“Mom… he was inside you with me.”
Mateo’s voice was small, but the certainty behind it stopped Daniela Morales mid-step. He was five, barely tall enough to see over the edge of the fountain in Cuernavaca’s central plaza, yet the way he pointed toward the street was calm—absolute.
Daniela tightened her grip on his hand, her pulse suddenly loud in her ears. She followed his gaze.
Near the pigeons and the clatter of balloon strings, a barefoot boy stood holding a shallow box of sweets. His clothes were worn thin, his knees dusty, his hair sun-lightened from too many days outside. He looked no older than Mateo.
Daniela felt the ground tilt beneath her.
It wasn’t the poverty that froze her.
It was the reflection.
The same curls.
The same brow, drawn low when concentrating.
The same mouth, pressing inward as if holding back words.
And there—just under the chin—a faint birthmark.
The same one Mateo had.
“That’s him,” Mateo said softly, tugging at her sleeve. “The other boy. The one I see when I sleep. Mom… he was there. With us.”
Daniela’s throat closed.
A flash crossed her mind—hospital lights too bright, voices overlapping, a moment after delivery when exhaustion blurred into silence. A memory she had always dismissed as confusion. As fear. As imagination.
She had told herself there was only one heartbeat. One cry.
She had believed it.
“Mateo,” she whispered, forcing steadiness into her voice, “that’s enough. Come on. We’re leaving.”
But he didn’t move.
“I know him,” he said simply.
Then he slipped free and ran.
Daniela’s breath caught. She wanted to shout, to chase him, but her body refused to move. Across the plaza, the barefoot boy looked up just as Mateo reached him.
They stood inches apart.
No fear. No hesitation.
The boy extended his hand.
Mateo took it.
Their smiles bloomed at the same moment—identical, effortless, as if practiced long before this day.
“Hi,” the boy said quietly. His voice was gentle, untouched by the streets. “Do you see me when you dream?”
Mateo’s eyes lit up.
“Yes,” he said. “Every night.”
Daniela approached slowly. Her legs felt weak, as if she were walking on sand. She saw how the two children compared their hands, how they touched each other’s hair, how they laughed with a confidence that can’t be learned in an afternoon.
“What’s your name?” Mateo asked.
“Pablo,” the boy replied, shrinking back slightly when he noticed Daniela. “And yours?”
“Mateo. Look… we almost have the same name.”
Daniela felt a sharp pain in her stomach. She forced herself to breathe.
“Excuse me, Pablo…” she said carefully, as if walking on thin ice. “Where are your parents?”
Pablo looked down and pointed to a nearby bench. There, a thin woman, around fifty years old, slept clutching an old bag. Her clothes were dirty and her face was tired, as if life had weighed more heavily on her than it should have.
“Aunt Consuelo takes care of me,” Pablo murmured. “But sometimes she gets sick.”
Daniela pressed her lips together. Something inside her screamed that this wasn’t a coincidence. But another part of her, the part that had survived the depression of the first months of motherhood, wanted to run away. To keep the mystery. To return to the familiar life, even if it was built on questions.
“Mateo,” she said, taking his hand more tightly than necessary. “We’re leaving. Now.”
Mateo turned away, his eyes brimming with tears, as if something were being ripped from him.
“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay with my brother.”
The word “brother” landed like a thunderclap. Mateo had never asked for a brother, never even spoken of one… until that moment. Daniela felt everything she had tried so hard to deny begin to crumble.
“He’s not your brother,” she blurted out, too quickly. “You don’t have any brothers.”
“Yes, I do,” Mateo cried. “I know I do. He talks to me every night.”
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