret alliances with dangerous men who took no prisoners.”
My hands trembled. “My mother?” I whispered. “Where does she fit into this?” The words barely escaped my lips, but the weight of truth pressed on my chest like stone.
“Your mother,” Marcos said softly, “discovered his crimes. She collected evidence that could have sent him to prison for life. She confronted him. That night, everything changed.”
My stomach twisted. “Everything?” I asked, voice shaking. My blindness, my childhood, my entire life had always felt like a puzzle with pieces missing. Suddenly, the edges snapped into place.
He nodded. “He pushed her during an argument. She fell against the dining room table. You were in her womb at that moment. The injury caused the blindness you thought was congenital.”
My knees went weak. I clutched the edge of the table, teeth gritted. “You’re saying… my father… intentionally covered this up? That my blindness wasn’t natural?” My voice cracked despite my effort.
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