Chapter 61: The Secret That Beats in Silence

LUCÍA – POV

I still remember that night as if it were a dream I never wanted to wake up from.

His lips. His arms. His voice saying my name as if it were the only thing that existed in the world.

I—a broken woman, marked by blows, scars, and fear—gave myself to him with everything I was. To that man who, even as a priest, gave me my life back when I no longer had the strength to go on.

And yet, at dawn, I wrote that note through tears.

“Thank you for the best night of my life… but I can’t drag you into my misfortune.”

Every word was a tearing pain. The ink mixed with my tears, smudging some of the letters. When I finished, I left it on his desk, trembling, feeling as if I were cutting out a piece of my soul.

I took the money he had secretly given me for “emergencies”—I knew he had been saving it peso by peso—and walked out into the street with my heart in pieces. I didn’t look back. If I did, I would stay. And I knew that if I stayed, I would destroy him.

I reached the San Cristóbal bus terminal with blurred vision. It didn’t matter where I went; all I wanted was to run away—from Damián, from his threats, from everything. I asked for the first bus heading north and bought that ticket without thinking.

The journey was endless. Hours staring out the window as we left Chiapas behind, crossed Oaxaca, passed through Puebla, reached Mexico City, and continued north. I made it all the way to the border. When I crossed into the United States at Laredo, I felt a kind of relief for the first time in months—as if leaving those streets behind also meant leaving part of my pain behind.

I kept traveling. Bus after bus. I ended up in Vancouver, Canada.

I remembered that my aunt Leticia—my mother’s sister—lived there. I’d barely kept in touch with her since my mother died, but I still remembered the address of her house in the Commercial Drive neighborhood.

I knocked on the door with fear, unsure if she would recognize me. When she opened it, she looked at me with astonishment and tenderness.

“Lucía!” she exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest. “My child, how wonderful to see you!”

She hugged me tightly, and in that embrace I found a home I thought I had lost forever.

Aunt Leticia owned a small Mexican bakery in a residential neighborhood. A simple place, with walls decorated with papel picado and the constant smell of sweet bread and freshly baked conchas. From that day on, I began helping her. We weren’t rich, but we lived well. We had warm bread, a safe roof, and the peace of not fearing each night.

For the first time in a long while, I could sleep without jolting awake.

Still, as I watched the roscas de reyes rise in the oven, my mind drifted back to old memories.

I met Damián when I was twenty. My mother had just died of cancer, and I was left alone in San Cristóbal. I had only my aunt Leticia in Canada, but back then I was lost—vulnerable, desperately needing someone to see me. Damián appeared like a savior. Handsome, confident, with a smile that hid poison. He spoke to me as if I were the only thing that mattered. He laid the universe at my feet, and I—naive and orphaned—fell deeply in love.

For a couple of years, everything seemed perfect. But little by little, the attentive man changed. He sank deeper into the gang, began drinking mezcal until he blacked out, coming home late smelling of gunpowder and violence.

The first time he hit me was because I confronted him. I told him his friends would drag him to prison, that he was destroying what we had. His response was a sharp slap that knocked me to the floor and a cold warning:

“Stay out of my business, Lucía. Or it’ll be worse for you.”

From then on, everything spiraled downward. Beatings. Insults. Entire nights of terror. I endured it, stayed silent, because I thought I loved him. Because he had convinced me that without him, I was nothing. But what happened the last time was unbearable—he nearly beat me to death. I fled that apartment bleeding, ribs broken. And the first place I found was Saint Michael the Archangel Parish.

That’s where he was.

Mateo.

That young priest, with deep eyes that seemed to see into my soul, opened the doors to me, healed my wounds, gave me shelter. He spoke to me with a gentleness I hadn’t heard in years. He looked at me as no one ever had. And without realizing it, I began to see him differently.

At first, I denied it with all my strength. How could I desire him, a man of God? But it was inevitable. Every smile of his, every kind word, every time his fingers brushed mine when handing me a cup of tea, brought me closer to the edge.

That’s why, when Damián appeared the first time, I went with him. I thought I would flee from my sin, protect Mateo from my forbidden feelings. But desire was stronger than my will.

When I returned to the church—broken and beaten again—I could no longer hide what I felt. And that night… the night I kissed him, gave myself to him completely, the night he made me feel alive and loved for the first time in years—I knew there was no turning back.

I sighed, brushing flour from my hands, trying to focus on cleaning the bakery counter. But the memory followed me like a flame that never goes out.

A few days later, as I was preparing the oven for the afternoon batch, a sudden wave of dizziness forced me to sit down. The room spun, my vision blurred, and the last thing I remember was the tiled floor rushing toward me.

I woke up at St. Paul’s Hospital. My aunt Leticia was beside me, pale with worry, a rosary clutched in her hands.

“You fainted at the bakery, mija. I brought you here right away.”

The doctors came in with the test results.

“Miss Lucía,” said a doctor with a Canadian accent, “you’re pregnant.”

I felt the air leave my lungs. My eyes flew open, searching for an escape that didn’t exist.

Pregnant.

In that instant, I knew the truth with absolute clarity. It couldn’t be Damián’s. I never let him touch me without protection; I was always terrified of bringing a child into that nightmare. With Mateo, though, I hadn’t thought of anything. Only of him. Of that night. Of that moment stolen from heaven and hell.

“My God…” I whispered, trembling hands going to my belly.

It was his. Mateo’s. The fruit of that night of storm, passion, and tears.

For a moment, I thought about going back. About finding a way to contact him, to tell him, “You’re going to be a father.” I imagined his face—the mix of surprise, fear, and tenderness. I even imagined a different life, far from everything, the three of us together, raising that child somewhere no one knew us.

But then… I saw him on social media.

Someone had shared a video that went viral. Mateo, kneeling before the smoldering ruins of his church, crying inconsolably, praying among the ashes with his cassock stained with soot.

My heart stopped.

I saw him so devoted, so surrendered, so consecrated to his faith—and I felt an enormous weight of guilt crush my chest. How could I return and drag him back into my life? How could I pull him into Damián’s misfortune, his threats, the constant danger that followed me like a shadow?

I also knew what Damián was capable of. If he ever discovered that the child wasn’t his, he would kill us all—me, the baby, and Mateo too.

The comments under the video spoke of Mateo’s holiness, of how he had inspired thousands, of the millions in donations pouring in to rebuild the church. They spoke of Rome, of a possible promotion to monsignor.

He had a future. A vocation. A divine purpose.

Who was I to destroy all that?

I stood there with the phone in my hand, tears streaming uncontrollably, and made the hardest decision of my life.

I would raise this child alone. I would stay silent. I would protect Mateo from my presence, from my love, from my sin.

Because loving him, in the end, meant letting him go.

That night, back at my aunt’s house on Commercial Drive, I lay in bed with my hand resting on my still-flat belly. Vancouver’s silence was different from San Cristóbal’s—no marimba music, no street vendors, no constant sirens or threats. Just the distant murmur of a city asleep beneath Canadian rain.

I closed my eyes and whispered into the air, as if he could hear me across thousands of miles:

“Mateo… you’re going to be a father. And even if you never know it, this child will carry your light in their life. I’ll teach them to be good like you. To have faith like you. To love without conditions, the way you loved me that night.”

Tears soaked my pillow until sleep finally claimed me.

And so, in silence and in exile, I began the life I had chosen.

A life built upon a secret that would burn inside me until my final day.