The sweet odor of Sinu's perfume engulfed him, trapping him in a warm embrace. Her small frame was no indication of how strong the woman was, and no indication of the amount of love the woman possessed.

"My boy, it's good to see you again. How have you been?" Alejandro asked from the side, watching his wife be over concerned about Thomas.

"You smell like yourself again," Sinu sniffed his neck, which made him feel a little bit uncomfortable. She fixed his hair and rearranged his shirt. "I like it, you've always had a nice natural smell. It feels safe, did you know that?"

Esmeralda's mother was a spitting image of her daughter. The only difference being Esmeralda's slender frame, which she clearly got from her father. Thomas looked at them, they hadn't changed a single hair since the last time he saw them - which was Esme's funeral about a month ago, he realized. Both had brown hair, Sinu's was more towards sand-color, long and flowing like Esmeralda's always did, whereas Alejandro's was more of a darker brown laced with a few gray streaks.

"Thank you, Sinu." The farmer smiled politely. He had loved these people, but looking at them now, made his chest constrict. "It's nice to see you too," he managed to say, trying to ignore that everlasting feeling. "If you don't mind, may I text someone first? Maybe after, we can go for a drink perhaps?" Thomas asked politely.

"Of course, that would be nice." Sinu spoke, her gentle voice making him feel things he wasn't sure he wanted to feel.

"Give me a minute."

He took his phone again, typing out a quick message.

[Thomas:] Just ran into Esme's parents, I won't make it. Myka found pink phone, ordered to get it and find out who Perry's date was. I'll meet you at my place later. Be careful!

He received an answer before he could put his phone away again.

[Little red:] OK, always am 😊

He rolled his eyes, but smiled nonetheless, before focusing his attention again on the two people before him.

"Who was that? Someone special?" Alejandro asked with a little smile on his face.

"What? No." Thomas's smile quickly turned into shock. "Just a friend, who is a lot younger and taken. And even if she wasn't, how could I be in love with someone else this quickly?"

Thomas was a bit offended at the older man's comment.

"Hey, it would be alright if you were. Perhaps not yet, but somewhere in the future. When you have found a certain peace within you, when that hole inside you has turned into a scar. You deserve to be happy again, just so you know. We would want that for you. Esmeralda would want you to move on, be happy." Sinu joined the conversation.

"How do you know, did you talk to her? And even if she agreed, I wouldn't want to. She's still the woman that I love with all my heart."

The lump in his throat came back for the first time in more than a day -which was a record- and he still hated that nagging feeling as much as before.

"That's also fine. Let's go to Julio's and talk about something else." Sinu gave him a side hug while she rubbed comfortingly along his arms.

***

The countryside bar was empty at this hour of day. There was only the bartender Julio and Melissa, the town's blogger and writer of the Periodico. He redirected his in-laws to the other side of the bar, away from the journalist. Melissa was nice, but she would use everything she heard for some local gossip bomb. The more people she got talking, the more satisfied she was with her work.

"Hey, Sinu, Alejandro," Thomas restarted the conversation once they were seated. "I've been thinking about something lately," a silence settled over them, "and it has been bothering me quite a bit actually."

"Oh my boy, troubling thoughts are never good. Tell us, maybe we can help." Sinu was back to the comforting gestures, rubbing and touching his lower arms.

"I was hoping you might tell me a little bit more about why you moved here all those years ago. Esme once told me she needed a new start but I never dared to ask further. She seemed to have trouble just telling me that one thing. Now that she's gone, I keep having this feeling that I should've asked her nonetheless."

Both parents breathed in deeply before exhaling all the way out. They looked at each other meaningfully, and it made Thomas tense up.

"You're always too considerate for your own good. It's a good trait, but sometimes it does mean you get left behind in the dark," Sinu pointed out.

"I was wondering when you were going to ask about it." Alejandro said in his typical neutral tone. He was a lawyer and that strictness was clear in his every move.

"It was indeed something Esme didn't like talking about. Not even to us. One day we had to make her talk though."

Sinu's hand reached for her husbands.

"When your child comes home with bruises all over their body, you know you've waited too long."

"We definitely waited too long. I still blame myself for that, I think we both do."

Sinu looked at her husband, her expression suddenly darker than he had ever seen. Both diverted their eyes in a shameful way, while their hands interlaced, seeking comfort by each other.

"What happened?" Thomas was scared for the answer, maybe that was why he never insisted. Because the darkness in her past would've broken his bubble of peace and he had done everything to keep all trouble outside of it. He knew that now, it didn't change much either.

"She, well more so her boyfriend at the time, got mixed up with the wrong crowd. When Juan didn't do what was asked of him, our little girl had to feel it."

"She tried to hide it because she loved him, but that changed over time. He got more aggressive and dominating. The sweet boy that he once was had turned into a power graving asshole."

"Ale, language!" His wife shook her head in disapproval. "Even though the word was improper, he is not lying. Juan stopped looking after her, he dropped out of school and he pulled our little girl with him in his misery. That was until he took it a step further and started to abuse her, both physically and emotionally."

"By then we of course knew something was very wrong, but the more we asked about it, the more she retreated herself from us. We decided to leave it, maybe that was a mistake," Alejandro sighed.

Both parents had their heads down and shoulders hanging in shame and guilt. For a minute nobody spoke.

Thomas felt cold inside. How had he never asked her this? Why hadn't he pushed for more? He could've comforted her, promised her that she was safe with him. Then again, she still died in their house.

"One day, she came home covered in bruises and cuts. That's when I spoke my mind, told her her attitude wasn't acceptable anymore. I demanded an explanation right that second. It didn't need much before my little girl broke completely. She had gone through so much by then that she couldn't take it anymore. It had become all too much, she was worn out."

Both parents comforted each other with gentle squeezes in each other's hands.

"From what she told us, a few men from a rival gang approached both of them in the street and started to demand money. Juan, being the macho that he was, kept resisting and before anyone knew what was happening a fight broke loose. Only to end up with them beating up our Esmeralda instead of Juan. He was of course a much harder target in battle."

"Our little girl begged us to get her out of there. The next day we were out of that city. By the end of the week, we had started out new lives here. Luckily we could immediately move in here, that truly was a blessing."

"This town brought us our little girl back. And it brought her happiness, with you, which was more than we could've ever asked for."

Both parents were now smiling so bright at Thomas. Their sunny attitude was to a certain point contagious, the corners of his mouth and eyes moved up. On the inside, on the other hand, he felt frozen, and then sad and angry for what that Juan guy did to his sunny and caring Esmeralda, who never asked anyone for help.

"I loved your daughter with everything I had," Thomas spoke, his heart feeling on the verge of breaking. "I see now that I might've made a mistake by not pushing her for more information. All I hope is that I made her feel safe and happy."

"Trust me, Thomas. You were her world and if you had asked her nicely, I bet she would've told you everything without any doubt. Because she knew you would never judge her. You would always protect her, something Juan wasn't capable of." Sinu pulled Thomas in a loving hug. "She loved you, that you cannot doubt, ever."

"Then why did she never tell me any of it?"

"I think she liked the easiness that came with her life with you. Her past was the past. And it didn't have anything to do with her life here."

"Perhaps," Thomas mumbled to himself, before he took a deep swing of his beer.