On the first day of every month, at exactly nine in the morning, my phone confirmed a familiar notification: a $300 transfer completed successfully. The recipient was Doña Clara, the mother of Marina — my wife, who had supposedly died five years earlier in a tragic accident. Sending that money had become a ritual, a promise I made at her funeral when I saw her mother trembling beside the grave.
Marina had once asked me to look after her if anything ever happened, and I had taken that vow seriously. Each transfer felt like a thread connecting me to the love I had lost, proof that grief had not erased loyalty.
Life moved forward, but my heart remained fixed in the past. Friends told me it was time to let go, that I could not carry responsibility forever. I always answered that it wasn’t about obligation, but about honoring memory. Then one day, my bank called to say the transfer could no longer be processed without updated account details. I tried reaching Doña Clara, but her phone numbers no longer worked. Unease settled in. On impulse, I decided to visit the small coastal village where she lived, hoping to resolve the issue in person and perhaps find closure in the place where Marina grew up.
