29/12/2025
A FATHER RETURNS FROM THE BATTLEFIELD AND FINDS HIS DAUGHTER SLEEPING IN A PIGSTY. NO ONE EXPECTED HIS REACTION…
Ramiro Salgado sat pressed against the bus window as if the glass could hold up his chest. Outside, the north stretched out in a ribbon of red earth, prickly pears standing like guardians under a harsh sun that asked for no permission. Between his knees rested a dust-colored backpack, folded with the discipline of four years in the barracks. In his right hand, he clutched a paper so handled that the ink already looked like ash.
It was a letter. One of many.
He was rereading it for the third time since leaving the base, yet the ending still made his throat tighten:
Dad, I didn't eat breakfast today. Mama María said there are no more eggs in the house. I saw the lady who sells them pass by, but I didn't ask for anything because when I ask, they leave me outside in the yard. I’m writing so that when you come back, you knock on the back door, because the front one is locked.
The letters were crooked, slanted as if the girl had written them in hiding, careful not to make a sound. Ramiro swallowed hard. He didn't remember receiving a single letter in that handwriting while he was away. Not one. Only official documents, notifications, flyers, and empty congratulations.
Until Dr. Julián, an old friend of his father’s, sent him a package via courier with a brief note: “Read these before you return.”
The driver, an older man with a gray mustache and mechanic's hands, broke the silence without looking back.
"You're military, right?"
Ramiro tucked the pages back into the envelope, as if they were an animal that might bite.
"Yes… I just got back."
The driver nodded and continued driving along the dirt road that descended into the valley. A few minutes passed. The radio spat out an old song about closed doors and someone crying behind them.
As they approached the rusted sign announcing “San Nicolás del Valle,” the driver murmured, almost like someone commenting on the weather:
"They say a girl around here… they kept her locked in the pigsty for a week. Without eating. What a thing..." He clucked his tongue. "But you know how tongues wag in town."
Ramiro felt the blood thumping in his ears.
"What girl?" he asked, careful not to let his voice break.
The driver looked at him through the mirror and shrugged.
"One who lives in the Salgado house… or something like that. Maybe they’re exaggerating. Sometimes 'locking up' just means leaving her in the yard."
Ramiro didn't answer. His fingers dug into the paper inside the envelope. Outside, the town appeared like a handful of low houses and tin roofs, dust floating in the air as if everything lived in suspension. The bus stopped in an open field. Ramiro got off with his backpack on his shoulder and the envelope pressed to his heart.
On the way to his house, he picked up a small white stone from the ground and put it in his pocket. He didn't know why. Maybe to remind himself he was awake.
The house where he once lived with Lucía, his wife, no longer smelled like them. He knew it before knocking: the scent of cheap perfume escaped through the cracks like a warning. The facade was painted a new white, too clean to be true. The windows sparkled. The wedding photo that used to hang in the living room was gone. Even the hibiscus Lucía had planted near the entrance was cut to the ground, as if someone wanted to erase the color.
The front door was locked.
Ramiro circled the house through the narrow side passage, just as the letter said. The back gate was still there, rusted, and the hinge shrieked when he pushed it. That sound hurt him, as if the metal were screaming about what it had seen.
The yard was dry. A few prickly pears, stones, and at the back, the pigsty covered with an old tarp. Then he heard the first shout:
"Get up! You useless brat! You’re not even good for sweeping!"
Then, a thud: leather against skin.
A muffled moan—so small that Ramiro's knees buckled.
He ran.
He ripped the tarp away with one jerk.
And there she was.
His daughter, Ana, curled in a ball on filthy straw, her nightgown torn at the shoulder, her heels covered in scabs, and her hair matted with dust. She wasn't crying; she just stared with large, hollow eyes, as if she had run out of permission to cry. Standing before her was María—the woman Ramiro had left "to take care of the girl while he served"—with a belt in her hand and a face red with rage.
María kicked the straw to corner her.
"Without your mother, you should live with animals!" she spat.
Ramiro stood motionless for a second. Not because he didn't know what to do, but because what he saw was more brutal than any training camp. Even so, his body responded without a shout.
He slid the wooden latch open almost silently. He took a step. Then another. His shadow filled the pigsty.
Ana looked up.
And she froze.
As if her brain didn't dare to believe it.
The smell of her father—earth, sweat, old metal—reached her before the words did. Ana tried to stand and stumbled, but Ramiro was already there. He lifted her gently, as one picks up something that has been broken on purpose.
Ana clung to his shirt as if it were a life raft.
"Daddy...?" she whispered. "Is it really you?"
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