The time of warrior: The Heartbeat, #2

By ghesia morett

Angels Got damn. Heaven and hell. A mother and her son on the earthly plane, caught between them and trying to get over the loss of the other part of her family in 9/11; with a hidden history that drags them to an impossible truth that they would rather never find. Meanwhile, an angel and a demon continue to endure the sacrifice of impossible love. Mysteries and more questions, leading you to a maze of answers linked to lies and truths, ready to capture your will. How to fight for freedom and the future of humanity between them? How to achieve freedom?
Every war has its soldiers, every lie its painful truth. Every warrior needs his time, or before the inevitable, he must know how to take advantage of it until the final battle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ghesia morett
• Release date: Feb 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071589960

Book preview

THE HEARTBEAT II

DEDICATION

To all who support me and continue to believe in my overflowing imagination.

To my children, who support the mainland of my steps, holding the threads of this kite so that the wind does not drag it, losing itself in the hurricane of this world of letters.

To my brothers, who always support my follies, not allowing me to run out of that blanket where I can help myself in the worst moments of my doubts.

To my friends, especially my colleague Jose Luis Prieto, another warrior of thoughts, ink and neuros; who always gives me courage and strength to continue sharing this huge universe of stories and books, with the communication of our planets.

Thanks is a very short word to record how much they have done and do for me.

With all my love, my heart belongs to everyone, and to many more it would be too long to name.

This story goes through all of them, from the beginning to the end, which is just another one in the immensity of the literary world, but I do with all my effort and passion for those readers who are looking for something more between the pages of a book. I wish and I hope to convey my passion and emotion to write it.

A hug.

––––––––

Ghesia Morett

NARRATING CHARACTERS:

Nami: human. Baron's wife (Albert Smith), mother of Daniel and Simon.

Daniel: Son of Nami (Maya Smith) and Albert Smith (Baronte).

Simael (Simon): New angel of power. Son in the land of Nami and Baronte. Daniel's brother.

Adabel: angel of love, empathy and mercy.

Dassiel: angel of love, mercy and understanding, guardian of Nami and in love with her. He lost his wings and stayed on the earthly plane in human form.

Baron: demon trapped in hell with a miracle inside; A heart in love with the angel Adabel. On earth:

Husband of Nami and father of Daniel and Simon.

Featured non-storytellers:

Sam Thomson; ex-partner in secret services of Albert Smith (Baronte)

Diablo Vargas; Lieutenant of bands and at the service of Sam.

Mary Cherri; Daniel's ex girlfriend.

FOREWORD

BARONTE:

He hides in the bars of my jail, knowing me lost. There is my reason to exist between life and death, dancing still in a sigh. A heart, that clean, jumped to my demon's chest in an instant of uncertain destiny. An angel of love opened it without even arranging it, and none of us understood. How were heaven and hell going to do it, even if we didn't understand it? At our first meeting, love arose without measure through the veins of our essences, so contrary, that we were stuck to a strange and desperate solution. A pact of love and grief. A wrong signal to heaven. Earthly and meaningless for hell, but to which both took advantage.

Adabel, my angel of passion, condemned me to learn what true love was, condemning to fall, as soon as my wife recorded that I was faithful and made her bloom in laughter and joy. Our children were my perpetual champion to find what I never expected to see in the eyes of mortal flesh; a family well avenue and, with so much love between them, that every difficulty was done nothing, like water that escapes between the fingers and empties without any pain.

I learned to give my angel all that love, which was reborn with every dawn. It was delivered plethoric, with every sunbeam with which the day dawned, whether it rained, snowed or burned with the summer sun. I know he felt it, or at least, I hope so, because it would not make sense so much sacrifice in that earthly life that, for me, without that connection would have made no sense. I would not have endured it. I would have been unable to give myself so much and discover how much I still love them. Nami, Daniel, Simon ... How much wasted love ... and, the more I gave, the more they gave me back.

One thing is love, another good thing is to know how to deliver it with truth and wisdom, make it shine every day with patience, respect, tolerance and understanding. This helped me with his advice Dassiel, Nami's guardian angel, who unwittingly fell into our trap as well.

––––––––

I will never forgive that day, cursed and unfortunate, when Lucifer's plans threw us to perdition, managing to separate us from that life on earth, which was so hard for me to maintain and, at the same time, I came to worship those who along with I had I did not realize our mistake, our disloyalty to that unthinkable love between two such disparate creatures, until it was too late. Lucifer's play was already laid for too many decades and, taking advantage of the hand of man, as always, he dropped the Power Towers, claiming not only the lives of the people who were there that day, but also that of many angels That attack of the Wordl Trade Center in 11S, destroyed everything he had built with so much love and effort. Nothing will ever be the same. I tried to save my children, but only Daniel stayed in the world with his mother, while Simon ... I know, must be with the angels, as was his destiny.

Incredible that I did not realize, because neither heaven nor hell rushed to give me clues, not letting their mark on them, until time was being reaped from our days on earth. Now Simon is in heaven, with a power that even the archangels are unable to assimilate. Yes, Lucifer played his cards and won, because not even the angels know what they have taken with total decision, so clean and pure, that it is unlikely that they can recognize him. That is his destructive plan: The perversion of heaven, with which he dreamed so much. Re-enter wrapped in innocent diapers a crack, even if tiny, of your self.

Even so, I trust the goodness of my angel of love. I know you will take care of them. Even so, I remain in the hope of a bigger and firmer religion, deeper than some remnants of history or some prayers, stronger than the illusion of a chabacan and permissible forgiveness in the hands of men; the education in true love that I taught my children. The struggle to be themselves, for their free will, always in full measure of all the love they are able to give in sacrifice.

My warriors, with all their strength and power to survive the toughest battles with all their firm truth. Part of this heart is also in them, so they can endure both heaven and hell. In the rest, only their decisions will make them fall or fly. And while my silent heart is preserved in this kind of amorphous being,

––––––––

that he was trapped in hell with just a snap of fingers that my Owner is; lost in nothingness, out of any plane from which I can escape, if not with the will to fulfill the agreement written in the book of his sentences.

FIRST PHASE

THE WAY OF DOUBT

1. ADABEL

Time does not pass the same in heaven as it does on earth. There it is linear, counted in short steps, in an always constant way and in the same direction. For us it is just a circle that rotates in the direction in which we move. It simply does not exist in our universe. When we go down to the earthly world is when we perceive it. For us it becomes only moments or sunrises, joys and laments, silences or prayers.

Yes, we angels also pray. Almost never for us, if not, for our custodians or the pain we bear with so much love, because our mission is the consolation of souls, in a war that never ends. But I am not a warrior in weapons of light, for them protection is something else and their highest order is the fight against that evil that Lúciel began to spill with such subtle poisons that they are barely perceived, because they are also born in men. The very sly man immediately knew how to see them and treat them with all his perfidious knowledge. We must be very careful with the desires of the soul, even we must have it on that earthly plane, as they can become immense suffering. That is why I have not gone back down to that world of precious and cruel imperfection. I must first heal my wounded heart and heal my wings, which I notice as hurt and hollow as my whole being was left among the rubble of those towers, noticing that my demon in love disappeared from the world where I kept the hope of an encounter.

I still don't understand or understand him, but when I was by his side, so close to him, with that skin contact, even if it was light, my whole self melted in his eyes. Despite seeing her soul so dirty and ugly, for me... it was very beautiful.

Perhaps it was those overwhelming feelings that he transmitted when he saw me and that made him illuminate that entire body in which he was wrapped ... I don't know.

Maybe it was my empathy when I felt all that excessive force ... I don't know. In those moments, she could only love, she was only capable of feeling him.

I knew it when I noticed all his pain when proposing that pact of love and sacrifice. I knew it before the tearing of my soul with the force of its fierce claw, stirring like a desperate and badly wounded tiger, while our eyes were on the open wounds that with that pact we made.

I tried to be sensible. I tried to avoid the inevitable between the doubts of my goodness, and I realized, seeing in his eyes the bitterness and pride, that he did not love me blinded by them if not in spite of them, that he only saw me. I don't even know how to explain everything that suddenly opened in all my essence, as if my sky suddenly opened with an immense light beyond all dimensions.

The absolute certainty came again when I saw him again in that town in the middle of the desert, and felt as loved as a lover with the mere touch of his hand, feeling that heart that beat in him was mine. The words he said to me, the pleas in his voice, would have been nothing without the beating of that force that flooded my heart. I could only confirm a promise governed and prisoner of that passion, but for him it was enough. From that moment I only looked for the dawn of the days, where I felt it in my sky, burning in my heart, with the love with which it blessed each ray of sun, as if it were me.

It was something so great... that now I feel empty and I continue to suffer with restlessness, knowing that he is in hell tied to the will of his master and lord. But Lucifer does not know, that even with all the chains on him, that heart is completely mine. That is something I feel and know with complete certainty, how I feel so much his with each beat of dawn. Sooner or later, I know that he will have to return it to me to deliver what was promised. It is my only hope. That is my only faith, to be able to continue healing my wings and to fill them again with the breath of my goodness; just for when he can come back.

How selfish is love. I also learned this from him, since he always demands sacrifices in exchange for his immense and clean truth, as cruel as it is precious. It is impossible to describe or contain. If humans felt like angels they would go crazy right after birth. Did God want to make amends for that mistake in them, or did He immediately know that their material bodies could not bear it? I don't know, only He knows those things. We can only act according to who we are and follow the guided steps that he indicated to us with his immaterial and perfect Being, since both in heaven, on earth or in hell, we are all part of him.

Adabel? That voice makes me turn my head, feeling a twinge in my soul, which immediately knows who it is. What I expected and feared is already in front of me.

- Simael! I turn, surprised to see him so soon, and with a smile I hold out my hands to him, because despite the pain he is my new brother and I have to treat him with love and respect.

Rafael has ordered me to come to your heaven, he says that now you will be my teacher, he shyly smiles back, taking my hands, looking at me with those eyes that make me die in the memory of those others that made me feel so much. Wow, you are as they told me, and more than they could tell me, "he smiles speaking with a surprised tone and without any flattering touch, as a truth that was not expected.

I didn't expect this either. When you touch his hands, the purity of his wings shines with more vigor. Immediately I feel an enormous force that traps me in an excessive empathy, and I have to withdraw my hands gently so as not to offend him, but it is too overwhelming. It is as beautiful as its light, and so intense, that it will be very difficult for me not to be drawn into its immortal power in order to be a good teacher and not be manipulated, although I know that is not its intention. I am afraid that the archangels were wrong to entrust me with this mission. I am not the best person to make you understand all this part of the senses and feelings that sometimes I don't even understand. Dassiel should have been his teacher. He would have been the most indicated to make her understand all that we are, but he is not here, so there is no other choice.

I'm glad to see that your wings have grown long enough to house your spirit. They are really beautiful-. I smile at him, looking more closely at them.

Its white and golden glow, its long and strong feathers, make me understand that they are those of a warrior, because ours are more delicate, although they are just as large. They will be able to withstand the cruelest evil, but I do not know to what extent they will be able to endure the challenge of the fight of feelings and the discovery of their goodness.

Thank you, he says shyly again without taking his eyes off my wings, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, something that he notices immediately and looks away, putting a hand to his hair a bit puzzled and scratching as if he had committed a small mistake, somewhat embarrassed. Sorry, I've never seen wings like this, not so close. Are your benefits that make them shine with that delicate light so precious?

It is like this in all angels, I answer calmly, beginning with my task of instructing him in the knowledge of all that we are and must understand about himself.

Do I look like this too? He asks curiously, glancing at his huge wings.

We don't see ourselves the way others see us, I can't help but smile at her surprise and innocence. Your spirit here is not matter. Here you cannot see yourself, you will only see bird feathers if you look at them, so that vanity does not dominate you.

Ah, that explains it, he says, looking away from his wingtips with a hint of relief.

We will have to start from the beginning, I say more patiently, understanding that it is still in a very primal phase of the knowledge of the immensity that surrounds us, "so that you learn to distinguish the purest truth, from the most sincere lie.

Ugh, that's very convoluted. He puts his hand to his forehead in bewilderment.

It doesn't matter, you'll understand, I smile helplessly at the expression on his face.

It will be very easy for me to take great affection for him, and that begins to satisfy me and worry me, because my memories and a special tenderness are mixed up, and I know that this will always make me suffer by his side. I'm going to have to know how to hide this very well so as not to accidentally hurt him.

Well, where do we start? He smiles more animated and flapping his wings nervously.

For knowing your house, your heaven well. I answer calmly and he huffs again, but with annoyance. Come on, take me to him. You have to know how to get to know yourself first of all better than anyone else, or you will not be able to give yourself completely, "I reprimand him a little sweetly. I don't want the first time we meet to feel bad.

I don't know if you're going to like it, it's very boring, he says annoyed, but I take his hand with encouragement and smile at him.

That's what mine looks like to me.

He smiles at me and squeezes my hand. Immediately, our wings are fanned and we fly to their place of essence. I am surprised when I arrive, everything is in disorder. The gray and white clouds mix in strange pieces and the light opens and disperses without any concert, while the small lights move lightly around us without much sense. I understand then, that it is like a child just out of the delivery room.

Simael, what have you been doing all this time? I ask, surprised and serious by all the effort that I have left to do with him, looking around us.

I don't know, just what Gabriel and Miguel were telling me, he shrugs with a smile, scratching his neck. I haven't had much time to rest, I've been learning the art of light weapons against hell.

2. DANIEL

We have long fled: My mother and I. We travel our wide country, although she has told me how my father managed to get us out of that China in which I was born. His story is quite peculiar and what, finally, my mother has been telling me on this illogical journey, seems even more incredible. Now I know more about my father than I would like and it really worries me, because he opens more unknowns to me than the man I thought I knew. Her security and strength always pushed us as a family whose priority was to take care of each other and, above all, of my mother. It was almost an obsession for him. I remember his words stuck in my mind since I was a child: Don't make Mom suffer, you have to make her happy. That was her most recurring mantra, and I admit that my brother and I made her really angry many times a day.

Maybe because of this, I keep trying to overcome everything and take care of her as he would expect of me. However, whoever shared this commission with me has also disappeared from this world, and only God knows how much I miss him. It goes without saying, or is supposed, that for my mother the loss of my brother is an even greater pain than mine, but that does not mean that the pain I feel is less.

Those towers of the World Trade Center seem to keep falling on us and our flight is more and more unsustainable. Wherever we go, its debris haunts us, even if we never speak of that day. For what? We don't even want to know the news. They are gone. My father and brother disappeared when the North Tower fell and I was about to die in the South Tower. Someone or something saved me, I'm not sure what my eyes saw in those desperate moments, but I can hardly find a plausible explanation, other than my own state of intoxication and the fever that must be beginning to affect my body, shattered by falling down the stairs. In memory of that disaster, I was left with a limp that I have dragged on without complaint ever since, although it killed my expectations of becoming an elite, famous and respected athlete.

I still regret my unconsciousness, for not having paid attention to my father and waiting for my brother outside, or worse, for having left him alone in that tower to go after a woman, who was not worth the dust we threw in a small room dirty on the 98th floor of the south tower. I feel responsible for our misfortune and, for a time, it even got into my head that it was better to be dead than to bear with myself and continue to hurt my mother with my presence. The scars on my wrists continue to mark this unsuccessful attempt that I am now ashamed of. He would never have forgiven me for abandoning her too.

They always told me that I was more like my father, although my mother's Asian origin is recognized only in my high cheekbones, and perhaps in certain forms of my face. No, my eyes are too much like my father's and I know it as soon as she fixes hers on me; in that moment I know you think about him. They loved each other too much and I notice that unbearable pain reflected in his gaze, which he sneakily pushes away so as not to make me suffer too. We prefer not to talk about Simon, although sometimes it is unavoidable.

We buried him to survive, we could not bear to have him present without destroying us, although she still thinks that one day they will return to us; how those drawings and phrases full of love that my father kept in his briefcase came back without anyone knowing. Apparently an old friend hand-delivered them to my mother just the same day we left our family home and old life, filling her soul with hope. Since then, I think my mother really thinks that my father and brother will come back to us at any moment, or that we will meet them somewhere. It was only when she told me the truth of how she and my father had met that I began to believe that it might be possible, but time is passing and this journey is becoming endless. If they were in this world, my father would never have left her alone for so long or allowed her to believe that Simon is ... That is as true to me as that the sun rises every day. No, they are dead, or they would not have allowed my mother to suffer like this. Although it hurts, I am sure of this.

She thinks that I do not realize it, or that I do not check the bank accounts from time to time, but they are in both names and they also send me the statements, but I know that we do not spend the money that she sometimes takes out. There are amounts that, if it weren't for how extraordinarily wealthy we are, would be too remarkable for anyone to think that we were hitting the high ground, but this only happens on rare occasions, which leads me to think that she's into something, or that continues to be engaged in its fruitless search. More than once I have wanted to ask her, discuss it with her and make her see reason, but I am unable to remove that illusion that makes her able to continue breathing. Anyway, after telling me the secrets he kept from my father, I think even I am encouraged by a possibility, even if it is tiny.

My mother has been telling me part of her life in China, in Beijing, where she was born and lived until my father took us out of there in exchange for a couple of secrets that he sold to the United States. Which were? Neither he told her, nor did she want to know. At that time they only thought of the best for me. From there, as she can confirm, until the very day she disappeared in that tower along with my brother, she occasionally worked for a government agency doing secret and national security translations. My father, in addition to being a very smart guy and running his own translation company, was a great polyglot, highly regarded and even awarded on occasion for the translation of a book. He knew and spoke several languages ​​with complete freedom, if not almost all the main ones. That was something that left my brother and me speechless when we heard him speak on the phone in other languages, some of which we didn't even know the country existed.

According to my mother, their encounter was completely inexplicable. His grandmother Yucki (who died shortly before I was born) found him in the rain in the middle of an alley near where he lived, and without knowing why, she felt deep sorrow and pity for him, which made her help him and take him to your little flat. He was unable to remember who he was or how he got there. However, he remembered all the languages ​​he knew, which soon helped him to prosper. I know there are some things that my mother doesn't tell me, but honestly, I don't want to know them either. It is enough to imagine that ugly things must have happened for them to take risks like this to get a better life for me and my brother, even though at that moment he did not even exist in their minds. Simon was sired and born in the United States. Upon arriving in this country, they gave us other names and surnames, a new life that they clung to in order to give us the freedom and security they dreamed of in that other country. My father never remembered who he was before he met her, or he simply didn't want to or told her about it. That is a doubt that, without saying it clearly, my mother and I share, but without giving it importance.

My mother says that she fell in love with my father as soon as she laid eyes on him, something that made me laugh, because I always thought that my father would have had a hard time conquering her. My mother is beautiful, although she does not even realize it and often says that in this country it is exotic, just that. I remember hearing them argue on more than one occasion about my mother's jealousy, something that made my father quite desperate, but it was something occasional and, anyway, he always made the anger pass as quickly as possible. He knew exactly how to earn it.

My parents may not have realized it, but Simon and I were not blind and we saw the envy or admiration with which other parents used to look at them. I caught more than one mother of my friends watching my father in a way that did not surprise me at all that my mother ended up pissed off and throwing my friends out on the streets before time. If I have inherited something from my mother, it is a bad temper as soon as we strike a chord. In this Simon was more like my father, but oddly enough, he had a more powerful outburst. He used to hold out to a point where it was impossible for me, yet once he got to it, it was like a time bomb exploding. I admit that on more than one occasion I took it to this point with total malice, just to see how red it turned. The bad thing was to return him to his being, because he was altered in such a way that he did not control his own body, which made me take more than a good punch, although I was smart enough not to do such a stupid thing in front of my parents, and my poor brother, never complained or went with the story.

My brother was my best friend, my confidante, and even my buddy in many shenanigans that my parents never found out about. When we were children we were almost always in all the kernels, and the truth is, of half of them I don't even remember how they occurred to us. If it wasn't me, it was Simon's thing, although most of the time I was blamed because I was the oldest. Since I was little, my father instilled in me the care and responsibility of my brother; I suppose that my jealousy led me to do some mischief with him, although really, Simon made me mad sometimes and other times, he simply knew how to take advantage; but I did not take it into account, I also took advantage of him on more than one occasion. After all, we were brothers and he, despite these occasional outbursts, was one of the most generous and charming people I have ever met.

They were happy years, although when we were living them we did not realize it. Remembering them, suddenly, that night comes to mind and it even made me feel a chill. I don't know why this has come to my mind when, in fact, I had it associated with a nightmare with my father, in some strange way, which now seems too real to me.

One night, when we were just 6 and 4 years old (Simon and I were still sleeping in the same room, leaving the other as a playroom and study) I woke up to hear his voice talking to someone. I was surprised, because everything was dark and my brother used to call me to go to the bathroom and to turn on the light in the hallway, since he had not reached it yet. I got up and left the room rubbing my eyes and calling out to him in a low voice, still sleepy and worried about him. Yet there he was, sitting quietly on the floor with his back turned, in the semi-darkness that came in through the window that opened onto the second-floor balcony, in the middle of the hall. I watched him for a moment. He spoke to himself, looking up at the opposite wall. Suddenly, when I looked at her, I saw a huge shadow that occupied the wall almost to the ceiling. It had huge bat wings, long, pointed claws; her legs were like those of an animal, with the hams back, and what made me gasp to scream; bright red eyes that when looking at me for a second froze my blood, since the shape of that head (even with twisted ram horns that protruded fiercely from both sides of its forehead) resembled that of our father. He disappeared the same instant the light came on and my father really appeared staring at us with his green eyes.

Without saying anything, he picked up Simon from the floor, carrying him in one of his strong arms, took me by the hand, and led us back to our room, wrapping us around and kissing us on the forehead. Not a word escaped anyone's mouth, but I remember as soon as my father came out, I scrambled out of bed and snuggled up next to Simon. My brother turned around and when he noticed me trembling at his side, he told me that I should not be afraid, because it was our father who guarded us while the other flesh and blood slept.

3. NAMI

There is a dark grayish dust surrounding me, engulfing me like in a sandstorm; it is coming down on me without my being able to avoid it, leaving me in a strange darkness, almost unbreathable. I notice how my lungs get congested and I see pieces burned into ashes dancing before my eyes. Suddenly I feel caught in a ball of radiant light, warm, but not burning. It lifts me above that storm towards a sky full of stars while I feel in my soul a strange peace full of comfort. In my ears a sweet and pleasant voice, charming and captivating, enters my ears: - You are not lost, look at your son and put your feet on the ground. My smile opens when I think I recognize that voice: Simon, escapes from my lips without being able to help it, with a smile full of emotion. But then I feel myself falling into the void, with that sensation of inexplicable vertigo, as if I fell from that north tower of the Wordl Trade Center where it disappeared, screaming in terror when I see that the rubble and brown dust want to swallow me.

My eyes snap open, startled and half dazed, trying to get back to the reality in which I wake up. The strange dream has disappeared and the dark images of the landscape flash past the car window.

Mom, are you okay? I hear Daniel's worried voice and feel his hand on my shoulder, shaking me a little.

Yes ... Yes, I'm ... I'm fine son, I'm fine. I try to calm him down, moving my body to accommodate him in the passenger seat. That's when I run my hand over my forehead and feel wet fingers, wiping the pearly sweat that has covered it without realizing it.

You screamed. His tone is painful and cold, which makes me glance at him, but I dare not look at his face until I feel myself completely again. His hands are clenched on the steering wheel and his lips are pressed together in an expression that pretends nonchalance, but only shows me that his soul is still trying to survive it all, like mine, I suppose. You said his name.

My heart shoots up in a throb of pain, but I control myself by stretching my body as far as I can with my gaze straight ahead, just like him. You can hardly see anything beyond the car lights. It is a secondary road and there is almost no traffic at this time. I don't want to say anything, not before I'm sure I can blurt out a word without bursting into tears. I don't want to burden him with that again. I swallow hard, although in reality, what I try is to send all the pain to the bottom of that dark box where I keep the wounds of this pain without consolation.

-Where we are?-. I want to get everything out of my mind to focus on something that doesn't hurt.

In Virginia. There is little left, soon we will arrive at the motel. I hope there are no problems with the reservation like last time. I am very tired, I want to sleep in a bed properly.

I notice the recriminating tone in his words, but I don't want to argue with him again, not now. I keep silent and keep my eyes fixed on the road as my heartbeat slows down.

My head clears and then I remember why we are traveling in that direction. The call and the voice of Sam Thomson through the line left me cold and I had to make an excuse to return my son to this state. I do not know if he believed it at all, after all, a small exhibition of landscape painting of the place is nothing to write home about, but he already knows my tastes and hobbies regarding this, so he has not complained much either . Pleasing each other without asking too many questions has become a routine that we dispense with in silent mutual agreement. After telling him part of our life before arriving in the United States, it seems that nothing surprises him anymore, and lately he seems to be in a laziness in which he only cares about my state of well-being. I would like him to stop worrying so much about me and decide to choose a university, continue his studies, have some future goal, but he half jokingly answers that he does not need any of that since we have more money than we can ever spend. His father would have given him a good scolding, but considering that it is thanks to him that we enjoy all that money, I find such an argument incongruous. Daniel is too smart to demand or hold him against him for what his father would want him to do, what's more, I don't think he even cares about his future. I guess his limp shattered his dreams of becoming a great athlete and everything else seems to give him the same. He has never complained about this, and not a single recrimination of my neglect during almost the first year of his recovery has come out of his mouth. If it hadn't been for his suicide attempt, even I wouldn't have had the courage to step out of my own depressed world. I did not pay due attention to him, sheltered in my pain and despair, drugged most of the day so as not to have to feel the pain of loss, without realizing that he too had lost his father and brother ... and a future for him. that I could no longer fight to make it happen.

I suppose that enrolling in medicine, he only did it to please his girlfriend, although in reality he did not worry much about these studies. It ended up leaving her in the worst of our situation. I want to believe that because he really couldn't bear to see him suffer like that. I know, or so I think, that he really loved her, even though we messed with her from time to time for her Barby doll look, and even went so far as to think that, given her youth, he only sought her out for her body and beauty. I even think Simon liked her too, and she proved to be a girl with a very big heart. She tried to help us as much as she could until he threw her from her side in a very bad way, something that I reproached her because she did not deserve something like that, but I'm sure Daniel did it desperately, probably because he already had his dark thoughts in him. what he was going to do. The funny thing is that afterwards he did not want to go back to her, and I do feel a bit guilty about this. Perhaps my son was forced to take care of his crazy mother, who to get him out of that torture that was consuming us, invented this trip in which we have been immersed for more than we expected.

I'm not going to tell you what I'm really into. It is too dangerous and I am still not sure that what I am looking for is true, or even possible. What I am sure of is that my husband was not in that tower by chance, although what puzzled me from the beginning is that my children were there. Such a coincidence was really incredible. Something happened, and even if it costs me my life I have to investigate it, especially for Simon. I am unable to accept it. Maybe that's why Sam's call left me so stunned. He only said in a firm voice: - Tomorrow at 6.45 in the cafeteria of the Sicomoro motel, at the entrance to Middletown, North Virginia, enter on 627 before crossing with 625 on Chapelroad, take a path that goes into the forest. It is not a motel, but it does accept guests.

After looking for the route on the map, and thanks to a message that Sam sent me to my cell phone with a phone number, I was able to arrange the room and hatch a plan to come here in time. In the middle of the night we almost got lost a couple of times, which made us more nervous, but we managed to find the Sycamore. Curiously, this type of tree was right in front of what looked like a wooden house with two floors and a couple of small attached cabins to the left and right. Daniel looks at me, shaking his head and not being able to believe that we had ended up in such a place, where the sycamore was completely incongruous with the rest of the trees in the forest that surrounds us.

Surely the beds are straw and have bed bugs, he muttered under his breath angrily as we headed toward the entrance of the house, lit by a small lantern by the door.

An elderly and charming woman opens us up, takes us to a spacious dining room with a couple of tables and takes out a book from a drawer of a sideboard, confirming our details and the reservation. Daniel looks around, checking that everything is clean and that it was even pleasant, which makes the more satisfied woman smile, who introduces herself as Mrs. Davison. Then he takes us to the cabin on the left and hands me the key while Daniel takes our suitcase out of the car.

The beds turn out to be very comfortable and the room comfortable, with a not very big but acceptable bathroom, so after taking a shower and eating the frugal dinner that Mrs. Davison brings us, we went to bed really tired and with no more desire to talk .

Daniel doesn't know, but sometimes I like to watch him while he sleeps. I'm a bit embarrassed because he's older and has a bad habit of sleeping in his underwear, but it reminds me of when I was little and obsessively watched his breathing until I was satisfied when I heard his snoring. There are things a mother never forgets, and even now, I don't stay calm until I hear her snoring softly.

It was barely dawn and I woke up with a strange feeling, as if I was late for somewhere. That restlessness has made me hurry, get dressed making as little noise as possible and leaving Daniel asleep to leave the cabin without really knowing where to go. The first rays of the sun falling on the high branches of the trees in the forest, have made me feel an emptiness of despair for an instant, remembering how my husband went out every morning to run and give that special greeting to the sun, which seemed surrender your heart and be filled with its light at the same time. I shake my head like I can get it all out of my mind. I don't want to remember this. The happy moments continue to hurt, when he arrived smiling, he kissed me on the lips saying good morning and asking for coffee. I miss him so much... I push out that prick of pain with a sigh and see Mrs. Davison approaching me with a piece of paper in her hand. -Good Morning. Mrs. Smith, this is for you. He tells me in a serious tone, still squinting into my eyes full of curiosity. I found it on the kitchen table when I was getting ready to make coffee. Would you like to have one? It should almost be there. I unfold the note with my name and read the inside as it speaks to me. I stare at her without knowing what to say. On this one there is only a written indication in typewritten letters: Go to the kitchen and have a coffee.

Yeah, sure ... it'll be good for me, I smile a little stunned without understanding what this is all about. Honestly, I just hope Sam Thomson is not late and arrives soon. He was our savior and negotiator to bring us to the United States, and although I know that he worked with my husband for that government agency, over time he became a friend, or so I think. All of this makes me look at my watch several times as I follow Mrs. Davison into the house, through the dining room, and into the kitchen. I'm surprised to find that despite the old-fashioned and solid wooden furniture, the appliances are all very modern. She smiles at me and gently gestures for me to sit at the round table across from the breakfast bar, while she picks up the cups and makes the coffees. I take a look around and am glad to find everything clean and spotless, this makes me feel a little more comfortable. I know that for Daniel it will be quite a gift, lately the small hotels and motels in which we have been staying, left a lot to be desired. Noticing that they leave the cup in front of me, on the table, I look back and my body freezes. A man dressed in a black suit and tie, much like the one my husband had in store for the occasional outing at those government jobs, is staring at me through dark glasses. Mrs. Davison has disappeared, and another man in the same outfit stands by the door, like a stone guardian, unchanging. I can barely speak in surprise and my body tenses like a cable.

Good morning, ma'am ... She sits down across from me, with a hot cup of coffee beside her and opens a folder with brown cardboard pastries, with nothing written on it; he looks at the papers and looks at me again calmly with a smile that leaves much to be desired— Maya Smith.

Who ... or what are you? I manage to stammer my lips, my body starting to shake inside. If it is not explained soon I will start screaming.

That doesn't matter, Mrs. Smith, the important thing is the subject matter. You see, certain... issues have arisen, which we must address immediately. I do not know to what extent you were aware of certain activities of your husband, but you must know that they were of high national security. For this reason, and because of the affection and faith that our old counselor and friend, Mr. Thomson, has placed in you, we have preferred to handle this matter with total... kindness and discretion. Her eyes seem to pierce me through the black lenses, but I continue so stunned that I can barely spin my thoughts. Before my silence, he continues with his calm and firm tone of voice. - Well, for reasons that I cannot inform you, the agency has decided to resolve the case of your husband and son in a way in which we hope your cooperation.

He takes a couple of sheets from under the ones in the folder and spreads them to me, placing them in front of me. The strange thing is that they already bear the signature of a law firm and the stamp of a court, with the judgment and signature of the judge. I catch it, controlling the trembling of my hands as much as I can and I read, hardly believing what is exposed before my eyes. This document confirms the evidence already examined by said court and lawyers, and which determine that; Due to a bureaucratic error, my husband and my son did not disappear in the attack on the Word Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but, given the date and the collapse of information and media, their death was mixed with said incident , proving later that the two died that day in a boat accident that happened several miles away while practicing a nautical sport. Their bodies have still not been found, but given the damage to said maritime vehicle and the time that has elapsed without finding any proof of their existence, the death application submitted by me is considered accepted. This really leaves me speechless, and so angry that I can barely control myself.

What is this shit? I scold him helplessly, dropping the documents in front of him as if they were burning my hands.

Please Mrs. Smith, it is not necessary to use that language, he reproaches me without ceasing to observe me under his glasses with a contemptuous smile on his lips, altering me even more, getting up from the chair almost with a jump, with all the nerves on edge of skin.

My husband was there for a reason that only his agency knows exactly, what I'm not able to understand is the bloody coincidence that my children were there too. Can you explain that, sir ... whoever? I can come to understand about my husband, but about my son is... unforgivable. I'm not robbing you of your right to be remembered as a victim of that ... of the monstrosity that occurred that day. I'm not going to... Mrs. Smith, he cuts me firmly crossing his arms, I'm afraid you're confusing the terms. We are not asking for your opinion, we are offering it as a dignified and safe way out for both parties, so that they can continue their lives without ... incidents. Both your child and you. This leaves me speechless and