Juan, my child, why aren’t you answering your phone? Your mother’s been dialing you all day long and it seems you’ve got your cell phone switched off, do your mom a favor and turn on your cell or call her as soon as you finish reading this mail. Doesn’t matter what time it is, even if it’s early in the morning your mother will be awake anyway with all the worry.
A man’s just been here, an extremely rude fellow who claimed you owe him twenty thousand pesos. He told your mother your cousin Lorenzo had promised you were going to pay it for ‘a job’ he did for the two of you. Your mother has put ‘a job’ in quotation marks because your mother didn’t like the tone this shameless fellow used to say it one little bit. As if it was something illegal. This whoever he was looked familiar to your mother and when your mother asked him if they’d met before the person in question told her he’d been at your cousin’s wake, that he was a friend of your cousin’s.
Your mother asked him what work he had performed for you both and whether he had an invoice or a receipt, or a contract, and with utter barefaced cheek the man laughed in your mother’s face. Best for a lady like you not to know, lady, the rude young man said to your mother.
Naturally your mother refused to pay him a thing and demanded an explanation with a threat to call the police. This whoever he was told your mother that he came in peace, that he’d give your mother a day to talk to you and that tomorrow he’d be back to collect the money. But that that was the last chance, because you hadn’t replied to him and because he’d already wasted a lot of time on your father.
The moment he left I called your father in his office and it turns out this whoever he is has spent months trying to extort money from him. That he’d come up to him on the day of the wake, to ask for your address in Barcelona, apparently to send you some things of your cousin’s that your cousin wanted you to keep. Your father thought this strange and asked him to send the things here to Guadalajara, that besides you weren’t in Barcelona yet, you were in Xalapa finishing up some arrangements. But this whoever he was insisted and started showing up from time to time at the office, first to ask your father for the address, which your father said he never gave him, then to tell him he’d managed to get it now, then to ask if you hadn’t perhaps sent him a message, then to see if you’d told him to pay him, and finally, to insist that he give him twenty thousand pesos you apparently owed him.
And all this while your father said nothing about it to your mother! And today your mother’s been through this shock because she wasn’t forewarned. Truly your mother doesn’t know what to do about your father.
As if that wasn’t enough your father asked your mother not to say anything to you. That it was just a case of extortion and if he hadn’t notified the police it was only to avoid more distress for your aunt and uncle. Of course your father thought about them before your mother or his son! According to him, your aunt and uncle already have enough to bear what with getting over Lorenzo’s death to have to discover now that he’d been running with a bad crowd. Your father says they wouldn’t be able to bear this, and he’s right, because they’ve done nothing since your cousin’s death but idealize him, and they’ve been going around saying he’s a saint and a business genius, all to benefit the foundation. Because who’s going to want to donate money to the foundation if they knew what your cousin was really like, a good-for-nothing liar? But your aunt is totally shameless, she’s even already managed to get a Maná benefit concert! Your aunt called your mother, all emotional, to tell her they’d written a special song dedicated to your cousin, ‘Crossing the Street of Hope’, it’s called, because according to this song there’s a street separating life and death and you have to cross carefully to get to hope. You know your aunt!
But your mother isn’t writing to tell you about your aunt’s sickly ramblings, your mother’s writing to tell you about what’s happening and to say call her at home right away. If your father answers you’re not to say she told you, say he should pass the phone over to your mother.
Son, your mother really would rather not be put in this position, your father promised your mother that tomorrow he won’t be going to the office and that he’ll be home when this man shows up, to put a stop to all this. And your father’s so naive he thinks he’ll listen to him! It wouldn’t surprise me if your father’s already made friends with this shameless fellow, you know what your father’s like, he’d even rather have a word with the ants to ask them to kindly get out of the garden instead of putting down poison.
To be honest, Juan, your mother’s starting to worry about your cousin’s problems ending up affecting you right now when you’ve finally got your life on track. Your mother thinks your cousin’s perfectly capable of ruining your life from the grave, people are superstitious about speaking ill of the dead but the fact is there are some dead who don’t stop being a nuisance just because they’ve been cremated.
Son, you’re not to tell Laia anything, there’s no way in the world you’re telling her. Merely imagining Laia finding out your cousin’s been mixed up in some illegal business or other with disgusting people is enough to make your mother’s blood sugar go through the roof. What’s Laia going to think of you and your family if they’re also constantly showing news on the TV that make Mexicans look like savages?
Call your mother now, Juan, and be ready to tell your mother what’s going on, what the meaning is of these alleged letters that your cousin sent you and Valentina and who this shameless man is who has the barefaced cheek to come laugh in your mother’s face. Your mother needs a good explanation, and you’d better have one, she’s put up with a lot of years of being distraught watching you and your sister throwing your lives away only for you to disappoint her again now. At this point in your life what you need to do is focus on your relationship with Laia, not sort out the tangles your irresponsible cousin has left behind.
Call your mother right away, and don’t you believe for a moment your mother’s forgotten you haven’t sent her the photo of Laia she asked for.
Send your mother the picture and call her right away.