Chapter 14 - The Last Page
I didn’t go to the archive.
For once, fear didn’t send me running straight toward danger.
Mateo contacted investigators.
Nora gave a formal statement.
The university’s auditors requested access and preservation.
We waited.
Waiting felt worse than climbing the graduation stairs.
At ten in the morning, I burned the toast.
At eleven, I changed Liam twice because I couldn’t remember whether I already had.
At noon, Professor Santos took my phone and placed it on the table.
“It will ring where you can hear it.”
At twelve forty, it did.
The records had been secured.
Several boxes had already been moved to a disposal area.
The approval book was inside one of them.
I sat down before my legs gave out.
Two weeks later, we were asked to identify documents and clarify our statements.
The approval book showed authorizations for batches of scholarship payments.
Carmina’s signature appeared repeatedly.
So did Mr. Vidal’s.
Investigators were comparing the receiving accounts, bank records, and company payments.
The handwriting mattered.
The money trail mattered more.
One page contained a correction.
Remove Teresa Ramos from access list.
Recover copied materials.
Classify outstanding salary as offset.
My mother’s docked wages had been an instruction.
Not a misunderstanding.
I stared at the page.
“She needed that money for Liam.”
Mateo sat quietly beside me.
“She was counting formula scoops,” I said.
“And they took her pay.”
I pressed both hands against my mouth.
I had spent six weeks asking whether I should have worked more.
Whether I should have noticed her exhaustion.
Whether finishing my degree had cost her too much.
There was no paper that could answer all of that.
But this one answered something.
My mother had not failed us.
Someone had made surviving harder because she refused to stay quiet.
A formal review found no support for the supposed placement agreement.
The witness denied seeing my mother sign it.
The document was referred for further investigation.
Ms. Dela Peña closed the immediate complaint against my care of Liam.
Our longer guardianship process continued.
When she told me, I cried with relief.
That evening, Carmina arrived outside Professor Santos’s gate.
Alone.
Her driver waited down the street.
“I need five minutes,” she said.
Professor Santos stayed beside me.
I left the gate closed.
Carmina looked older.
I did not mistake that for innocence.
“I can correct the statements about your mother,” she said.
“Publicly.”
“Then do it.”
“There are conditions.”
“Of course there are.”
She gripped the iron bars.
“Adrian has turned against me.
The board is abandoning me.
You have made your point.”
I looked at her hand.
“No,” I said.
“You still think this is a point.”
From inside the house, Liam began to cry.
Carmina glanced toward the sound.
“Bea.
Please.”
May you like
I went inside to pick up my brother.
And left her standing at the gate.
