My family went on vacation to Cancun while I buried my 12-year-old son… and when they came back, they no longer had a home. No warning. No return.
I didn’t know about rumors or condolence calls. I knew from the photos that my sister Veronica uploaded that same afternoon, with a yellow dress, a piña colada in her hand and a phrase that still burns in my memory: “Thank you for this family that always appears when I need it most.”
My name is Angelica Herrera, I am 38 years old, and before that week I still believed that blood forced something. I believed that my parents, Rudolph and Dolores, could be cold, distracted, even unjust, but not cruel. I thought my younger sister, Veronica, could be whimsical, but not inhuman. I thought Ruben, her husband, would at least be ashamed.
I was wrong about everything.
Joaquin, my husband, was the kind of man who didn’t need to raise his voice to fill a house of peace. He worked on a bench in Guadalajara, loved fishing, loaded coffee and plaid shirts that I told him were already old. Our son Mateo was 12 years old, he took out tens, played baseball and still let me accommodate his hair before going to school, even if he pretended he was upset.
