Hernán had always been one of those men who seemed invincible. Business magazines called him “the king of investments,” conferences gave him standing ovations, and photos showed him smiling in front of luxury cars and mansions with perfect gardens. From the outside, his life was a showcase of success: tailored suits, expensive watches, first-class travel.
But no one saw what happened behind his bedroom door, when the silence forced him to confront the one absence he couldn’t buy.
That absence had a name: Lorenzo. His only son, his little playmate, had disappeared a year earlier.
There was no note, no call, no explanation. One afternoon he was playing in the garden, near the red swing, and then… nothing.
As if the world had swallowed him whole.
At first, Hernán moved heaven and earth: he hired detectives, paid rewards, appeared on television, asked the police for help. Over time, the lights went out, the cameras left, the voices grew tired of repeating the same thing: “We’re sorry, there are no new leads.”
He was the only one who kept searching. That morning, like so many others, he put on the same wrinkled jacket that used to smell of expensive perfume and now only smelled of sleepless nights.
He filled the back seat of the car with stacks of posters: Lorenzo’s picture smiling, his big eyes full of life, and below it an almost heart-wrenching message: “WANTED.
ANY INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL…”. He started the engine with trembling hands and drove away from the elegant neighborhoods he knew by heart.
This time he decided to go where he’d never been before: to the neighborhoods where the streets were narrow, the walls peeling, and the houses stood almost by faith. There, no one looked at him like a millionaire.
No one knew about his businesses or his magazine covers.
There, he was just a man with bloodshot eyes putting up posters, a father sick with homesickness. He stopped beside a rusty post and took a deep breath before sticking up another poster. The tape stuck to his fingers, the paper wrinkled, and he tried to smooth it out with a delicacy he no longer possessed.
As he smoothed the photo, he whispered almost inaudibly:
—Someone must have seen you, son… someone…
The wind blew hot, stirring up dust and memories.
The world seemed to keep turning, no one caring about his pain. Hernán felt ridiculous, small, absurd with that stack of papers in his hand.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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