PART 1

When Alejandro placed little Santi in Doña Carmen’s arms that Saturday morning, he smiled too quickly, like someone in a hurry to sell a lie. Valeria gave the baby a fleeting kiss on the forehead, adjusted the blue blanket, and told her mother-in-law they would go to the plaza for “just an hour.”

It was exactly 11:23 when the two left through the front door of the house, taking the car keys and a practiced composure that the grandmother would only understand much later.

At first, Doña Carmen thought the child’s crying was simply due to hunger.

She quickly prepared the bottle Valeria had left on the kitchen counter, which was still warm, but the little one turned his face away sharply.

Grandma gently rocked him, resting the baby’s head on her chest as she softly sang the same lullaby she had used with Alejandro many years ago.

But the crying didn’t lessen, it didn’t turn into a common tantrum, nor did it tire; on the contrary, it grew sharp and desperate, cutting through the silence of the room like a terrifying alarm.

At 11:38, Doña Carmen looked at the clock on the wall and realized that her son had left only 15 minutes earlier.

It was too short a time for so much fear and anguish. The house smelled of Fabuloso, freshly mopped and of coffee brewed in a pot, but that traditional aroma could no longer hide the immense unease that rose through the old woman’s hands.

Suddenly, Santi arched his back violently, clenching his small fists against his chest, and let out a scream so piercing that the woman’s knees almost touched the ground.

It was at that precise moment that something inside Doña Carmen stopped searching for innocent excuses to calm her own mind.

Any true Mexican mother knows perfectly well when a cry is asking to be held and when it’s asking for urgent help.

She placed Santi on the changing table with extreme care, speaking to him in a gentle voice to try to calm him, while her own hands trembled as she tried to unbutton his onesie.

She slowly opened the yellow cloth, lifted the baby’s clothes, and saw, just above the diaper line, a dark, very inflamed mark that didn’t look like a rash or an allergy. The mark was the exact shape of human fingers, pressed into the newborn’s fragile skin.

The marks were too small for an adult to admit, but too clear for a grandmother to deny, and the bl00d drained from her face in an instant.

The woman didn’t scream, she didn’t cry, and above all, she didn’t call her son to demand an explanation, because she understood that justifications could wait.

She grabbed the diaper bag in a hurry, wrapped her grandson back in the blue blanket, and ran to her car, the keys trembling in her icy fingers.

In the back seat, the child was still crying inc0nsolably, and as she started the engine, the woman felt a terrible chill, because deep down she couldn’t believe what was about to happen…