I washed the sheets seven times and still the strange smell of my husband wouldn’t go away… but when I tore the mattress with my own hands, the truth hidden inside froze my heart and destroyed our eight-year marriage in an instant.

I took a deep breath, but the air scratched me from the inside.

I looked at the package again.

There was a woman’s blouse with dark stains, stiffened by time.

A gold earring.

A crumpled receipt from a pharmacy in Monterrey.

And a small chain with a medal of the Virgin.

None of that was mine.

Nothing.

I continued to remove the filling with my hands.

I found another package.

Then another one.

One of them had photographs.

I pulled them out with numb fingers.

In the first one, Alejandro was hugging the woman with the ID card in front of a cream-colored house.

In another, she was smiling with one hand on her belly.