Chapter 2 - THE KEY THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE
Beatriz slowly lowered the key.
“What are you doing?”
Her answer came too quickly.
“Checking on Emiliano.”
“You don’t need a key to check on a baby whose mother is awake.”
Behind the door, I heard Lucía moving.
Beatriz glanced toward it.
Then toward me.
“I heard him crying.”
“He wasn’t.”
The silence between us lasted several seconds.
Finally she held up the ring.
“These are infirmary keys, Teresa.”
I knew most of them. I had issued them.
One had a blue plastic head.
The old lock on Lucía’s previous bedroom had used a blue-headed key.
“Give me the ring.”
Beatriz closed her fingers around it.
“You’re treating me like a criminal.”
“I’m asking for convent property.”
Her jaw tightened, but she handed it over.
The blue key had been filed slightly along one edge. Someone had modified it by hand.
I locked the entire ring in my desk.
At breakfast, Beatriz did not appear.
Lucía barely touched her oatmeal.
I asked her whether Beatriz had ever entered her bedroom at night.
“She checks on the babies sometimes.”
“Before the babies?”
Lucía hesitated.
“She used to bring me tea.”
“How often?”
“When I couldn’t sleep.”
That had become frequent after her first pregnancy.
The first pregnancy had nearly fractured Santa Clara.
The diocese had opened an internal review. Some parishioners stopped donating. Two sisters quietly asked whether Lucía should leave.
Lucía had spent four months away from the convent after Mateo was born before Bishop Callahan permitted her to return while her status was reviewed.
Then came Emiliano.
Another pregnancy.
Another investigation.
Another statement from Lucía insisting she had never been with a man.
I had believed her, but I had also spent too much time worrying about whether our community would survive the scandal.
I could see that now.
“What happened on nights Beatriz brought tea?”
Lucía rubbed her forehead.
“I slept.”
“Anything unusual?”
She started to say no.
Then stopped.
“Sometimes I woke up feeling… heavy.”
“Heavy?”
“Like I’d taken cold medicine. Once my nightgown was changed.”
I stared at her.
“Who changed it?”
“I assumed I did.”
Before I could answer, Rachel called.
She had arranged blood testing after seeing the puncture mark.
“I need Lucía at the hospital this morning,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I want toxicology done while whatever she was given might still be detectable.”
May you like
I looked through the glass pane of my office door.
At the end of the corridor, Beatriz was standing perfectly still.
