He left with only one goal: discovering who Carmen really was.

Memories, Lies, and a Hidden Photograph

Back home, he searched through an old box from his childhood — keepsakes he had never examined closely. Inside, beneath drawings and outdated letters, he found an old photograph of a young woman holding a baby.

The woman was Carmen.
The baby was unmistakably him.

On the back were written the words:
“Carmen and Leo — my whole life.”

The world stopped.

His whole upbringing — the story of his parents dying together, Ramona’s insistence on forgetting the past — began to unravel. He remembered hushed conversations, locked drawers, men in suits visiting Ramona when he was young.

And he remembered Ramona’s tone whenever he asked about his mother: firm, final, unshakeable.