She dreamed of the dark tunnel, of the chained corpse, of that heavy breathing she had heard deep within the mountain. She dreamed of Don Julián Medina’s empty eyes, staring at her from the shadows, as if he were still asking for something she didn’t understand. Sometimes she would wake in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, her heart pounding like a drum, and then she would get up, walk barefoot to the room where her children slept, and stand there, watching them breathe, reminding herself that they were alive, that they were safe, that it had all been worth it.
One afternoon, while Catalina was sewing in the small hallway of her house, she received an unexpected visit. It was an elderly woman with white hair pulled back in a tight bun, dressed in an elegant black suit, though worn with age. She introduced herself as Doña Hortensia Medina, niece of Don Julián Medina, the man who had died chained up in the tunnel. She had traveled from Guadalajara after learning everything that had happened and wanted to meet the woman who had found her uncle and brought him to justice.
Catalina invited her in. She offered her fresh water and a place to sit. Doña Hortensia sat down slowly, with the careful movements of someone carrying the weight of many years and many sorrows. She told Catalina that when she was a child, her family had been rich and powerful, that her uncle Julián was a good, generous man who helped the poor and gave work to hundreds of people, but that when the violence came after the revolution, men like Don Erasmo saw an opportunity to take what wasn’t theirs.
Doña Hortensia told her that her family had disappeared one night in 1930, and that she had only survived because she was visiting a cousin in another town that night. When she returned, her uncle’s house had burned down. Her relatives had vanished, and no one in the town wanted to talk about what had happened. Everyone was afraid. For decades, Doña Hortensia had searched for answers, but the doors always closed until Catalina, unknowingly, without seeking it, had opened her uncle’s tomb and shouted the truth to the world.
Doña Hortensia took Catalina’s hands in her own, hands that were wrinkled and cold, and thanked her with tears in her eyes. She told her that at last her uncle could rest in peace, that at last there was justice, and that she would never forget what Catalina had done. She said that part of the recovered treasure belonged to her as his heir, but that she had decided to donate most of it to charity, because she knew that was what her uncle Julián would have wanted.
