Remembering the last week before the accident, Paula felt fear and shame. All this seemed like a horror story, Paula could not recognize herself. She thought of everything that happened as if someone else had done it. Paula remembered having those terrible thoughts that poisoned her soul and heart. The week before what she called «the accident» something had exploded inside her...

Paula remembered that morning she got up late and was horrified when she remembered her thoughts of the previous day because she had decided that the boy had to disappear from her life forever because she couldn't stand seeing his face again and also not hearing him cry, later she would take care of her husband, a hypocrite and damn unfaithful. They had betrayed her.

"No, that couldn't be me," she whispered as tears fell down her face. "How could she think of doing that? She loved her family."

Her life had been a nightmare and the nightmare continued.

What had lit the bomb wick? She didn't know, or maybe there were so many things that she couldn't suspect.

The day the tragedy occurred began like any other, Paula got up and went to breakfast without understanding why her husband had locked himself in the room with the child, ignoring her, leaving her abandoned and alone.

She didn't even remember the night before, but now she understood ... Maybe she had had a psychosis attack. Her mind was disconnected to hell from her reality, it didn't work well then, or at least what a doctor could classify as «normal»

Did she have a demon asleep inside her until then? Had it woken up then when she reached the limit of her patience?

Afterwards she went to work, there she was quite distracted thinking about Franco, about his infidelity, about the betrayal of his friend, about the rejection of her little son and at that moment he asked herself: Why didn't everyone go to hell? She didn't need them. Paula had no memories of what she had done there, only of her thoughts.

When Paula came home she found them watching television. She did not realize that they were happy to see her, but believed the opposite because she had reached a point where she saw only what she wanted to see.

She took off her clothes and started showering, completely ignoring her son's crying from the bottom floor of the house. She had been calm, feeling the water slide down her face until the soap slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. She went behind it to pick it up. She got out of the shower and walked to the door.

Then she heard her husband speaking from their room. Paula opened the door a little to listen better because she deduced that Franco was talking to Erika on the phone, and she was not wrong.

"I can't go now, she's here," said. His voice was barely above a whisper, he was worried. "I cannot tell her! Not now! This is not the right time!"

Then something happened in Paula's mind, the crack opened. She had never felt so much anger before. Paula took the towel and went out to the room where Franco was.

"What do you want to tell me?" he asked with forced calm.

He jumped when he saw her because he had not seen her enter, then he turned towards her while hanging up the phone but unfortunately Erika's voice was heard and with that Paula verified that she was not wrong.

"Nothing," Franco hesitated.

"You are talking to Erika!" Paula screamed, throwing the soap at her husband's head.

Franco decided to tell her the truth.

"Yes, wait, calm down!"

"I'm not going to calm down! You have been with her! You slept with her, you fucking degenerate! And maybe you did it in front of your own son! I hate you! I hate you! How could you do that to me?"

As she screamed, she threw things at him that he tried to dodge with his arms.

The boy was still crying.

"It's enough! You're confusing everything," the man yelled, trying to get closer to her.

"If you want to go with her, go! Go with her!" he was trying to remove an ornament from her hands. Paula tried to get him out of the room and at last she did, and then closed the door.

"You have to listen to me, Paula! Please open the door!"

The woman sat on the bed, her wet hair clinging to her back. At that moment she remembered the weapon and looked for it. Paula got out of bed and walked to the closet, the gun was hidden in the middle of towels. She looked at it in fascination. For a moment Paula believed that it would not be there and she hoped that it wasn't. However, it was now in her hands.

Paula began to shake; she was trapped by the power that the weapon gave her. She wasn't sure what he would do to her, he just watched her with fascination.

Franco was still yelling from the other side of the door. He told his wife that he was innocent; he had never cheated on her with anyone. He loved her but Paula didn't listen to him, she was absent as if she were disconnected from reality. Suddenly the wood splintered and the door opened. The baby's cry was heard with more intensity.

Paula had her back to the door and so Franco couldn't see the gun.

"You have to listen to me, darling! I swear I have never cheated on you with anyone, let alone Erika!"

"Liar! Always the same liar!" Paula yelled, turning around, then

Franco saw the gun and was scared.

"Put that down, Paula," he said seriously.

"No! I've heard you. You don't have to lie to me anymore. What does she want you to tell me? It's about your relationship? I already know the whole truth! I already know your plans, I can imagine you. Do you want to go with her and the child? But I am going to warn you about something.... You will do it only pass over my body," Paula said with a creepy coldness.

"Don't do it!" Franco said. He believed that his wife was going to kill herself but Paula had no such intention. "I have not made plans."

She and I were just talking about a doctor for you... it's about a psychiatrist. We are very concerned about you, darling. Erika just wants to help you.

"You want to put me in a mental hospital to get rid of me," Paula yelled. Her anger and contempt for Erika and Franco grew.

"Of course not. I don't want to get rid of you. What kind of human being do you think I am?" Franco was furious. "We are we wanted to help you."

"That's not true, I never cared for Erika. She just wants to take away what I have, as always. I hate her! Damn prostitute! I hate her!"

"Don't say that! She was very worried about you. She is a good woman and does not deserve your contempt."

Those words drove Paula crazy; her husband was defending that woman. He and Erika were putting together a plan to get rid of her.

Something in Paula changed and anger seized her, so she took the gun and pointed it at her husband.

Franco was terrified, so he backed away.

"What are you doing? Put the gun down."

"No! You will never go with her... Never!"

"Paula, darling... put the gun down," Franco tried to negotiate, raising his hands a little. "Don't do it, you will regret it all your life!"

So he made a fatal mistake, he walked towards her to take the gun out of her hands, Paula lost control and the gun shouted. The shot hit the man in the middle of his face. Blood splattered Paula and Franco fell back... he was dead.

Paula had a fit of hysteria, she was screaming as she looked at the gun covered in blood and dropped it at her feet, then she looked at Franco who was lying on the carpet and she touched him.

"No! No! Franco!"

Then she realized what she had done and had a moment of sanity, she had to call an ambulance. Franco's cell phone was on the nightstand, she took it. She dialed the emergency number but then stopped because the boy's crying started to upset her again, it didn't let her think.

The operator's voice was heard from the phone...

"Hi! What is your emergency? Hi! Anyone there?"

Paula couldn't think because that crying was upsetting her too much, she dropped the phone and left the room. She had to make the boy shut up. She found him in his crib with the face full of snot and tears.

Paula caught the fear in his eyes.

"Damn and disgusting boy!" she said looking at him in disgust. "Shut up now! You do not let me think!"

The boy, of course, began to cry louder, his crying was almost a cry of terror. Paula leaned towards him and tried to take him but he backed away and that infuriated the mother.

"I am not like her!"

"I am not like her! Don't you love me?" she screamed angrily as she thought about Erika. "Shut up now!"

She raised her hand and hit him in the face with all her strength. The little boy fell and hit his forehead and started bleeding. For a moment he was silent, but then he started crying again and screaming in terror.

Then Paula took him in her arms and covered her mouth with the palm of her hand.

"Shut! Shut! Shut!"

The boy writhed in her arms trying to free himself from her, and only seconds later he was calm. Paula released him and then the boy's head fell limp on Paula's arm. Then she realized that she had suffocated the baby. Her hand was too big for him and when he covered her mouth, it had covered his nose too.

The young mother left him on the floor and looked at him in horror.

What had she done? She just wanted the baby to shut up. She got up and for the first time she could think clearly, she knew that she had to call an ambulance, urgent, but in her mind there was a crack and it was normal for her to reach the following conclusion: If she asked for help, they was going to blame her for the deaths.

Paula also imagined the contempt of all her friends and neighbors, the scandal, and then she panicked and decided that she should get rid of the bodies. They had no close relatives who could visit them, so Paula only had to tell Franco's coworkers that he had fled the city with the other woman, taking the boy.

So she ran off and got to the room, looked at the phone and hung up, then got dressed, with her dead husband at her feet and when she was done, she wrapped the body and the gun with the carpet where he fell, but he was too heavy to carry on.

Paula looked through the window, it was not yet dark, so she would have to wait until dawn, and anyway she decided that it was better to get rid of the child's body first because it was easier to take him to the car.

She returned to the bottom floor of the house and wrapped the boy in his bear blanket and then put him in the car as if he were a package.

At that very moment she began to think... it was so hard for her to think. In fifteen minutes or so it would start to get dark. She waited inside the car and when she felt more secure she left the garage. The neighborhood began to fall asleep.

Then she started driving at full speed. She was going to a forest that was on the outskirts of the city. Paula wanted to leave the boy there, thinking that no one would ever find him. Later she would return to the apartment and take care of her husband. If Erika got there, Paula would take care of her too.

The terror she felt at being discovered made her reckless and she almost crash with another car when she crossed a curve, because the lights stunned her. When she turned the wheel, she lost control of the car and descended a few meters down the slope of the forest, then the car crashed a tree and Paula hit her head so hard that she passed out.

When she woke up she was so confused that she didn't know what she was doing there, so she got out of the car and staggered down the road until the lights of a car illuminated her. She stood to the side and a tall man ran out, asked her something but Paula didn't understand. Everything seemed so unreal. Soon the police appeared and the nightmare began.

"Did it really start?" Paula thought there, sitting on the bed in the bedroom of the Parkers' house. The nightmare had been her entire life and now she was waking up.

She didn't remember the following exactly, she just knew that everything had been discovered. Everyone accused her of the murders and she had alleged that she was taking the boy to the hospital because he had had an accident.

"Didn't you think to call an ambulance from your cell phone?" someone asked her but she did not answer. But then...

"Why did your cell phone have an emergency call?" that person asked again. She replied that everything was very confusing and that she couldn't remember.

She had panicked and had not thought coherently. But the road that Paula had taken, led to a hospital and for this reason many people believed her. That was what saved her. The facts and her conduct led her to a different sentence as some thought she deserved a second chance. Her lawyer's arguments raised a reasonable doubt, so she was admitted to the Santa Ana psychiatric hospital.

But now Paula knew the truth... she had lied, she really wanted to get rid of them, even though their deaths had been an accident. She felt guilty, she was horrified at herself. The lie sickened her. She should have paid for what she did, for her low and reprehensible conduct.

Now she understood everything, each piece of the puzzle fell into place, such as the reason why the Parkers didn't want to have her in their home and also the reason why they kept her under surveillance all the time... They were afraid her.

She was able to understand the Parkers. Paula felt dirty, contaminated, she was worth nothing. Tears began to wet her cheeks.

Someone knocked on the door and Paula was startled.

"Paula, darling, are you alright?" her aunt asked. Her voice sounded as if she had been crying.

"Leave me alone," said Paula in an authoritative voice.

The woman insisted a little more but then gave up.

Now Paula understood what the nun had wanted to tell her. She was terrified by everything that was happening and could not explain, she confused everything.

The child was not real, it had only been a product of her imagination to force her to remember and the nun had only seen him in dreams, now she understood everything and she also realized something... No one else had seen the child, only she.

She had to remember and at last she had done it, the doctor had said that she had to do it, everyone told her that she had to do it what had that been for her? Paula was filled with terror and didn't understand how that dark past could help her heal. She didn't feel better, on the contrary, she felt very sick.