Chapter Three

You know that, in the end, everything comes down to a binary choice. Fight or flight. Do or die. You either make that decision, to cut off, to leap the gap, to pull the trigger. Or you don't, and you face the effects of your indecision. I'm not saying it's always an easy choice to make. The choices I made - they were the hardest I've ever made. And some of them, as I'm sure you know, I simply didn't make. Maybe I lied to myself. Maybe I took too much time deciding things that didn't matter, and missed the things that really did.

I guess, in a way, it doesn't matter now. Because you're gone, and all we have left are these words. Perhaps you're not even reading them. But the fact that I've created them - I can pretend that you are. That way, whoever reads them, they'll understand. They'll understand that I didn't mean to hurt you Jacqueline. Sometimes, the binary choices both lead to the same conclusions. Sometimes, it's not the choices you make, but the choices you have no control over, that define you the most.

I've been researching more than just your hideaway, you know. About your brother, and your father too. Did Antonio ever come back to you, after that final Summer Festival? I meant what I said - it was his fault. All of this.

I've attached a few things I've found. It's not all coherent, I know that. But I do what I can. I'm sure it'll make more sense to you than to me.

You pause from reading and turn to one of the attached pages. The paper is clearly of lower quality, and appears to have been hastily folded many times. There is smartly typed print on it, and some handwriting. He's clearly made notes on things. You read the heading:

Department de Policía, Melo, Uruguay
Confidencial
Dominguez, Antonio Federico

Quite how he got his hands on this file, from the police headquarters, you cannot fathom. You turn back to the letter.

I didn't do this to make you hate your brother. But you know, when he told you that he never got involved with those raids? And when he told you that I framed him for that murder that made him leave? You know what you have to do with the information I've given you. What it might mean for our story. For your father's story. For you entire family, and for everything your village thought it was fighting - thought it was killing - for.

I think he still wants me dead, Jaqueline. I need you to find him for me. In the meantime, I'll do the best to find my way back home.

I'll write again. I promise.

Gregorio


As it always is with these things, a slow nausea began to build in her stomach. She sifted back to the attached papers. Not just her brother's file, but her father's, the priest's, even hers. And then, for some reason, a page torn from a book. It was in English, not her strongest language, and so she left it for later and allowed herself instead to fall back slightly in her chair. Her stomach was now churning, painfully, stripping away the truths she had held onto.

Grief is not cleansing. It does not purify, or simplify, or bring people to better places. It is dealing with grief that does that. Learning how to move on, how to forget, how to reconcile and - perhaps - how to lie to yourself. When you are sure that the truth has been found and laid to rest, to find out that some part of it is uncertain means that all of it is uncertain. That entire part of her life, replete with its sins and its pain, burst again inside her mind like a spirit screeching for appeasement once more. If all this was true, it would mean everything in her life changed.

She looked at her desk and realised what she had in her possession. It held the truth, but it also meant that the police would be after their missing files eventually, no matter how far Melo was from where she now stayed. She stood, shoving the thick wooden chair back behind her and disturbing fresh dust from the attic floor. It swirled up, dancing in the shafts of light coming from the lonely window at the end of the room. She looked straight out of it, her eyes becoming accustomed to the early-morning blaze. The town below went about its peaceful business.

This was paranoia. She felt the old feeling stirring again, the thrill of stolen documents, the potential of the information that she held in her hands. She remembered the files she had kept, before she had put it all away for good. Where would all of this fit in? Would this be what she needed to discover the truth? But she had left those days behind her. Those days when rebellion meant something and when she was still sure of the boundaries between right and wrong. Now, despite having the old instincts stirred within her again, The Game still felt like something tired, something that kids used to play when they thought that they could still rule the world one day.

Did she still have it in her? But she remembered what this could mean. Gregorio was right - it didn't just mean the truth for her. If the right links came up, this might change everything. Did that make it worth fighting for? Or was what they had now enough?

This time, she told herself, This time it will end.

She returned to her desk, picked up her pen, and began to read again. It was what she did.