But he never came back.
Four years… then five… and nothing. Not a call, not a letter. I asked his classmates, even at university, and it was as if he’d never existed. The phone number was canceled and his address was no longer registered. I carried on with my life, bent over with exhaustion, selling vegetables at the market and collecting bottles at night to slowly pay off the debt.
Thirteen years after that first loan to raise him, I returned to the bank, my hands shaking, my back hunched, and my vision already blurred. I had all my paperwork and said to the teller:
“Miss, I’ve come to settle my debt. I want to pay whatever’s left, down to the last cent.”
She typed on the computer, stared at me, and frowned.
—Wait a moment… this bill has already been paid… for two years?
I froze.
—What do you mean? Who… who paid for it?
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