Marina called when I was at Catalina’s. Since her brother gets back tomorrow, she said, her dad wants to give me some things he picked up in the supermarket with us in mind. She’s also bought some plants for their house, and has one for our apartment. I was in the car on the way home, listening to the radio, flicking between stations, when I heard this: ‘I’m Rosa María Hernández, I’m thirty-five years old and I come from Chihuahua. I’m here to represent the other families who couldn’t be here and the ones who are here behind me now. At this meeting, I want to ask you some questions, Mr President, because I want to know how you’re going to restore peace to this country. My fifteen-year-old daughter Renata was murdered in the early hours of March 29th last year and I want to ask you, sir, what would you do if one of your children was tortured and killed? Tell me, what are you going to do to reduce impunity in the judicial system? How would you feel, sir, if you arrived at the Public Ministry seeking justice for your baby girl, and the authorities took no notice because they were busy with other things? I got a phone call that said come and identify your daughter. And how would you feel if the authorities said shush, madam, stop shouting, stop crying, go home quietly because sobbing here won’t change anything? They tried to say my Renata was mixed up in bad things, but my husband, her brothers and sisters, and God and I know she wasn’t, we know my Renata didn’t do anything wrong. My Renata was fifteen years old, she was at secondary school, my daughter was a good girl. Ever since they killed her my life’s been hell, like the hell so many mothers here are going through. I’ve begged, I’ve cried everywhere, I’ve asked for help and never, ever been given any. I went to ask the governor for help, but he didn’t even deign to open the door, and he’s not answering my calls, either. Who’s going to give us an explanation? Will my daughter Renata’s killer go unpunished? Will the more than ninety thousand recorded deaths in recent years go unpunished? Will you deign to answer us or are you going to shut the door like all the other politicians? Any action you intend to take, don’t forget that first you have to resolve the cases from the past and don’t forget it’s not just me asking for this, we’re all asking for it, all of us who’ve lost our children, we’re asking from the bottom of our hearts and with all the pain in our souls, because losing a child is the most painful thing there is, more painful even than our own death because we wish we’d been taken in their place.’