This is a shadow letter, the reverse of the letter I will actually send you. The other one says that your father and I are doing fine, that the new neighbourhood isn't bad, that your sisters are back at university at last, after being away for a full semester. That we are, as always, praying for you. That the lawyers are still working on it, that there are still things to be done. All the things you like to hear, the same things we tell you every time we see you, every two weeks. Son, we love you. We support you in everything, always. We cannot believe you are in this situation.
But Víctor, I want to write you something else. I want to tell you that I have never felt a fury like the one I feel now — I feel it deep in my body — and that I never thought it would be meant for you, my Víctor, my baby. I am writing to you about this fury because I think you are the only one who can understand it.
When you were born I wanted nothing more in this life; I was complete. Your father was beside himself with happiness — he had always wanted a boy, and we already had two girls. I fell in love with your dark eyes, your skin covered in fine, soft hair, your hands curled into tiny fists. I loved you so much, Víctor, I thought I might lose my mind. Now sometimes I even hate you, with the hatred one reserves only for oneself.
I believed we were doing everything right. The house we owned, the end-of-year holidays, the family together at Christmas and New Year, the middle-class neighbourhood, Sunday lunch at your grandmother's. We were modern parents — we cared about your grades, your father took you to swimming lessons, we bought you the console you wanted for Christmas, you loved riding your bike.
For years now I have not been able to tell anyone my favourite story — the one where you were such a sensitive child that you cried when animals died in stories and in films. That we had to comfort you, reassure you that they weren't real. That you were good, that you gave kisses to all your aunts and let your sisters dress you up like a doll. I cannot tell anyone those things anymore, because every time I mention you, only one thing comes to everyone's mind: the image of Laura, the one that circulated on social media and in every newspaper. You know the one.
Of course, because then you grew up — inevitable. Your friends arrived, foul-smelling adolescents who wanted to talk like men. The video games arrived, the disgusting pornography that kept finding its way onto your computer. Your father talked to you; I asked him to. Rumours were going around that you were cruel to the girls at school. I could not believe it, Víctor, because with your sisters you were the sweetest, the gentlest boy. I could not see any of what the teachers were telling me — that your girlfriend had changed schools because she was afraid of you. Absurd. Your father almost certainly repeated to you, as they repeat to every boy in this country, that a woman must not be struck, not even with the petal of a rose.
Víctor, everything that is happening to you is my fault, because I should have stepped in. But if I am being honest, I would not have known what to do. This is not something one tells one's children, but the man I was with before your father once broke my face with his fist. It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me — until now. That was a long time ago, so long that I allowed myself to believe it had nothing to do with me anymore. Then I found your father, a good and protective man, who has never raised a hand to me. But there you have it: I could not get out myself, and I would not know how to pull you out of this life, this neighbourhood, this country of violent men.
In this letter I can tell you that you deserve to be in prison. It is the worst thing a mother can say, but it is true. My whole body aches when I think about it — when I cry at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, with the light off, so your father won't wake up. It makes me feel as though I am drowning, as though a powerful current is pulling me under.
I only spoke to Laura once. Very pretty, a little too grown-up for you, I thought. That is how it goes: girls move faster. It was a brief visit she made to the house; I think she took an interest in the pots and the kitchen plants, she asked me polite questions. Nothing more. And now, Víctor, my life revolves around that girl. I know everything about her — her family, her depressive episodes — I have seen photos of her at birthday parties and on holiday. And of course the photos of her swollen, disfigured, in intensive care with tubes all over her body. I tried to speak to her mother but it was impossible, and I do not blame her. Sometimes I think about Laura more than I think about your sisters, who have also suffered in ways I still do not fully understand. You took everything from all of us.
Sometimes I would like to know where that fury comes from. How does it travel so easily to the hands of men? We do not come with that, or at least we are taught to push it down to the deepest place. Who gave you that hatred, Víctor — where did you find it? You would have to be a rabid animal. You would have to lose your reason, you would have to shut your brain off entirely, you would have to flee into unconsciousness. Is that capacity for harm in all of us? Or does it live only in the bodies of men? You, like all of them, say it was a mistake, that you weren't thinking about anything. I do not know if that is true, or if you simply have no words for what was happening inside you. Because the rage I carry is nothing like that — it excavates me from within, leaves me hollow and tosses me in a rubbish heap. My rage can only kill me.
Víctor, my child, my little one. All I want is to see you come home from kindergarten again with your shirt on inside out. I want to tell you a story, I want to buy you an ice cream and watch you and your sisters play some made-up game in your grandmother's yard. All of that persists, but it has been stained by the filthiest violence. And so the future is a terrible place. I see it in your father, in your sisters, in everything we no longer do and the things we no longer speak of. I see it in the terror of other women, in the mothers of other boys. My love, I search and search in the darkness, and I cannot find a way to forgive you.