A Honda CRB, adapted for his condition, allowed him to drive with ease. He drove from Roma to San Ángel in record time, running yellow lights and honking at any car that moved too slowly. When he arrived at the house where he had grown up, the house filled with memories of his teenage years with Patricia and his father, he saw a police patrol car parked outside. Two officers were talking to Patricia at the front door, and across the street, handcuffed and being pushed into another patrol car, was Valeria.
Miguel parked his car and got out, his cane tapping the pavement as he approached. “Sir,” one of the officers said, “Are you Miguel Salazar?” “Yes, this woman violated the restraining order. We’re taking her to the station. She’ll be processed and most likely sent back to prison. Is your stepmother okay?” “She’s fine, just scared.” Miguel glanced toward the patrol car where Valeria sat in the back seat. Their eyes met for the first time in 22 years.
And what Miguel saw shocked him. It wasn’t the monster from his nightmares. It was a 60-year-old woman who looked 70, with completely gray hair, deep wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and a body hunched from years of imprisonment. She looked small, fragile, broken—nothing like the beautiful and powerful woman she had once been. Prison had completely consumed her, but what was most unsettling wasn’t her physical appearance; it was the expression in her eyes.
There was no hatred there, none of the rage Miguel expected to see. There was something else, something that took him a moment to identify. It was real, deep, heartbreaking regret. Valeria held his gaze for a long moment. Her lips moved, silently forming two words. I’m sorry. Then she lowered her head, and the patrol car drove off with her. Miguel stood in the street, watching the car disappear, feeling a confusing mix of emotions he didn’t know how to process. Patricia came out of the house and hugged him tightly.
“You’re okay,” he told her. “You’re safe.” “I know,” Miguel replied, but his mind was elsewhere. Those two silent words, “I’m sorry,” echoed in his head. That night, after making sure Patricia was alright, after returning home and hugging Andrea and his children, Miguel couldn’t sleep again. He kept seeing Valeria’s aged and broken face. He kept seeing that expression of genuine regret. At 2 a.m., he got up and went to his study.
She sat down at her computer and began searching for information about Valeria, about what she had done during her 22 years in prison. She found old articles about her arrest and trial, photographs of her when she was young and beautiful, reports about her denied appeals, but she also found something she hadn’t expected: an interview she had given to a prisoner rehabilitation magazine five years earlier. She read it cover to cover, word for word. In the interview, Valeria spoke openly about what she had done, about the abuse she had inflicted on Miguel, about the horrible person she had been.
She made no excuses, didn’t blame her childhood or mental illness; she simply admitted she had been a monster. The interviewer had asked her what had changed, what had made her see the magnitude of her evil. Valeria had replied that it was a rehabilitation program in prison, where she had been forced to read letters from abuse victims. One of the letters was from a boy who had been tortured by his stepmother, a story so similar to Miguel’s that it could have been written by him.
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