The dust of the long journey, rough and gray, had stuck to her skin, mixed with the sweat of exhaustion, transforming into an invisible but unbearable burden. The bus gave a final roar and pulled away, leaving her alone at a deserted bus stop on the outskirts of Toledo. The air smelled of absinthe, ripe wheat, and the distant smoke of burning wood: an ancient, familiar aroma, so dear it brought tears to her eyes.
Five years. Exactly five years, two months, and seventeen days in which her lungs hadn’t breathed that air. Only the stale stench of the cell, the guards’ shouts, and the creaking of the locks.
Isabel took a step, then another, leaning against an old fence of branches. “This is my world,” she thought. The world she had given five years of her life to.
Her vision blurred before her tired eyes, but she pressed her fingers against the rough wood and opened her eyelids. And there it was. Her house.
Small, made of wood darkened by time, but solid, firm. A thin thread rose from the smoke in the chimney toward the sky, and a golden light shone in the windows in the autumn sunset. That meant he was inside.
Her Adrian. Her only son. Her misguided love, but immense and all-consuming.
Her heart pounded, erasing the weariness of years of absence. Her feet carried her alone across the yard. She noticed that the porch was new, with carved railings, that the shed had been repaired, that the fence was painted.
A wave of pride tightened her throat: “Bravo, Adrian, bravo, my son. You’re keeping the house as I taught you.” She could already imagine the hug, the touch of his cheek, the new life after all the bad times. The door resisted for a moment, swollen with damp.
Isabel pushed it open with effort and took a step into the hallway. Then he stopped abruptly: before her stood an unknown man. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a loose sweater, holding a towel.
He looked at her in surprise, assessing her aging face, the old-fashioned scarf, and the rough prison coat. “Who are you looking for, Grandma?” he asked in a calm voice, but icy as a distance. Isabel’s throat closed.
She could barely manage to whisper:
“Adrián… Where’s Adrián?”
The man wrinkled his brow, noticing the worn clothes peeking out from under the coat. A flash of irony appeared in his eyes. “Adrián?
Adrián García? Ma’am, that man sold me this house three years ago, right after he finished his sentence. Now I’m the owner.”
The world didn’t collapse: it froze.
The words—three years, he sold, after serving—p:ierced her heart like nails. She remembered the past: that partner, Andrés, who had dragged her son into the shady business of illegal logging. They were caught.
And she, the mother, took all the blame on herself. The court believed a sick, elderly woman more easily than a strong young man. She served five years in prison for him.
And he… had sold his home. His strength. His memory.
Dazed, she backed into the parking lot. She sank onto the cold bench, silent tears running down her cheeks. She wasn’t sobbing; she was simply crying, wiping her face with the corner of her old handkerchief.
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