My brother-in-law is a police officer

Saturday, 20:40

- Well, you've finally shown up. We were more than worried about you, son - I was surprised that, not even at that moment, my father, with his calm and non-confrontational nature, didn't give me a couple of historic slaps.

- I know. I already know, dad. It was a mess on my part. I swear I wanted to call you, but... I don't know, I don't remember what time it was. I looked for my cell phone and couldn't find it, and then I fell asleep again, well, not just asleep. They told me in the emergency room that they discovered that...

- Yes, I'm already aware. You were drugged, and the doctors said that the most likely thing is that you lost your will or consciousness. Listen: your mother, no. She only knows that you were robbed and that the police found you. Gerardo suggests that, taking advantage of the head wound, that's it, listen to me carefully, please, the only reason why you lost consciousness. And that the agents, by protocol, requested an ambulance and took you to the hospital. And that's it - my father sentenced. Gerardo spoke to me first, and I asked him to invent a softer version for your mother. And luckily, he's here. If it hadn't been for him, who knows if you'd still be drugged and lying in that...

'In that pine grove' he didn't even dare to finish the sentence.

It's quite generous to give the qualifier of pine grove to a few twisted pine trees, half dry, surrounded by bathtubs, old sofas, and some broken washing machines. A secluded spot, on a slope, with what is not visible from the road and half hidden behind an abandoned industrial warehouse, still full of syringes from when heroin punished many young people in this city. There was even a bed base and a dirty, smelly mattress behind some bushes, where some people seemed to have no qualms about fucking. I never would. I'm about to finish nursing school, and I can be a pig, but everything has its limits.

- Angel, I think you should thank Gerardo for everything he's done since your mother called Lucia last night, and how he's committed his colleagues and even the commissioner, asking them to look for you under every stone.

- Yes, dad. You see, I regained a bit of consciousness when they put me on the stretcher and took me to the ambulance. I heard someone saying that they should notify Inspector Velasco immediately - I dragged my words, still not daring to look him in the face.

I would have liked to dare to tell him that the voice that reached my ears at that moment sounded familiar, that I had already heard it the night before, a few hours earlier, in a different situation.

I would have liked to. I would have given anything to be able to tell him and for that comment to have sparked his interest, and for him to have started asking me questions. For my father to have subjected me to an relentless interrogation, to demonstrate his concern for me, to know what had happened to his son, to hug me...