Chapter 3 - The Notebook My Daughter Hid Under Her Mattress
“DAD, I WROTE DOWN EVERY TIME THEY HURT ME BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID I'D START BELIEVING I DESERVED IT.”
Sofia said those words the following morning.
We were sitting in Lucía's small dining room.
A pot of cinnamon tea sat between us.
Outside, the neighborhood was waking up.
Children were walking to school.
Shop owners were opening their doors.
Cars were passing as though the world hadn't changed.
But mine had.
Sofia placed a worn blue notebook on the table.
Its corners were bent.
The cover was stained.
Several pages had been taped back together.
“What's this?” I asked.
She pushed it toward me.
“My record.”
I opened the first page.
At the top, in my daughter's careful handwriting, were the words:
Things I Need to Remember.
Below that was a date.
And an entry.
Patricia said I couldn't eat dinner because Bianca didn't like how I cleaned the kitchen.
The next page described being forced to wash clothes late at night.
Another recorded Bianca slapping her arm after Sofia refused to lend her a sweater.
Another described a school project Patricia had destroyed because Sofia hadn't finished vacuuming the living room.
I turned page after page.
There were dozens of entries.
Some were only a sentence long.
Others filled half a page.
Each one ended with a small number.
At first, I didn't understand what those numbers meant.
Then Sofia explained.
“That's how many days until you were supposed to come home.”
I looked at one entry.
Dad comes home in six days.
Another.
Dad comes home in three days.
Then a sentence written in darker ink.
He came home, but Patricia stayed next to us the whole time.
I had to put the notebook down.
I remembered that visit.
I'd returned exhausted from a twelve-day route.
Patricia cooked a special dinner.
She poured me coffee.
She kept telling me Sofia was tired from school.
I remembered asking my daughter why she seemed so quiet.
She'd said:
“I'm fine, Dad.”
And I'd believed her.
“Sofia,” I whispered, “why didn't you show me this?”
She looked at me with an expression I would never forget.
“Because every time I tried to talk to you alone, Patricia came into the room.”
I closed my eyes.
The memories returned one after another.
Patricia answering my calls.
Patricia speaking for Sofia.
Patricia telling me my daughter was becoming difficult.
Patricia insisting that teenagers needed discipline.
And me, too tired and distracted to recognize what was happening.
“I thought working hard made me a good father,” I said quietly.
Sofia reached for her tea.
“You were trying to take care of us.”
“I was. But that doesn't change the fact that I missed things I should have noticed.”
She didn't argue.
And I didn't ask her to forgive me.
That was something I would have to earn.
Later that morning, we met with Sofia's school counselor, Teresa Álvarez.
Teresa was a woman in her early fifties with silver-streaked hair and a calm, attentive manner.
She asked Sofia whether she wanted me present.
Sofia nodded.
Teresa opened a file.
“Gabriel, we've been worried about Sofia for some time.”
I felt sick.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“We attempted to contact the number listed in her file.”
“Which number?”
Teresa read it aloud.
Patricia's.
“And my number?”
She hesitated.
“It was removed under an authorization we believed you had signed.”
I asked to see it.
The signature was false.
I photographed the document while Teresa explained that the school would preserve its original records and cooperate with the investigation.
Then she showed me several reports.
Sofia had fallen asleep in class.
She'd arrived without lunch.
She'd missed project deadlines despite previously being an excellent student.
One teacher had written:
Student appears unusually anxious about contacting home.
Another reported that Sofia had asked whether the school could notify her father directly.
Patricia had responded by claiming Sofia was exaggerating ordinary family disagreements.
I turned toward my daughter.
“Did you know they were trying to help?”
Sofia shook her head.
“Patricia said the teachers thought I was lying.”
Teresa leaned forward.
“Sofia, I want you to understand something. Asking for help was the right thing to do.”
My daughter stared at her.
Then she began to cry.
Quietly.
Not dramatically.
Just a few tears that seemed to carry months of exhaustion.
Teresa waited until she was ready to continue.
She then explained that the school could help arrange ongoing counseling and establish safe communication directly with me.
For the first time since coming home, I saw a little of the fear leave Sofia's face.
That afternoon, we returned to Lucía's house.
I showed her the blue notebook.
She read only a few pages before closing it.
“I should have done more,” she whispered.
“None of us knew how bad it was.”
Lucía shook her head.
“I knew something was happening. I just didn't know what.”
Then she stood up.
“There's something I need to show you.”
She walked into her small office and switched on an old computer.
Several security-camera recordings appeared on the screen.
“My grandson installed a camera facing the backyard and side gate after someone tried to break into my shed.”
She searched through a folder.
“Do you remember Sofia's birthday?”
My chest tightened.
“Of course.”
“Something happened that night. I kept the recording because it troubled me.”
She clicked a file.
The screen showed our backyard.
The time was shortly after seven in the evening.
Through our dining room window, I could see balloons and bright lights.
Then Sofia appeared outside.
Alone.
Wearing the pale blue dress I'd bought her for her birthday.
She stood beside the window, holding her arms close to her body.
Inside, people were laughing.
I leaned toward the screen.
Lucía paused the recording.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, “before you watch the rest, I need to tell you something.”
I looked at her.
May you like
Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Your daughter didn't spend a few minutes outside that night. She was there for almost four hours.”
