Chapter 5 - THE MONEY HIS MOTHER HAD ALREADY RETURNED
“Mercedes, if your shop owes sixty-eight thousand euros, show me where the money went.”
My mother-in-law stared at me across the counter of Papelería Sol.
For the first time since I'd known her, she wasn't wearing expensive jewelry.
Her hair was pinned back carelessly.
There were dark circles beneath her eyes.
And the woman who had mocked my simple dress the night before was wearing an old gray cardigan with a missing button.
“Clara,” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for the truth.”
Her eyes moved toward Eva.
“Do we need an audience?”
“She knows what happened.”
Mercedes stiffened.
“You've been discussing family matters with strangers?”
“Eva isn't a stranger.”
I placed the property listing on the counter.
“Neither is Raúl Serrano, apparently. You've been discussing my apartment with him.”
Mercedes looked away.
Behind her, shelves of notebooks, envelopes, greeting cards, and printer supplies stood neatly arranged.
A faded photograph hung above the till.
It showed Mercedes with her late husband, Antonio, on the day they opened the shop.
They were standing beneath a bright yellow sign.
Both looked young.
Both looked happy.
I remembered Antonio.
He had been gentle, patient, and unfailingly polite.
When Javier and I married, Antonio had given us an old brass clock from his office.
“Every home needs something that reminds people time is precious,” he'd said.
The clock still sat on our hallway shelf.
Now his shop looked as though time had finally caught up with it.
Mercedes lowered herself onto a stool.
“Javier told you about the debts?”
“He said you owe sixty-eight thousand euros.”
She closed her eyes.
“That isn't right.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“How much, then?”
She hesitated.
“Just over eleven thousand in overdue payments.”
I stared.
“Eleven thousand?”
“We've had difficult months. The landlord increased the rent. Paper prices went up. Some customers stopped ordering printed materials.”
“But not sixty-eight thousand.”
“No.”
I placed another sheet on the counter.
“Then why is Javier planning to send seventy-four thousand euros from our apartment sale to Bodega Horizonte?”
Mercedes looked at the name.
Her expression changed completely.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the estate agent.”
She gripped the edge of the counter.
“Javier promised he'd dealt with that company.”
A woman emerged from the back room.
She was in her late fifties, with short silver hair and reading glasses hanging from a chain.
“Mercedes, the supplier wants to know if—”
She stopped when she saw me.
“Clara?”
It was Pilar, the shop's longtime employee.
I'd known her almost as long as Javier.
She had been at our wedding.
She had once stayed late to print invitations for a charity event I organized.
“Hello, Pilar.”
Her face softened.
Then she noticed the papers.
“What's happened?”
Mercedes shook her head.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Pilar looked at her.
“Mercedes, I've been worrying about this shop for fifteen years. Don't start pretending now.”
I couldn't help looking at her.
It was the first time I'd heard anyone speak to Mercedes so directly.
Pilar folded her arms.
“Is this about Javier?”
Mercedes didn't answer.
Pilar sighed.
“Of course it is.”
I explained what I'd discovered.
The property listing.
The unfamiliar payments.
Bodega Horizonte.
Pilar listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she turned to Mercedes.
“You need to show her the accounts.”
Mercedes shook her head.
“Those are private business records.”
“So is Clara's apartment,” Pilar replied.
Silence filled the little shop.
Then Mercedes opened a drawer beneath the counter.
Inside was a red accounting notebook.
She placed it between us.
My mother-in-law had always preferred writing financial information by hand.
She distrusted software she didn't understand and kept duplicate receipts in carefully labeled envelopes.
I had mocked that habit privately once.
Now I was grateful for it.
The notebook showed the shop's recent expenses.
Rent.
Utilities.
Supplier invoices.
Employee wages.
And several entries marked Repayment to Javier.
I stopped.
“What are these?”
Mercedes looked at the floor.
“Money I borrowed from him.”
“When?”
“Last year. Things were difficult. He said he could help temporarily.”
“How much?”
“Eighteen thousand euros.”
I felt my mouth go dry.
Javier had never mentioned lending his mother that amount.
I turned the page.
There were monthly repayments.
€700.
€1,200.
€900.
Sometimes less.
Sometimes more.
By the previous month, the entries totaled almost €14,000.
“Where did you send these repayments?” I asked.
“Usually I gave Javier the money directly.”
“Cash?”
“Mostly. Sometimes bank transfers.”
I looked at Eva.
She was already looking at me.
“Mercedes,” I said carefully, “Javier took more than twenty thousand euros from our household account recently.”
She frowned.
“He told me that money was yours together.”
“It was.”
“He said you knew.”
“I didn't.”
Mercedes stared at me.
Then her face reddened.
“He said you were happy to help.”
I wanted to shout.
Instead, I sat down.
“Show me the repayment receipts.”
Pilar brought over a box.
Inside were handwritten acknowledgments and bank transfer confirmations.
Several carried Javier's initials.
The bank transfers had gone to his personal account.
Not ours.
I photographed the records with Mercedes' permission.
Then I compared the dates with our shared-account history.
The pattern became clear.
Javier had used money from our household savings to support his mother.
Mercedes had gradually returned much of it.
But Javier hadn't put those repayments back.
He'd kept them.
And recently, he'd taken more.
For several seconds, none of us spoke.
Then Pilar said quietly, “There's something else.”
Mercedes shook her head.
“Pilar, please.”
“No. Enough.”
Pilar looked at me.
“Your husband came here three months ago. He told Mercedes she might lose the shop unless she agreed to help him with a business problem.”
“What business problem?”
“Wine imports.”
Bodega Horizonte.
Of course.
Pilar continued.
“Mercedes didn't want to sign anything. Antonio built this place with his own hands. She wouldn't risk it.”
Mercedes' eyes filled.
“I told Javier I couldn't.”
“Then why did you agree to the dinner?” I asked.
She wiped her cheeks.
“Because he said if you understood the situation, you would help. He said he only needed temporary access to money.”
I stared at her.
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
There was something painfully human in that answer.
But wanting to believe her son didn't explain the smile she'd worn while he humiliated me.
“You watched him throw wine at me.”
Mercedes lowered her head.
“I know.”
“You smiled.”
Her voice broke.
“I was angry with you for refusing. I thought you were humiliating us when we needed help.”
I leaned forward.
“Mercedes, you helped arrange a dinner I never agreed to pay for. You helped hide a meeting about my home. And when Javier attacked me, you blamed me.”
She didn't defend herself.
Not this time.
“I can't change what happened,” she whispered.
“No,” I said. “You can't.”
Pilar opened another envelope.
“This is why I kept telling Mercedes to speak to you herself.”
Inside were copies of transfer confirmations.
The most recent one was dated eight days earlier.
Mercedes had given Javier €2,500.
I checked our shared account.
There was no corresponding deposit.
Instead, two days later, Javier had sent €3,000 to Faro Capital.
I looked at Pilar.
“What is Faro Capital?”
She hesitated.
“A private financing company. Javier mentioned them when he came to the shop.”
Mercedes pressed her hands together.
“He said they were helping him straighten things out.”
I looked down at the records.
A terrible possibility was beginning to form.
Javier wasn't borrowing from his mother to save her shop.
He was using her business troubles as an excuse to take money from both of us.
And he was still hiding where it went.
Pilar turned to the last page of the red notebook.
There was a photograph tucked inside.
It showed Javier standing beside a man at a trade exhibition.
They were smiling in front of a display of imported wines.
A sign behind them read Bodega Horizonte.
I recognized the second man immediately.
Raúl Serrano.
The estate agent.
He wasn't simply helping Javier sell our apartment.
He was standing beside him in a photograph taken more than a year before the supposed business emergency.
Pilar pointed at the date written on the back.
“Mercedes thought Raúl was a new acquaintance.”
I stared at the photograph.
Raúl had told me Javier contacted him about selling our home six weeks earlier.
But he'd known Javier long before that.
I turned to Mercedes.
“Did you know they were business partners?”
She shook her head.
Then Pilar spoke.
“Clara, there's one more thing you need to understand.”
She tapped the repayment column in the notebook.
“Mercedes has already returned nearly fourteen thousand euros. Javier has been telling her that you received every payment.”
I looked at the bank statements again.
Not one of those repayments had reached our household account.
May you like
And suddenly, the most painful part wasn't even the missing money.
It was realizing that Javier had been lying to both of us for months.
