Clara crossed her arms.
—You can’t believe him just because he told you two things about the past.
Teresa reached into her apron, pulled out an old cloth bundle, and opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a rusty pocket watch, stopped, with the initials AF engraved on the back.
Alejandro almost stopped breathing.
“That watch… you were wearing it that day,” Teresa said. “My Mateo told me to give it back to the rich boy if life ever brought us together again. ‘So he wouldn’t forget who took it,’ he told me. I kept it all these years. Not to get it back. But so I wouldn’t forget either.”
Alejandro grabbed the watch as if it were burning him. When he opened it, he found a tiny, almost faded photograph inside: him as a child with his father. It was his. There was no doubt.
Clara paled.
Nobody said anything for several seconds.
Then Alexander straightened up and spoke with a new firmness, heavier than the pride with which he used to command.
—Rosa, cancel the dinner.
« What? » Clara exclaimed.
—Cancel everything.
—The investors are finalizing a multi-million dollar project.
—Then let them wait. Or let them leave.
Clara stepped forward.
—You can’t do this for a garbage collector.
The slap wasn’t with the hand. It was with the truth.
« Don’t you ever call her that again, » said Alexander. « This woman is worth more than all those who were going to sit at my table today. »
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