The Boy Everyone Feared

The little boy lifted the bronze horse, and everyone shouted at Valeria to run.

She had time to turn sideways. That saved her face. The horse struck her ribs instead, knocking her against the table she had been polishing. Her bucket overturned. Gray water spread across the marble toward a man's immaculate black shoes.

"Mateo!"

The man’s voice cracked through the hall.

The boy flinched, then came at her harder. Four years old, barefoot, his pajama shirt twisted around his neck. He kicked her shin and drew his foot back again.

Valeria caught the next kick against the folded cloth in her hand and moved out of reach.

"That hurt. I won't let you kick me again."

Two guards stepped forward. Mateo's eyes followed their hands to their holsters.

His mouth opened. The scream that came out seemed too large for his small chest.

"Please stop moving," Valeria said.

One guard stared at her. "Miss, you need to—"

"All of you. Just for a second."

She had not intended to give orders in this house. Twenty minutes earlier, Doña Socorro had told her not to speak unless spoken to, not to enter the north wing, and above all not to go near the child.

Now her side throbbed, her uniform was wet, and Alejandro Ríos was looking at her as though she had pulled a gun.

But he lifted his hand. The guards stopped.

Mateo stood between them, fists pressed against his thighs. His gaze kept darting past Valeria toward a dark corridor. A door at the far end was swinging shut.

He wasn't looking at the horse. He wasn't looking at her.

Valeria lowered herself carefully onto one knee, well away from the spilled water.

"I'm going to sit here," she told him. "I'm not going to grab you."

He bared his teeth. There were tears on his cheeks, although she doubted he knew it.

She put the cloth down.

"You don't have to come closer."

Behind him, Alejandro took one step.

Mateo spun toward the sound with both hands over his ears.

"Mr. Ríos," Valeria said, her throat suddenly dry. "Could you stay there?"

The silence was awful.

She knew the surname. Everyone in Santa Catarina knew it. Men who worked for Ríos transportation companies did not discuss the cargo. People who borrowed from the wrong people sometimes mentioned his name in frightened whispers. Her neighbor had described the cleaning position as excellent money and then refused to give her a ride to the gates.

Alejandro remained where he was.

"I'm here, Mateo," he said, quieter now.

The boy looked back at Valeria. She kept her hands on her own knees.

"I got scared too," she said. "That horse was big."

His lower lip moved.

"I don't know what's frightening you. You don't have to tell me right now."

She had no special training. She had once spent forty minutes outside a hospital bathroom while her brother insisted he wasn't frightened of another examination. Gabriel had been fourteen then, old enough to be ashamed of crying. Every attempt to drag him out had made it worse.

Eventually she had sat against the door and complained about the hospital sandwiches until he laughed.

There was nothing funny to say now.

"I'm staying right here," she said.

Mateo stared at her for so long her injured side began to tremble with the effort of holding still. Then his hand rose.

Someone behind her inhaled sharply.

The boy reached for her sleeve.

His fingers closed around the cheap blue fabric, then loosened. He watched her face, apparently waiting for something.

She did not move.

A sob caught in his throat.

"Oh," she whispered.

He stumbled into her so abruptly she barely got her arm around his back. The pain in her ribs flashed white. She swallowed a gasp and steadied him without tightening her hold.

Mateo buried his face against her neck.

His crying was wet and furious and exhausted. He gripped her collar as though the floor might open beneath him.

Valeria rested her cheek against his hair.

"I've got you."

Alejandro made a sound. She looked up.

He stood with one hand half extended, his expression stripped of everything she had expected to find there. He was younger than his reputation had made him in her mind. Dark hair, broad shoulders, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled back. And a face that seemed unable to decide whether it was allowed to hope.

Socorro pressed her fingertips to her mouth.

"He hasn't let anyone hold him," she whispered.

Alejandro crouched a few feet away.

"Mateo. Let me help her. She's hurt."

The boy's head jerked up. His fingers dug into Valeria's shoulder. He began shaking his head so violently that she felt the movement through her whole body.

Alejandro reached out.

"Wait," she said.

His eyes snapped to hers.

"Please. He's only just stopped being afraid."

For a moment she thought she had lost the job before she had finished her first room.

Then Alejandro lowered his hand.

He sat down on the marble in his expensive trousers and waited.

It was the first thing about him that surprised her.

By the time Mateo fell asleep, Valeria's knee had gone numb. A guard fetched a chair. Socorro brought water and looked everywhere except at the child curled against the new cleaner.

Alejandro stayed nearby until a man with a phone appeared at the far end of the hall. Even then he did not immediately get up.

"I'll be in the study," he told Mateo, although the boy was asleep. "I'm not leaving the house."

Valeria watched him go.

She noticed the door again. The north corridor. Closed now.

An hour later a doctor examined the darkening bruise on her side in an upstairs sitting room. He said she needed rest and should return for further attention if the pain or her breathing worsened. Alejandro listened from the doorway, his expression tightening when the doctor lifted the edge of the ice pack.

"Your expenses are covered," he said afterward. "And today's wages. You don't have to finish the shift."

"I wasn't planning to polish anything with a child attached to me."

His mouth moved almost into a smile.

Mateo sat on the sofa beside her, awake now, two fingers still hooked through her cuff.

"You should go home," Alejandro said. "I'll have someone drive you."

She looked at the time. Gabriel would be waiting for lunch. He would call it lunch even if all they had was yesterday's rice.

"Thank you. I do need to go."

At the word go, Mateo pulled her sleeve toward his chest.

"I'll explain," she said softly.

She shifted to face him.

"I have a brother at home. His name is Gabriel. I need to make sure he's eaten something besides crackers."

Mateo's grip tightened.

Alejandro knelt beside the sofa, careful not to touch him.

"She has a family, son."

The boy slid off the cushion and wrapped both arms around Valeria's waist.

She looked down at his dark head. His breath was speeding up again.

In the doorway, Socorro whispered, "Perhaps she could stay."

Valeria felt Alejandro's gaze settle on her.

She could not promise this child something she hadn't decided. Not even for the money. Not even with his frightened hands locked behind her back.

"Mateo," she said, "look at me. We need to make a plan."