Mateo did not repair the large brown envelope cast with thick strips of adhesive tape on the worn wooden door of his room. The small space, which was once only used to accumulate old “Day of the Dead” decorations and stuffed cardboard boxes, was now its only refuge. Mateo is barely 21 years old, but he carries more weight than an entire life on his shoulders, a life that completely fits into a packed backpack. Every day, his routine was relentless: he remembered 5 days a week, he was still like the dark céu, apanhava or “pesero” always noisy and busy that crossed the busy streets of Ecatepec, in the State of Mexico, and worked long and exhausting hours in a derelict mechanical office. O cheiro a burnt oil and the doors seemed trapped in their skin.

His life has changed drastically in the last 6 years. Since the tragic accident on the perigosa road to Puebla, a head-on collision during a relentless storm that swept the country under the noses, Mateo was forced to live in favor with his paternal uncles, Carmen and Arturo. Our first few months were filled with tragedy, tears, hot food and promises that he would never be alone. Every few years, like water evaporating, if the asphalt is not hot, that love disappears. Mateo left being a mourning nephew to become a heavy burden, an unwanted tenant in his own family. You will have to demand money for electricity, gas, and the ingredients in your kitchen. There was leftover rice and feijão, he ate it; If you don’t, you’ll be happy with cold tortillas.

On the third night, when I tear the side of the envelope and read the first stamped line, Mateo feels that our lungs are missing. It was an official notification from a capital card. The document coldly informed that he had been identified as the sole legal heir of a property left by someone named Alejandro Morales. A memory happened like a shock: a homely, weak, thin man singing during a wake 11 years ago. The herança consisted of an abandoned farmhouse in a distant and humble neighborhood of Chalco.

Now that my heart is trembling, Mateo descends into the living room, where his uncles distractedly watch a soap opera on television. “Uncle, aunt… I received this,” he murmured, holding out the official paper. Arturo, irritated by the interruption, started my letter. His eyes swept across the lines of the document quickly and a smile of pure disdain appeared on his severe face.

“A man who has fallen from rot on the slopes of Chalco? This miséria is not worth even 1 peso furado,” Arturo whispered, pulling the paper to the table.

Aunt Carmen stood up abruptly, crossing her arms with an expression of gain. “You are going to sell this immediately. Aliás, you are giving us thousands of pesos for all these years so that we can give you some money and food. You are going to also amanhã same to the cartório assinar your fathers and to pass the land for the name of your uncle. So we will abate your division of gratidão.”

Mateo recuou, feeling a sharp pain without fear. “No. Sir, go home to me. I want to go see the property before making any decision.”

Arturo’s face turned red with blind fury. His voice echoed like a trovão, abafando or som da televisão. “You ungrateful miserável! We fed you for 6 years! You don’t murder those daddies right now to treat the bandages, you stick to your work and you come home this very night. I don’t want parasites under my face!”

O paralisou shock Mateo. Absolute cruelty makes words shorter than any physical attack. He just said a single word, climbed slowly up the stairs, put his few pieces of clothing in his backpack and headed out to the cold street. Apanhou is the last bus heading to Chalco. When I entered the house early in the morning, under a thin chuva, appeared with a structure of rotted wood and a roof of rusted sheet metal, frightening under the broken light of a post. He pushed the door opener noisily. To illuminate the gloomy interior with a telemobile lantern, Mateo takes a step back. It is not enough to prove that it is ready to happen…

PART 2

In the shimmering, bluish light of Mateo’s telemobile, he entered the tiny room, emptied and covered by the door of the casebre in Chalco. The noise, the humid land and the old wood was intense and penetrating, but, frighteningly, the place was not vandalized. There was a strange peace inside, an absolute silence that contrasted violently with the irrational fury and chaos that he left behind in the house of two uncles. Sem ter to where to go, Mateo deitou-se no irregular chão de tábuas de própria de madeira, encostou a Cabeça a a sua backpack packed and, exhausted by the silenced tears and peeling the traição of his own family, he ended up falling asleep deeply, packed with his hair som da chuva to beat the metal roof.

Next morning, the intense rays of sunlight will enter the cool streets of your mornings when you wake up. Soon after, I was startled by soft, rhythmic beats in the half-open doorway. When he got up to his bed, he stood with a blessed lady, who was wearing a flowery avental typical of Mexican dresses, with perfectly dressed white hair.

“You must be Mateo, right?” she said, with a comforting and genuine smile that immediately touched a wounded soul. “Here is Doña Rosa, next to dear Alejandro. He always told me that one day you would appear here. Here, prepare yourself some quentinhos tamales and a big cup of hot coffee. You seem to need it for the next day.”

Mateo, deeply moved by that totally unexpected goodness, oiled delicious food. As soon as we were savoring the small almoço sitting at the entrance, Doña Rosa sat at a respectful distance and began to talk about Alejandro’s hair. I remember, with nostalgia, that he lived there alone for 47 years. He was an extremely humble homem, who worked on land, kept old things and, despite not having great possessions, had a giant heart and a silent knowledge.

“I left this place for a very strong reason, my son,” murmured Doña Rosa, removing a small golden key from her purse, spending a little iron-clad key, and handing it to Mateo. “He asked me to give you this so that you check and start storing the things in the kitchen. I told you that your heart would know exactly where to use them.”

Intrigued by the mystery and his stomach finally comforted, Mateo spent the next few hours working hard. Limpou or pó accumulated of decades, varreu or chão of taboos corridas that rangiam at each step and began to remove the sparse movables apodrecidos. It was precisely in the small, dark kitchen that I tried to drag a wooden cabinet painted white that had already peeled, which felt something strange. The wardrobe was too heavy for its size, and the bottom seemed unusually loose. Out of curiosity, Mateo forced a back table with a tool he found not right. The wood opens with a stalo, revealing a secret compartment carefully hidden in the structure of the casebre wall.

Inside, there was a sturdy and quite heavy metal box. Most of Mateo tremiavelmente uncontrollavelmente as he glued the small golden key that Doña Rosa had made hours before. Inseriu-a not dark chained. Rodou com força. The metallic click seems to echo throughout the silent house.

When you open the heavy lid of the box, or its memory disappears completely. The interior was completely lined with dozens of large pieces of money. Notes of 500 and 1000 pesos, packed with care and precision almost religious. Mateo ajoelhou-se began to tell the notes, with the tears to turvarem-lhe vision. There were, perfectly preserved, exactly 1000000 pesos. A true fortune, something unimaginable for a simple mechanic who barely earns a few pieces.

At the bottom of the box, there was a yellow envelope with a time, with the name “Mateo” written outside. He opened it with extreme delicacy and began to read a letter written in an old-fashioned, tremulous handwriting, but shimmering in firmness:

“Dear Mateo. If you are reading these lines, it is because you came here and proved to be exactly the brave young man that I always knew you were. All this money is the fruit of a lifetime of hard work. I thank you because, 11 years ago, a suffocating day during a funeral where all my blood family Agia como se eu fosse invisível, tu foste o only human being que olhou nos olhos. Foste o sole me nino que, sem que ninguém obrigasse, traversed the room to offer me a simple flake of fresh water. That your small selfless gesture keeps me alive inside during all these years of immense solidarity. money for loved ones “own destiny for truly free beings.”

Mateo’s choro tornu-se uncontrolável. The immense gratification invades the world, violently expelling the bitterness of the rejeição two uncles. However, the letter continues with a folded second page, so Mateo read on as his blood gelled immediately as he saw it.

“There is something very serious that you need to know,” he continued in Don Alejandro’s letter, num tom more severe. “My own uncle Arturo saw you trying to find me here 1 year ago. He discovered through illicit contacts that the lands of this neighborhood of Chalco would be absurdly valued with the approval of the construction of the new main street. He tried, with screams and angry noises, to force me to sell him or her.” I am married to an absolute misery. Arturo is a poor man, profitable and without scruples. Therefore, I certify that every millimeter of this land is solely and exclusively not named, so that justice can be fought against evil.

An electric shock brutally struck Mateo’s spine. That terrifying twist of reality crumbles and disintegrates into any trace of doubt or family guilt that one can still feel. Uncle Arturo knew about absolutely everything. A dramatic explosion of fury and false moralism in the previous night did not happen when Mateo refused to sell a “miséria”, but simply because Arturo knew the million-dollar value that the land would reach shortly and wanted to ruthlessly steal the inheritance from his own nephew.

The revelation transformed Mateo’s deep sadness into a cold, silent, and highly calculating mood. He meticulously kept all of his money in a metal box, carefully hiding it beneath the false tabs in the living room and carefully bringing it home with the new children he bought in the corner store. On crucial days to follow, Mateo used a tiny part of the money to immediately hire the best lawyer in the region and register the property officially and securely under his name. At the same time, using his skills, he began to buy construction materials. He worked hard restoring the house from dawn to dusk, dreaming and smiling.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, exactly 2 long weeks after being violently expelled to the street, which in the peace of the neighborhood was torn by the shrill sound of an aggressive motor. The luxurious and recently purchased car on credit from Uncle Arturo stopped abruptly in front of the renovated farmhouse. Arturo and Aunt Carmen leave the vehicle under pressure, accompanied by a cheap-looking man who breathes the arrogance of a front lawyer.

Arturo, with his face red with impatience, walked towards the freshly painted door and began to explode with violence. “Mateo! Where are you hiding? Come here and get out right now!” he shouted.

Open door-to wander. Mateo, sujo compó de cement mas com uma stance uncrivelmente ereta e confiante, desceu os degraus da entrance. He secured a heavy hammer in my direction. His expression was not the stiff and invisible youth from before.

“We see you giving your last chance,” he said to Aunt Carmen, displaying a cynical smile. “You will receive this document immediately transferring total ownership to your uncle’s name, or our attorney will process you for all 6 years of divided housing and food expenses. We are going to throw away the last peso you earn in your miserable life.”

Mateo didn’t blink. Olhou fixedmente para el document na mão do advogado, depois ergueu os olhos para o uncle. A calm and deeply icy smile dawned on the face of the young mechanic.

“Do you know something, my dear uncle?”, said Mateo, with a projected and unstoppable voice that echoed strongly on the dirt road, making Doña Rosa and dozens of other curious sights immediately appear on the street. “During all these days, I have not the least curiosity or your level of desperation because of a man who fell from rot that you yourself swore was not worth even 1 peso furado. But you made a crystal clear sense when I found a murdered letter by Don Alejandro.”

O advogado de fato cheap parou de sorrir.

“A letter where he describes and details in detail how you lived here for exactly 1 year trying to steal him home. How did you threaten physical aggression to try to stay on his lands, previously knowing the construction of the government’s new millionaire road.”

Arturo’s face disappeared completely in a thousandth of a second. His mouth was open and he did not emit any sound. His lawyer went dry, instinctively remembering two steps in the direction of the car.

“Don Alejandro was intelligent and his proofs were irrefutably written, uncle. He is my true lawyer, a professional in the city center that he had hired, he had everything in his possession,” declared Mateo, advancing with a heavy step that made Carmen look scared. “If you try to prosecute me with these lies, or if you try to step on my terrain again, I denounce you again for continuous attempted extortion and violent fraud against someone.”

The silence on the street is dense and suffocating.

“You never, in 6 years, saw me as your family. I was just your silent slave, a worker who paid dearly to sleep in a dark room. Divided is paid. Now, I say in front of my house before I call the authorities.”

The humiliation reflected on Carmen’s face was absolute and devastating. Arturo tried to pathetically babble on a love without connection, but the terror of being unmasked perante todo o bairro paralisou-o. Under the attentive gaze of the downcast laughter of two indignant vizinhos from Chalco, the uncles retreated like stricken children, busily entered the car and fled at extremely high speed, disappearing forever wrapped in a thick cloud of poeira and shame.

Mateo longu or Martelo did not cry and breathed deeply, dating his eyes as he felt the pure freedom encher-lhe his lungs até ao limite. The cruel weight of 6 years of evaporated oppression.

The long happy months that followed this great victory, Mateo’s life transformed into a true story of improvement. As we know that when he sent the 1000,000 pesos under administration, he did not commit the mistake of showing off. I don’t buy luxury cars or clothes from famous drivers. Deeply honoring his working roots in the memory of Don Alejandro, he finished renovating the house in a spectacular way. Transformed the front of the abandoned patio into a large, modern and equipped mechanical office, the so-called “Mateo Office”, which quickly gained fame for the honesty of its work.

You never again have to remember to be exhausted at dawn to pick up busy buses. Use part of the money to help Mrs. Rosa completely replace the screen in her house. Every sacred Sunday, we share a great meal together at a long table, laughing and talking like a true family that the wonderful and unforeseen destiny has chosen to unite.

Mateo learns in the most painful way, but also the most rewarding, that the blood in your eyes does not really define your family. I discovered that the true wealth of life is not in the dark profit of those who try to steal it, but rather in the simple, silent and totally disinterested goodness of a measly flake of water offered on a recent day. A definitive justification is only made on our cold marble tribunes; Many times, it passes through the surprising, poetic and perfect voltas of life.

And you, what are you going to read this now? What was the attitude that was most impervious and unfair that a person in your own family had the courage to do you? What was the most unexpected kindness you’ve ever received from a complete stranger who completely changed the way your day went? Leave your exciting story and your comments below, share this text with your friends so that the message reaches more people and you always remember this inescapable message: the universe has an incredibly fair way to reward that we keep, despite everything, a heart pure.