Chapter 5: Fragments On The Drawing Paper
The heavy oak door of Mateo's room swung open just enough for me to slip inside, carrying the small wooden breakfast tray I had prepared downstairs. The morning light filtered through the tall, leaded glass windows, casting long, pale diagonals across the hardwood floors. Mateo sat cross-legged near the foot of his bed, his back pressed against the dark wainscoting. He still wore the burgundy polo shirt and beige pants from yesterday, the fabric creased and rumpled from a night spent sitting upright. His dark hair was slightly tangled, and his eyes, dark-rimmed and hollow with exhaustion, tracked my every movement with a wary vigilance.
"I brought some toast and fruit, Mateo," I said softly, keeping my voice low and even as I set the tray down on the low bench by the window. "You don't have to eat much, but you need something in your stomach."
He didn't answer right away. He simply stared at the plate, his jaw set in a stubborn, protective line. But as I shifted my weight, my foot brushed against something rustling on the rug near the edge of the bed. I looked down. Scattered across the woven wool were several sheets of heavy sketch paper and a handful of colored pencils—wax blue, bruised purple, and sharp, aggressive strokes of black.
I knelt slowly, mindful of his sudden intake of breath, and reached out to pick up a stray sheet. Mateo scrambled forward with a sharp gasp, his small hand clamping down over the paper before my fingers could fully grasp it. His grip was surprisingly tight, his knuckles white against the heavy grain of the paper.
"Don't," he whispered, his voice trembling on the edge of a sob. "Please, Valeria. Don't look at those."
"I'm not going to hurt you, Mateo," I murmured, repeating the promise I had made in the foyer, keeping my hands open and empty on my knees. "I just don't want you sitting on them. The floor is cold."
"They'll take them away," he said, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid breaths as he pulled the scattered pages toward his lap, trying to shield them from view with his arms. "If he sees them, he'll say I'm lying. He'll say I made it all up."
"Who will?" I asked gently.
"My father," Mateo whispered, the word carrying a strange, heavy finality that made the hair on my arms stand up.
He hesitated, his gaze darting toward the hallway door as if expecting heavy footsteps on the marble stairs outside. In that brief moment of distraction, his grip on one of the loose sheets loosened just enough. My eyes caught the stark, heavy lines drawn in charcoal and blue crayon. It was a crude, devastatingly clear perspective drawing of the interior of Richard's study: the heavy mahogany desk tipped sideways, the shattered glass of a small lamp scattered across the floor like frozen tears, and two dark, indistinct figures locked in a violent, chaotic struggle against the wainscoting. The sheer fury captured in the sweeping black strokes spoke of a terror that words had failed to express.
Carefully, deliberately, I eased my hand forward and slid a smaller, simpler sketch—one showing a broken picture frame resting near a pair of polished black shoes—away from the cluster and slipped it swiftly into the deep pocket of my green apron before he could protest.
Mateo looked up at me, his tear-filled eyes wide with a mixture of fear and desperate trust. He didn't cry out. Instead, he watched the fabric of my apron settle over the hidden paper, his breathing slowly steadying as he realized what I had done.
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"You have to eat a little bit," I said quietly, gesturing toward the tray. "Just a bite of the toast. So I can take the plate back down and no one will ask questions."
Mateo bit his lower lip, hesitated for another long second, and then slowly reached out. He picked up a small corner of buttered toast, nibbled at it with a hesitant slowness, and chewed in silence. I stayed with him until the piece was gone, my hand resting gently on my own pocket, feeling the crisp edge of the hidden drawing pressed against my thigh.
