His voice broke.
“The red one.”
The blood froze in my veins.
The red toy car.
Apparently.
The same toy he always carried with him.
The same toy his father had given him for his last birthday, before cancer took him away from us.
A cheap plastic toy car.
Maybe it is worth ten dollars.
For my son, anything is possible.
I slowly turned to my mother.
Teresa Robles stood with her arms crossed beside the dining table.
His facial expression betrayed no guilt.
He was not worried.
He was irritated.
As if Mateo’s injury had caused unnecessary drama.
‘It’s just a toy,’ she said.
It’s just a toy.
Solely for illustrative purposes.
This is the same phrasing used to justify cruelty.
It was just a joke.
Proper discipline.
Only the family.
Just one slap.
Always and exclusively the words needed to make the abuse seem acceptable.
I stared at her.
“How could this happen?”
My sister-in-law Valerie shifted uncomfortably.
His son Damian suddenly began to show great interest in the floor.
My mother let out a dramatic sigh.
“As if you didn’t know that already.”
I waited.
“He refused to share.”
My jaw clenched.
“Then?”
“He was arguing.”
He was making an argument.
That word almost made me laugh.
Most days Mateo barely spoke, and softly.
He asked permission before opening the fridge.
He apologized when other people bumped into him.
Yet, somehow, everyone expected me to believe that he was the one who had started the fight.
“So you hit him.”
A silence fell in the room.
My mother squeezed her eyes shut.
“I corrected it.”
The blood kept streaming down my son’s cheek.
And she called it correction.
I looked around the room.
At family members.
The neighbors.
The people who had seen everything that happened.
None of them looked at me.
Not a single one.
And at that moment, I realized something painful.
Cruelty persists thanks to cruel people.
But the phenomenon spreads because everyone else chooses to remain silent.
I wrapped my arms around Mateo.
Then I walked to the front door.
“Where are you going?” asked Valerie.
“The hospital.”
My mother rolled her eyes.
“Oh, stop talking such nonsense.”
That sentence haunted me all the way to the door.
Don’t talk nonsense.
As if a bleeding child was an exaggerated reaction.
As if protecting my son would somehow be unreasonable.
As if I hadn’t understood what love actually meant my entire life.
Perhaps those words had silenced me years ago.
Perhaps
