When I arrived, I understood why.

The house was old and damp.
The wooden ceiling creaked.
The walls were full of mold stains.

The air had that heavy smell of moisture accumulated over the years.

The owner of the house, Doña Carmen, a woman in her sixties with a friendly smile, said to me:

“This room had been empty for a long time, mijo. That’s why it’s so dirty. If you clean it up a little bit, you’re going to be fine here.
“Besides, this neighborhood is very quiet.

“Quiet is enough,” I thought.

I just needed a place to sleep, put my backpack and connect my laptop.

I paid the rent and moved in that same afternoon.

After cleaning for several hours, the place was at least habitable.

Behind the house was a small courtyard filled with neglected plants.

In one corner was a single old pot with a plumeria tree, crooked and almost leafless.
The land was completely dry, as if no one had watered it in months.

I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Until night came.

That first night, I understood why the place was so cheap…

Around one o’clock in the morning, when I was already half asleep, I heard a noise coming from the backyard.

Click… clack…

I opened my eyes open.
My heart began to pound.

Was it the wind?
Or was someone outside?

Click… clack…

It sounded like something was gently knocking on the back door.

At the time I thought maybe it was a cat or a rat.

So I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep.

But around three in the morning, the noise returned.

This time it was accompanied by something worse.

A sigh.

Slow.
Heavy.

I felt a chill run down my spine.

But I tried to calm down.

“It’s an old house,” I said to myself.
“Surely it is the wind coming through the cracks.”

He didn’t want to look like someone who is easily scared.

Especially when I didn’t have money to move somewhere else.

The next morning I decided to check out the backyard.

Maybe the door was loose or a hinge was loose.

When I came out…

I didn’t see anything strange.

Everything seemed normal.

Except for one thing.

The old plumeria pot I’d seen the night before…

Now it was slightly tilted, as if someone had moved it during the night.

The pot was tilted.

I stared at her for a few seconds.

The dirt he had spilled the night before was still scattered on the ground, but something was different. I didn’t know exactly what, but I felt that strange sensation that comes when something doesn’t fit.

Me agaché slowly.

Under the broken pot was something hard buried in the dry soil.

I carefully pushed a little more dirt away with my hand.

Then I saw it.

It was a small rusty metal box, the size of a book.

My heart started beating faster.

I looked around the courtyard, as if someone might be watching me from some window. The alley was still silent, as always.

I opened the box.

Inside were several things wrapped in a fabric yellowed by time.

First I found a small, old, red plastic toy car.

Then a photograph.

The photo showed a young woman and a boy of about five years old. They were sitting in that same courtyard. The woman hugged the child with a huge smile.

Behind them I recognized the old wall of the house.

That same courtyard.

The same place where I was kneeling.

Below the photo was a letter folded many times.

The paper was fragile, but it could still be read.

It said:

“For my son, Mateo.
If you ever find this… it means you returned home.”

I felt a lump in my throat.

I kept reading.

“If I’m not here when you come back, I want you to know that I loved you every day of my life.
It doesn’t matter what people say.
It doesn’t matter what happened.”

The letter continued in a trembling handwriting.

“Your father left when you were very young.
He promised to come back for us, but he never came back.
Still, you always believed that one day I would.”

I was silent.

The wind moved the dry leaves of the yard slightly.

The letter continued.

“One day you went out to look for him.
You were only ten years old.
You said you would go to the bus station because s