Antonio felt a razor blade in his throat. His voice was low and harsh. “Why would they tell you I was dead?”
She faltered, licking her cracked lips. “Your father was a backpacker from America. He’d come here to walk the Camino.” She bit her lip. “I was very sheltered, and...”
Antonio could not breathe, looking down at her. His voice was a croak as he spoke his darkest fear. “He forced himself on you.”
“Forced?” She snorted. “He romanced me. I wanted it to be love, but within the week, he was gone. He’d told me his name was John Smith. John Smith! Even my father could not find him, though he tried.”
Antonio found himself sitting on the edge of her bed. “What happened?”
“My parents were ashamed their only daughter was pregnant and unwed. For a woman to have a child alone is ordinary now. Back then, it was not.” She sighed. “Especially in a small village.”
He glanced out the window, at the tiny stone village clinging to the cliffs above the sea. “But you still stayed here all your life.”
“I’d shamed my family. Lost my baby. What else was I to do? My mother was sick. She needed me. She died a few years later, my father last year.”
“But you could have married—had other children—”
Josune shook her head, her eyes full of tears. “I loved a man once, and he abandoned me. I had a child I loved. I lost him, as well.” She looked away, toward the wild sea. “I couldn’t ever face that pain again. Especially when I knew it was my fault.”
“Your fault?”
Tears streamed down her sunken cheeks as she choked out, “When you died, the day you were born, what else could it be but my fault? I did something wrong. I wasn’t good enough to be your mother.” Looking away, she whispered, “I wasn’t worthy of that kind of joy.”
I wasn’t worthy of that kind of joy.
Emotion gripped Antonio’s heart. He thought of how he’d pushed Hana away. How he’d felt unworthy of her. How he’d tried not to love her, because he’d known he would only lose her.
“But yesterday your wife came to me,” Josune said, her hand trembling as she reached toward the fresh flowers. “I could hardly believe it when she told me you were alive. I called Dr. Mendoza in a panic. He came to see me and confessed everything. My baby boy had been born healthy, but my father convinced him it would be better if they said you were dead. He took you to Andalusia, where no one in my village would hear of the baby who’d been found there.” Her dark eyes lifted to his. “Yesterday I didn’t know what to think, feel. It was as if all my dreams had come true—and my nightmares.”
He could see the desperate question in her gaunt face. He said slowly, “Dr. Mendoza came to see me in Madrid recently. Why didn’t he tell you about me then?”
“He said he didn’t want to hurt me.” Her lips turned up bitterly. “He was afraid, if you refused to see me, that it would only stir up new pain as I was already dying.” She looked down at her slender hands, held together tightly on the blanket. “Even your wife wouldn’t tell me her last name. She said the choice had to be yours.” Lifting her gaze to his, she breathed, “I didn’t think you would come, even as I prayed for it every moment. When I learned you were alive, I knew you must hate me...”
It was true, Antonio realized. He’d hated her every day. And hated himself for whatever had made them give him away.
“Just tell me you were happy,” she begged. “Tell me you were adopted by a family who loved you, as I would have loved you every day. I would have called you Julen.” Her gaze wandered to the window, overlooking the misty coast. “Waking up, I’d think, today my son would have been three. Today he would have been six. Today he would be eighteen, and a man.” She looked back at him, and her dark eyes shone with tears li
ke rain. “When I learned yesterday you were alive, it was almost too amazing to believe. But now, all I can think is that I should have known. I should have sensed you were alive, and come for you.” Her voice broke as she said, “Please just tell me you were happy.”
Antonio closed his eyes.
When he was young, he’d imagined what he would tell the parents who’d abandoned him, if he ever had the chance. How he’d destroy them with guilt. And he saw, in this moment, how easy it would be to destroy Josune. All the pain and anguish of his childhood was pounding in his memory as he opened his eyes and took a deep breath, knowing he could take his revenge just by telling her the truth.
“I was happy,” he lied in a low voice. “I was loved.”
She exhaled in a rush of tears, covering her face with her hands as she choked out a sob. “Thank you.” She wiped her eyes. “But your wife is not with you today? You are expecting a baby. You said you live in Madrid?”
Antonio stared at her. She had no idea who he was, he realized. She wasn’t asking about his fortune, or his airline. She wasn’t looking at his net worth to determine his value. She was asking about what really mattered. His family.
And in a flash, things clicked into place.
Antonio had always thought he was different. That he, alone on earth, was unworthy of being loved. It had driven him to build a worldwide company, a billion-dollar fortune, to prove everyone wrong. To escape his worst belief about himself.
But the truth was, far from being a monster, he was exactly like everyone else. Flawed. Making the best decisions he could, and sometimes failing. Sometimes being wrong. So wrong.
But all along, he’d been loved, though he hadn’t known it, every single day by his mother, who’d mourned him. And he’d been loved by Hana, even as he’d tried so hard to push her away.
“Can you ever forgive me, mi hijo?” Josune whispered.