SEVENTH LAMBENCY

"My son called him a stranger long before he learned to call him father"

For seven years, Alexander Villareal received a package every birthday.

No sender, no explanation, just fragments of a life that somehow felt familiar.

A photograph.

A drawing.

A voice growing older with each passing year.

Then, on the seventh birthday, nothing arrives, the silence sends him searching for answers he never thought to ask, and back to the woman who disappeared from his life years ago.

Some stories begin with a love affair.

His begins with an absence.

And some absences are large enough to swallow seven years.