Mr. Alvarez

My dear children,

If you are reading this, I am dead. Hopefully you will read that part with an ominous voice, like a Morgan Freeman type of narration, I always wanted to sound like that. In fact, that is my post-mortem wish, to forever sound like Morgan Freeman in your memories. Anyhow, I think we have gotten a little bit out of topic.

I am sure you are overtaken by emotion at this moment. If not, I will haunt your inheritance and now that I am dead that’s a lot easier to do. But, you see, emotions are a tricky business. I know I have not always been the most loving parent to you, in fact, I can barely recall a handful of times where I told you both I loved you. It is not something I am proud of.

I enjoyed joking with you, but sadly, I couldn’t connect with my children any further than that. Sometimes, I would hear whimpering coming out of your room Alicia, especially when you were fourteen, but I could never bring myself to open the door. And David, remember that time when you were eleven and you lost that soccer match? You dragged your feet to my car, sat in complete silence and didn’t eat anything for dinner. I didn’t hug you when the match was over, I never even asked how you were. You never played soccer again after that.

I was a silent witness to your lives, a spectator, and that pains me deeply. But there are some things from my past you should probably know, things I have tried to leave behind but, in reality, I could never fully escape.

…

“That is it?” Alicia screamed at the paper she held.

“Where the fuck is the rest?” David said frowning at Mr. Cobalt.

“My deepest apologies Mr. and Ms. Alvarez. You see, we ended up having a little incident.”

Mr. Cobalt, with his wide puppy eyes and polite demeanor, tried to explain to the best of his abilities the unfortunate occurrence. He arrived at his law firm right after seeing Antonio Alvarez in the hospital, the terminally ill patient had asked him to come in because he needed the lawyer to give a letter to his children. Mr. Cobalt left the letter on top of his desk that day, then he went out for lunch. During his exit, the firm’s intern made his away inside. Apparently, he had developed the habit of going into Mr. Cobalt’s office when he went out for lunch, he liked to use his coffee machine and read the court transcripts the lawyer kept on his desk. However, that day Mr. Cobalt returned earlier from his break, and when the intern heard his footsteps he was completely startled. He had made a mess out of every document he could find in Mr. Cobalt’s desk, including Antonio Alvarez’s letter, and in his state of shock, haphazardly put everything back together.

“Alright, but where is the rest on the letter now?”

“Interesting question Mr. Alvarez.” The lawyer sighted. “It happens to be in Northern Ireland. It was shipped to one of my clients by mistake along with some other legal documents.”

“You have got to be kidding me” Alicia said falling back into her chair.

“Well, can’t you tell the person who received it to just send it back?”

“Most certainly. However, I don’t think my client will be able to do that.”

“How in the hell not?”

“Well… she is dead.”

“Fuck no.” Alicia shouted at the lawyer.

“How? I mean, what are the chances?”

“Well Mr. Alvarez, I do specialize in elder law. So in that case, the chances are in fact quite high.”

Alicia and David yelled some things at the lawyer, but he took none of it personally, he knew how angry people could get when losing a loved one.

The siblings were now 22 years old, they were twins but Alicia always liked to brag about how she was the older one. She seemed to be taking the death of her father better than her brother, but in fact she just hid everything better. She started getting night terrors when her father was hospitalized, she would wake up screaming and then couldn’t go back to sleep. Sarah, her girlfriend, suggested they move in together temporarily, only until things got better. Now, with her father dead, Alicia thought nothing would ever get better. She wanted to break up with Sarah, Alicia felt like she was a burden to her every single day, she could even feel Sarah slowly drifting away. But Alicia knew she would feel even more alone than she already did if they broke up, so she pushed the relationship forward.

David, on the other hand, announced every single feeling he ever had on his face. He was honest and transparent to a fault, when his friends asked questions about his father he would simply tell the truth about the harshness of his condition in tears. David didn’t visit his father when the situation worsened, the hospital lights and its smell made him sick, and he simply didn’t want the last few memories of his father to be of a decaying man.

For Alicia and David, this was the first time they were actually experiencing grief. The twins had a whirlwind of feelings for their father, they loved him and still felt like they barely knew him at all. Alicia and David had glimpses of a very loving childhood, the one you get to run in the park, jump on your father’s bed and watch him buy you popsicles on a hot summer’s day. But their memories were also tainted with all the times he wouldn’t talk to them or look them in the eyes. He knew how to give love only from a far.

Antonio Alvarez was born in Brazil, he lived there until he moved to the United Kingdom with the twins when they were just 14 months old. Alicia and David always asked questions about their mother, but all they knew were her name and that she had died in childbirth. He wished for a new beginning in the UK, and was lucky to have gotten a job as an English teacher for other immigrants like him. Alicia and David didn’t know a lot about Brazil, and they knew even less about their father’s life when he lived there. The only excerpt of the letter he left cut deep within the both of them, as if every page that was now long gone could make some sense out of what they had felt their entire lives. Maybe, just maybe, the letter could make their father not seem like a stranger after all.

After returning from Mr. Cobalt’s office, Alicia and David decided to go look for some answers by themselves. The siblings went to Antonio Alvarez’s house, the place was already a mess but they turned it into a pandemonium. Furniture was moved around, drawers were laid out on the floor, papers were scattered around every corner. They didn’t care about the chaos, they barely even knew what they were looking for, but the siblings simply needed something, anything in fact, to give some clarity into their father’s past.

After hours of going thru books, old exams and long expired bills, they finally found their gems. First there was a letter, posted on the year they were born by Maria Alvarez, which they recognized as their mother’s name. Both the return and the delivery address were cities they didn’t recognize, so the siblings assumed they were located somewhere in Brazil. It was entirely written in Portuguese, the twins had some trouble translating, but eventually succeeded in doing so.

…

Antonio,

I will try to be brief. They took Bruno this morning. He told me he knew it was going to happen, police raided his University last week and it was only a matter of time.

They will come for me too. I am sure of it. I talked with my friend Helen this morning, the kids are with her. I gave her clear instructions, if I don’t come back in one week to pick them up she shall take them to your house.

Don’t put up missing posters once I am gone, you know it is a waste of time. You remember what happened to aunt Claudia.

For the love of God Antonio, don’t let them take my children as well. Leave the fucking country if you have to. They will live without their father, their mother, but at least they will live. And they will have you.

My dear brother, I am so sorry it has come to this.

I love you.

…

When Alicia and David finished the letter they remained silent. You could hear the feather of a bird falling on the floor. They stared at the fragile paper in a wide gaze, their thoughts slowly drifting away.

“Why did dad…” David broke the silence in a whimper.

Alicia did not respond. She simply looked at her brother, he could see a tenderness in her eyes he simply never witnessed before. She hugged him, and while in his arms tried to remember when was the last time she had done that. Alicia didn’t remember though.

They remained silent while looking at the rest of Antonio Alvarez’s belongings. Thru a series of old Brazilian newspapers, they learned about the dictatorship that had taken place in the country between 1964 and 1985. The twins were born in the middle of the authoritarian government.

Alicia and David never found out what had happened to their father or their mother. As a matter of fact, no one who lost a family member during that time ever did.