The awaited day arrived.
A thick fog had descended overnight, covering the city like a shroud. The kind that not only blurs vision but also dampens the skin with its humid, icy breath, making everything gloomy, gray, almost lifeless.
Tomás got up before the sun. He walked through the dimly lit house, trying not to make a sound. He prepared food for his mother and Daniela, who were still fast asleep. He washed the dishes from the previous night's dinner and swept the hallway as if by cleaning he could also sweep away the voices of memory that had besieged him since dawn. On the table, he left a simple note, written in his precise handwriting: "Might be late today. Left food in the microwave. Hope you like it. See you."
He bundled up carefully. Scarf, thick coat, gloves in his pockets. Outside, the city was a broken reflection of itself, covered by the fog as if the world had been submerged in milk. The familiar streets seemed to have disappeared. Everything that was once clear was now veiled, hidden behind that white mantle that separated him from the rest of the world.
He took a taxi. When he gave the driver the address, his voice came out deeper, raspy, as if it pained him to use it. He had spent part of the night speaking in a low voice in front of his small chest, the one that hid the only tangible remains of his mother: a photograph bitten by time and a blue hair ribbon.
"Only that remains of you." He had wanted to repeat a thousand things to her. To freeze her face in his memory once more. The photo was no longer enough. It hurt him not to remember the sound of her voice well. That was the most terrible thing: how death blurred even sounds.
"We're here, young man," the taxi driver said.
Tomás blinked. Despite the fog, the rusty iron sign left no room for doubt: General Cemetery No. 3.
He got out of the taxi and walked along the damp path. On both sides of the entrance, flower stalls offered a last breath of beauty before the silence of the dead. He chose a bouquet of white carnations and pink gerberas, almost without thinking. He always chose the same ones. He didn't know why. Perhaps because he once believed his mother would have loved them.
The heavy iron gates were wide open. Crossing them, the world changed again. The niche buildings rose like gray beehives on each side, with their dirty marble tombstones, overcome by moss and humidity. The narrow alleys were flanked by rusty flowerpots and consumed candles. The smell of dead flowers, stagnant water, wet earth... everything spoke of abandonment.
He took a bucket of water and a cloth. He walked silently through the corridors until he reached the open field, where the tombstones spread out like a forgotten language. Some were monumental, others humble. Some full of flowers, others barely with a name. Most forgotten.
He stopped in front of a modest, simple, unadorned tombstone. As every time he reached it, the thorn of injustice pierced his chest.
"Here lies: Catrina S. Mother and wife..."
The marble was cold, worn. Tomás knelt down, carefully cleaned the stone. He threw away the withered flowers he himself had left months ago. He washed the tombstone until the gray turned white, until the name shone again under the scarce light that filtered through the clouds.
He carefully placed the bouquet and sat on the damp ground, not caring about the discomfort. He looked at the tombstone for a long time. There was something humiliating about that place, something that hit him like a closed fist: his mother deserved more. Not that nameless tombstone, not that forgotten corner.
Memory dragged him, without asking permission, to the burial.
A cold day. The hardened earth. The priest reciting empty words that were lost in the wind. His aunt held him by the shoulders; he had his left arm in a sling and his face marked by the glass from the accident. He looked for his father among the people, but he wasn't there. He never was. Only some of his mother's friends, a couple of neighbors, and the gravediggers who didn't even try to look grieved.
And then, that sound.
The shovelfuls of earth hitting the wood of the coffin.
He still heard it. No matter the years.
"Why... why did you leave like that?" Tomás whispered in front of the tombstone. "Why, when I miss you so much?"
His voice broke. He said it as he always did on every anniversary. At first, he thought that with the years he would stop needing it, that habit would heal him. But no. The pain didn't diminish. He only learned to disguise it.
He talked to her for hours. Sometimes with tears, sometimes in silence. He told her about his work, about his manuscript, about Professor Krikket, about his sleepless nights. He told her about Soledad and Laura, about Sofía. He told her about the mistakes he didn't know if he had made. He spoke as one who throws stones into the sea, knowing there will be no answer, but unable to stop doing so.
When he finally got up, his legs were numb, his hands cold, and the day was already fading. He stood for a moment, looking at the tombstone one last time.
"I love you, Mom," he murmured, his voice almost broken.
He turned and began to walk, hunched, dragging his feet through the wet gravel. The fog was rising again, as if the world wanted to swallow him. But it didn't. It let him go on. Alone, again.
Returning home that afternoon, Tomás felt his body weighed twice as much. His legs, numb from the visit to the cemetery, barely responded. His coat was damp from the persistent fog, and the cold seemed to have clung to his bones.
He closed the door carefully, without a sound, expecting the usual silence that enveloped the house like a dead echo. However, as he crossed the hallway, he encountered an unexpected sight: Amelie, sitting on the living room sofa, wrapped in a thin blanket, with an open book in her hands. She was reading in silence, her brow slightly furrowed. The lamp lit beside her gave her an almost domestic air, as if the house had become a home again for an instant.
Tomás stopped dead, surprised. His mother was almost never home on Saturdays. It was as if she deliberately avoided the shared space, finding work excuses so as not to have to face long hours of silent companionship.
"Have you eaten yet?" he asked softly, still wearing his coat.
Amelie shook her head without looking up from the book.
"Do you want me to warm something up for you?"
Then she did look at him. She raised her eyes just above the edge of the pages, with that gesture of someone who hasn't yet decided whether to speak from concern or from reproach.
"Where were you?"
Tomás didn't answer immediately. He slowly took off his coat, hanging it on the coat rack by the entrance.
"I went to visit Mom," he finally said, in a low voice.
Amelie slowly closed the book, marking the page with a crumpled receipt.
"You're spending too many days out. If it's not school, it's that job. And now... you disappear on your days off too."
"I'm sorry," he replied, without excuses or evasions. "They need help at the restaurant. It's not permanent. I'm just trying to... help."
Amelie stood up, placed the book on the sofa, and approached him with soft but firm steps.
"You don't have to help anyone, Tomás." Her tone wasn't hostile, but it was dry, hard as stone. "You should be studying, resting... not playing at being an adult before your time."
Tomás looked down. He didn't want to argue. Not today.
"I know..." he simply said, and without another word, he headed to the kitchen.
He heated the food he had prepared before leaving, moving with the already learned routine of someone who knows every corner of the kitchen like a choreography. He didn't ask if she wanted it. There was no need. Sometimes, you just had to do things.
He placed the steaming plate on the table, and when he turned to call her, he found her in the doorway, watching him.
She said nothing. Neither did he.
And then, without thinking too much, his chest still squeezed by the weight of the day, he approached her.
Amelie took a step back, as she always did. The distance between them had grown so much in recent years that any gesture of closeness seemed like an offense. But Tomás didn't stop. He closed the distance and, before she could dodge him, he hugged her tightly.
The contact was clumsy, awkward. For a moment, Amelie remained rigid, not knowing how to react. Her arms hung at her sides, as if she didn't know what to do with them. But then, very slowly, one of her arms rose, trembling, and wrapped around his back with an almost painful slowness.
Tomás closed his eyes. He said nothing. He didn't need words. In that instant, he only wanted to remember what it was like to hug her without something hurting. He remembered those distant days when she served him hot chocolate, when there was still laughter between them, when his world felt safe.
She was, for a long time, his refuge. His light. And no matter how much he denied it, no matter how much silence had come between them, she was still his mother.
"Thank you..." he whispered barely, against her shoulder.
She didn't respond, but her arm tightened just a little more.
When they separated, their gazes didn't quite meet. As if both were afraid to hold the contact for too long. They sat at the table and began to eat in silence.
But this time, the silence wasn't uncomfortable.
They ate without saying much, only the soft sounds of cutlery and steam escaping from the rice filled the dining room. There was no need to talk. Sometimes, wounds are not healed with words, but with gestures.
And that, however small it seemed, was one of those gestures.
When they finished eating, Tomás collected the plates and began to wash them. Amelie didn't stop him.
She returned to the sofa, picked up her book, but didn't open it. She remained seated, looking at the empty corner in front of her, where a family photograph had once been. She didn't know how long she stayed like that, or if Tomás saw her, but deep in her chest, something that had been asleep for a long time seemed to stir slightly, like a forgotten sigh.
Tomás, from the kitchen, didn't interrupt her. But when he finished washing, he glanced at her. For the first time in a long time, the home seemed to have a crack through which warmth could seep in.
And that, for now, was enough.
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Amelie slowly closed her bedroom door. There was no need for stealth, but she did it anyway, as if the sound of wood meeting its frame might disturb the fragile balance left in the house. She leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. Her hands were still warm. She still felt, against her chest, the slight weight of Tomás's arms. No longer a child, and yet… still with the eyes of that child she once promised to care for.
She inhaled deeply. The air in her room was cold, stagnant. She hadn't opened the curtains in days. The unmade bed, clothes on the chair, the drawer with papers she never wanted to fully read. Everything was as she had left it. Everything, except her.
She walked to the edge of the bed and sat down. She looked at her hands. Her left one trembled slightly. It had always been like this, when something overwhelmed her. When the world, even for an instant, ceased to be under her control.
"Why now?" she silently asked herself. "Why did he hug me like that… as if he still believed I could give him something?"
She rubbed her face with both hands and let out a long, almost exasperated sigh. She had spent years avoiding that kind of contact. Not because she didn't need it—God knew how much she needed it—but because she was afraid. Afraid to open that door again. Afraid that everything she had contained, buried, painstakingly tamed, would overflow once more. Because loving someone, caring for someone, also meant having to answer for mistakes. And she had already made hers.
"He doesn't understand," she thought. "He doesn't know how many times I've reproached myself for not being enough for him… or for anyone."
She lay down on the bed without undressing, without even looking for a blanket. The cold seeped into her back, but she didn't care. She looked at the ceiling for a long time, as if searching for a point to fix her mind on so as not to think. But thinking was inevitable. Tomás's embrace wasn't just a physical gesture: it was a silent reproach. A "I'm still here." A plea disguised as affection.
And she, cowardly as she often called herself in her innermost thoughts, didn't know what to do. She only responded late. She only reciprocated halfway. She only allowed herself to be touched by that part of her motherhood that still breathed in some hidden corner of her chest.
"I ruined it," she whispered to the ceiling, as if someone could hear her.
She didn't know if she was talking about her life, her relationship with Tomás, her failed marriage, or everything together. Silence swallowed her words.
She closed her eyes. And for the first time in a long time, she let a tear slide down her cheek without wiping it. It wasn't weeping, not the violent, overflowing kind that tears at the chest. It was barely a crack. A small thaw in the wall she had built around herself.
Tomás still loved her, despite everything. And that hurt. Because she didn't feel worthy of that affection. Because the world she had built had no room for redemptions. Only for resistances.
She turned on her side, looking at the bare wall. Tomorrow, everything would be the same. She would still be that terse, unattainable woman, the incomplete maternal figure. But that night… that night, she had remembered that she was still capable of embracing.
And that her son—her son not by blood, but by life—still needed something from her. Perhaps just a little more time. Perhaps just permission to call her "Mom" again, even if silently.
And maybe, just maybe… there was still time to rebuild something between them.