Isabel Cadenas Cañón: For many months, in this investigation, we did not talk about Conchi’s father. Although we all wondered what had become of him. Because Loli had been cast in the role of abandoner, but what about the father? Where had the father been? Why hadn’t he been there during his daughter’s childhood?

We also knew that this was a difficult subject for Erica. And that it was difficult, above all, for her mother, for Conchi.

Conchi had lived her whole life without her father. But one day, when she was older, she began to investigate.

Erica: My mother looked for him… Because, of course, my mother and he never had any contact. At the age of 33, my mother pulled out the phone book.

33 years old. The same age Erica was when she started this investigation.

Conchi managed to find Mateo, the families got to know each other. They even spent a summer together. Erica called him “grandfather. Then something happened and they stopped talking to each other.

Erica: He and my mother argued. Over something that had to do with my grandmother, or if you are my daughter or if you are not my daughter… That’s what I remember, I also think that when they met I was 11 years old. That is, I don’t remember either… They had a fight, that’s all.

That was 20 years ago. And for Erica, Mateo was already a distant memory. But suddenly the police file, and his name there, so clear, had sped everything up. Erica even tried to call him.

Erica: Well, I put the recorder on and everything, but I got blocked, and I started to cry and I had tremendous anxiety…

But she also knew that, if she wanted to get to the bottom of her grandmother’s story, she had to talk to him.

Erica: I’ve realized that the question I’ve most wanted to answer is what happened to make her leave. And the person who might know the most is him.

Welcome to Lunatics.

[Theme song]

Erica: What happened between them?

A series by (De eso no se habla) and Producciones del KO.

Erica: Were you two boyfriend and girlfriend, were you not boyfriend and girlfriend? How did you find out that she was pregnant?

Where we try to answer these questions…

Erica: Was that what broke the relationship? Was it already broken?

And some others.

Erica: There was no relationship? Did you know that Loli left? I don’t know, were you aware?

This is episode 4, The problem she had.

Erica: I’ve knocked on so many doors and I’m not going to knock on this one?

Many times during this investigation, Erica wanted to be accompanied. She wanted to be accompanied in the interviews, but also in other important moments. Like this one, when she is finally about to call Mateo. The first time she tried with Dani, her boyfriend. Now, Andrea and I are there to support her.

Andrea: But if something had happened to him, you would know, right?

Erica: Well, he has Whatsapp, he still has Whatsapp, he still has a photo, that is, he has a profile picture on Whatsapp, so…

Erica dials the number and gets ready.

Erica: He’s going to freak out…

[Phone].

Does he have her number saved, Erica’s number? Has he also looked at her picture from time to time? Three rings and we get uneasy.

[Phone]

But on the fourth…

Mateo: Yes?

Erica: Hello, Mateo?

Mateo: Yes.

Erica: Hi, this is Erica, I’m your granddaughter, I don’t know if you remember me.

Mateo: Oh, of course I remember. I’ve remembered many times, I wonder, how is Erica?

Erica: How are you?

Mateo: Fine, very old, but fine.

Erica had rehearsed the conversation a few times. She was going to tell him that she wanted to talk to him and, if he didn’t want to meet another day, she was going to try to ask him there, live.

Erica: I’ve been trying to call you for a while, because, well, I was a little worried because we hadn’t talked in a while… And well, this last year I’ve remembered you a lot, I’ve even dreamt about you and everything, that we talked… And I don’t know if you would like to talk to me and tell me… Because I’m making an audio documentary about my grandmother’s life and well, it’s been many months and I always think, oh, I would love to know my grandfather Mateo’s version…

Mateo: I wouldn’t mind talking to you but I don’t feel like doing it by phone, I don’t know.

Erica: Well, I’ll go see you then…

Mateo: Well, then…

Mateo said yes. Erica suggested going to see him in Seville, where he lives. At first he said no, that he preferred to go to Madrid, but then time went by, he couldn’t make up his mind, and Erica managed to convince him: she would go to see him in Seville. So we booked a train ticket for her and Dani and also a hotel room. Because Mateo, above all, did not want to meet at his house.

Back in Seville, at the hotel, Erica is nervous.

Erica: And then, in all the others I’ve been with someone, you know?

This is the first time that Erica is going to do an interview alone.

Erica: I’m just… I’m very nervous.

Dani: This is the moment.

As soon as they get out of the elevator, she recognizes him.

Erica: He’s there…

Dani: How did you recognize him from behind?

He’s sitting with his back to the bar. He’s wearing a shirt and shoes.

Erica: It’s him, for sure. I’m almost sure…

Dani: Yes, he’s an older man…

She goes up to him and says… Grandpa?

Erica: Grandpa?

Mateo: Hey!

Erica: How’s it going?

First they have a cup of coffee and chat for a while.

Erica: Look, this is Dani.

Then they decide to go to a quieter place, in a corner of the hotel lobby.

Erica: You look great!

Mateo: Do I look good? Yes, I’m doing fine…

And when Dani starts to prepare the microphones and the conversation turns into something more like an interview, Mateo tries to say that he doesn’t have much to say.

Mateo: I don’t know, I barely have anything to say to you.

Erica: You know what? I think you’re a person who can tell me things that no one else has told me, even if it’s not much.

Mateo: Yeah…

Erica: You know?

Mateo: Well…

Erica: And I also think that… When I’ve been talking to more people during this year, everyone here gives their opinion. So I thought that you should give yours too.

Dani leaves them and Erica is left alone in front of Mateo.

After having done so many interviews for this investigation, Erica has learned that she has to start by talking about lighter things, that she can’t start asking questions directly. So first she shows him some photos that she has been collecting over the past few months.

Erica: Look, I do have some, because of course….

Mateo: And am I in any of the photos?

Erica: No. It was one of the first things I looked up, because…

Mateo: Of course, I remember taking pictures of myself.

Erica: Look, I have pictures here that my aunt Merce gave me when she was Miss.

Mateo: You mother looks so similar… A strong resemblance. Look, yes, this one is from when she was Miss.

Erica: Yes…

Mateo: Miss…

Erica: Moratalaz.

Mateo: Moratalaz, yes, yes.

Erica: Sure. So I have these pictures from that time…

Mateo: 1963?

Erica: 63.

Mateo: Look… I was 20 years old then.

Erica: So you already knew each other? When… Had you already met when she was Miss?

Mateo: When she was Miss, yes, we already knew each other, from where we used to go dancing, the discos… There were also times when I would call her. And whenever I told her ‘let’s go here, let’s go there’ she was always willing. She liked me a lot, and so yes.

She was always willing. She liked him a lot. He doesn’t say if he liked her too. According to Mateo, they were like that, meeting here and there, for 3 years: between 1963 and 1966. Until one day…

Mateo: One day she told me ‘No, no, Mateo, don’t call me anymore, you and I are not going anywhere, I have a serious boyfriend and I don’t want you to call me anymore’. And I said ‘Oh, sorry, Loli, I’m not bothering you anymore’, right? I heard voices, I said ‘Where are you?’ She said ‘I’m at home…’, I said ‘Oh, I hear a man over there’ and she said ‘Oh, it’s my father’. The father would be saying ‘Tell him to fuck off’ and so on, because the truth is that I was appearing and disappearing, I was not serious at all. I was 20 years old, not…

It is very possible that, at that time, Loli was already pregnant. Erica thinks that maybe she had just told her family. Hence the voices Mateo heard on the other end of the phone: Loli’s father, perhaps the rest of the family as well.

And maybe that’s why we, listening to this story, also need another voice to complete it. The other part of the story. The version of the only living person who can tell us how Loli lived those days: the voice of her only sister, Merce.

So, for the moment, we are going to leave here, on pause, the conversation between Erica and Mateo, in that hotel in Seville, and we are going to a town in Madrid, to Merce’s house, to build this story with two voices.

After all, these may be the most important days to understand Loli’s story.

You may remember that, in the second episode of this podcast, Erica and her mother had gone to visit Loli’s sister Merce, the owner of the family photo archive. And that they had turned off the recorder just outside the door. And now, at last, almost at the end of this investigation, Erica has dared to walk through that door, with the recorder on.

Voices: Hello.

She also goes with Dani.

Erica: Well, this is Dani.

Merce: Nice to meet you.

Dani: Nice to meet you.

And also here Erica starts with a lighter topic. The family photos that Merce herself had given her. Those photos that had served her so well.

Erica: Well, I was going to show you that, that I started making… Do you remember that I came here and you left me photos? Making an album of grandma.

Merce: Yes, how nice… How nice…

Erica: From when she was born…

Merce: Look, from our school days.

Erica: This was at the Lucero, wasn’t it?

Merce was Loli’s older sister. The responsible sister.

Merce: My father used to say “you have to be here at eight o’clock, both in winter and in summer”. Well, she was always late and my mother would say “You’re not going out next week”. “Because you say so”. “This week you’re not going out”. And one week my mother said “Enough going out”… She would go into the room screaming, “I’m going to leave, because I’m leaving, because I’m not staying here, because I’m leaving here, because I’m opening the door and…”. And she would leave. And come whenever she felt like it.

One day, in 1966, her mother called her. Merce was 23 years old, three years older than her sister. Her mother, whom everyone in the family calls “la yaya Conce” told her that she had to tell her something.

Merce: “Merce, I have to tell you some news,” she said. She is… Loli is pregnant”. And I said, “What do you mean, she’s pregnant?” And indeed she was pregnant.

Erica: And how did that happen?

Merce: Since she had her boyfriend, well, I didn’t… Well, it doesn’t feel good for you. But come on, it’s not like she didn’t have a boyfriend or it was with just anyone…

Erica: Because you met…?

Merce: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Of course I met him.

Erica: But you were going together, or…

Merce: No, no, no, no, no. I met him because he went to pick her up at yaya’s door and I’ve been with them.

That boyfriend Merce met was Mateo.

And now, back at the hotel in Seville, Mateo tells Erica that he found out about Loli’s pregnancy at that discotheque where they had danced together so many times.

Mateo: And it was at that discotheque that she came to tell me the problem she had.

Erica: That she was pregnant.

Mateo: That’s right, yes, she tapped me on the back and said “I have to talk to you”. Then we went to the side… “I’m pregnant”, and so on. And I said… “But now?” Besides, I think… The truth is that I don’t know, I don’t remember, I didn’t calculate the time that had passed or anything, but I don’t think…

Erica: It wasn’t possible.

Mateo: It wasn’t possible, more time had passed.

Mateo says that he had not calculated the dates but he also says that it was not possible because “more time had passed”. He remembered sleeping with Loli more than nine months ago. So, if it had been him, Loli should have already given birth, he says.

Erica: So, what happens after that? I mean…

Mateo: I told her no.

Erica: Did you tell your family or your family…?

Mateo: I said no. Well, I don’t remember, but I think I did… But I don’t remember. It wasn’t the first time that happened to me.

Erica: So you were going from one to another?

Mateo: No, yes, it happened to me at that time… Well, you have to see that…

Erica: Were you a flirt?

Mateo: It was the 60’s and so on… At that time I had a group of friends who lived in Vallecas and she… When I stopped… Well, not that I stopped, we still saw each other and that. But she also went to see these people. So I really didn’t believe that I was the one.

Erica: So you thought it was possible that it was another guy because she was also seeing more guys.

Mateo: Exactly.

Erica: Right.

From that point on, Mateo steps away. Months go by and January ’67 arrives. Loli is about to give birth. And we go back to Merce’s house.

Merce: One day she told me “I peed in bed”. Of course, she was already fat. She said “I peed in bed”, I said “no kidding”. And then I said to the neighbor, I said “Tere, my sister…” and she said “No, no”, she said “that’s because her water broke”. And then we ran to La Paz [hospital]. And then I remember perfectly well that in La Paz they called him to tell him that he was going to be a father and he said he didn’t want to know anything, and the social worker said “Hey, look” she said “your girlfriend is going to give birth” and he said “I don’t want to know anything”. Nothing. And that was it.

But, according to Merce, Mateo’s story with Loli did not end there.

Merce: And two or three months later one day he calls and tells her to bring the girl down to meet her. And my mother didn’t want to, but my sister took her down and he told her “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m going to give you money every month to support the girl… I mean, for you to support the girl and all that”. And no way, no… Nothing.

Maybe this is the same encounter that Mateo remembers, but in a different way.

Erica: And when do you find out…? I mean, when you know mom is born, can you go to see her or not?

Mateo: No, she calls me one day and says “Look, come here, come here, I want to show you the baby”. So “Ah, well, okay, I’m coming, I’m coming to see you”. Where then? Well, in her neighborhood, right? And she came with the child. And he showed me the girl and I said “But Loli, please, not me, not me”. “Look, look how pretty” and so on, “Loli, it’s not me, don’t you remember you told me you had a serious boyfriend and so on”. “Yes, no, but that was because my father was scolding me, whatever, it was all…”. Anyway, a disaster. A bummer.

The next date in this shared chronology appears in the police file that Erica obtained. It is July 1967. Conchi was six months old. And the police showed up at Mateo’s house.

Mateo: “Mateo Sanchez?” “Yes”. “Well, you have to come with us.” “Where to?” “To the police station.”

Loli had denounced Mateo so that he would recognize the paternity of his daughter. Erica shows her the file.

Erica: Look. Because in all this year I have investigated many things and one of the things I did was ask for my grandmother’s police file. And the first thing there is what you are telling me. She goes to the police, and then the police go to your house….

Mateo: Oh, yes, right?

Erica: And the statement and everything, from both of you…

Mateo: And what does it say here? You tell me.

Erica: Shall I read it to you? Well… Here what they say is that you, as soon as you knew that the witness, my grandmother, was pregnant, you stopped going out with her… This is her statement, it’s her version.

Mateo: Of course, at that moment I stopped… No, it’s just that it happened….

Erica: And that when the baby was born, he did not want to know anything either, refusing to get married and to give the child a last name. And not having anything else to add, well, they do investigations.

In that statement, Mateo admitted having had sexual relations with Loli “two or three times” during the Moratalaz festivities the previous year.

Mateo: Yes, yes, I had no reason to say no, I had no reason to lie. Because at that time there was no DNA test or anything, right? So they couldn’t say “You are the father”, right? So, if I had said “No, I haven’t been with her”, maybe I wouldn’t have had such a problem, but well. “Yes, yes, I have been with her but it’s not me because it doesn’t match.” For me the dates did not match.

In front of the police, he kept the same version he keeps now in front of Erica.

Mateo: Two of my friends came and they were willing to say that she was with other boyfriends at that time and so on. But I told them no, no way.

Erica: And why?

Mateo: Because I didn’t want them to think that… No, you know?

Erica: Because it was ugly, that they would think she was with several men.

Mateo: Of course, at that time, oh, of course. And the judge, I don’t know if it was the judge or an official or something, well, he drew his conclusions and nothing happened.

Nothing happened then, but something did happen later. It turns out that on Conchi’s birth certificate, in the margin, there is an annotation that was added years later: the name Mateo appears in that annotation. And it says that he is Conchi’s father.

Erica: Of course, mom had her grandmother’s surname for a while, the same surname as hers, and then, years later it appears here in the margin… Your name appears. And it says that there is a recognition sentence.

Mateo: Yes, because you can see that they put the surnames of… You can see that they put the surnames of the grandfather, or of the grandmother, and then when investigating, seeing this, they would say “Ah, but here there is…”. Of course, they don’t say anything to me, but maybe the judge says that I am the father, or that they consider that I am the father, because they cannot prove it. Nobody can prove it, neither yes nor no, and we don’t know, that is…

Is it possible that no one told Mateo about the resolution of this sentence? Erica thinks it is possible. She thinks so because, in fact, neither Loli nor her family were told about the recognition sentence.

For many years, Conchi carried her mother’s surname, because, as we already know, Mateo had not wanted to recognize her. But one day, when Conchi was about 10 years old, the family had to ask for her birth certificate. And there they found that annotation in the margin: that favorable recognition sentence that said that the judges had decided that yes, Mateo was her father. They found it by surprise. And suddenly, Conchi had to change her last name: at school, on her ID card, everywhere.

Whether he was told or not, the truth is that Mateo went on with his life.

Mateo: In the end, I feel terribly sad for her. Many times I think about it, how bad it must have been for her, but there is no way I would have… I would have married. Because the circumstances were not right for that, right?

On the other side, Loli, a single mother, started working at the U.S. base in Torrejón de Ardoz. Merce says that when she returned home, she took care of her daughter, she took care of Conchi. Until one day, she disappeared.

Erica: She left overnight?

Merce: Yes, overnight…

Erica: And how did you find out she left?

Merce: Well, because she didn’t show up, she…. She left and didn’t call the yaya or anything. And the night came and she didn’t come and she didn’t come… And another day came and my mother said “Well, I’m going to go to the base”. And they told her “No, ma’am, she asked for the liquidation and left”. She had asked for the liquidation and she left.

And she did not come back.

Merce: We spent many years not knowing about her, where she was or anything, if she was alive or not, and my mother said “Holy Virgin of Navahonda, tell me if my daughter is alive or not.”

The rest of Loli’s story until she arrived in Bilbao we know from the police file. When she left home, her father went to report the disappearance of his daughter to the police. The file reads: “he denounces it in case something had happened to her or some people had coerced her to do so”. The father also says that his daughter is rather short, has short brown hair, brown eyes, and is dressed in a leather suit and gray cloth jacket, and that he is not responsible for the expenses of returning his daughter home.

According to the file, it appears that Loli was in Granada, but then she is looked for in a “party room or similar establishment in Cordoba”. From there she goes through Zaragoza and Santander. Until she arrives in Bilbao and begins the life we already know from previous episodes of this podcast.

Erica knows that this is the life her grandmother chose. But she also wonders what would have happened if she had chosen another path, if she had stayed in Madrid, if she had raised her daughter in the same neighborhood, as a single mother.

So, once again, we are going to leave Mateo for a few minutes in that hotel in Seville, and we are going to go to Moratalaz, to Erica’s neighborhood.

[Music]

Erica: Well, I just got off in Moratalaz and I am going to get Andrea…

From the beginning of the investigation, Erica had a name in her diary.

Manoli’s, a friend of her grandmother’s who Erica believed could help her understand that other life that her grandmother could have lived.

Erica: Hello!

Andrea: Do we have to record this?

Erica: Yes, because everything has to be recorded.

I must say that I didn’t really understand this eagerness to find a woman who was neither family nor seemed to know much about her grandmother. But for Erica it seemed to be unfinished business. She and Andrea were very insistent, so this was one of their last missions together in this investigation.

Andrea: Your great-grandparents lived here?

Erica: Yes, and my family, my mother has lived here all her life.

They didn’t know her last name, they didn’t have her phone number or address. They only knew that Manoli lived in a doorway near her grandmother’s house. But somehow Erica and Andrea managed to find her.

[Bell ringing]

Erica: You’re so smart. So it would have to be that one.

They also managed to convince her to let them into her house and to let them record the conversation.

Manoli: Well, tell me.

Erica: Well, we are trying to find people who knew my grandmother….

But, actually, and for the first time in this investigation, they were not there to talk about Loli. Or not directly.

Manoli: Well, yes, yes, very bad, very bad. And don’t think I’m a single mother too, huh?

Loli was an excuse to talk precisely about that.

Manoli: And then, well, we had a good time. I used to do her hair because I have always been very good at it… And well, until things happen, honey.

About what it meant to be a single mother at the same time Loli was a single mother.

Manoli: Well, look, I brought a relative here from Valencia, we started going out, she took me to a discotheque to a party… And there they did something to me because I don’t know how I got pregnant, you see? Each one is a different story… You don’t get your period, you don’t get your period… And that’s all. You know, you already have a daughter and it’s as if you had done something very bad… So… And now, even with your mother, they didn’t throw you out of the house, but… You were already the maid for everything.

And Manoli decided to stay in Madrid, with her daughter and her parents, the life that Loli did not choose. But Manoli did not have an easy time.

Manoli: Because of my family’s way of being, of course, I didn’t go out with anyone anymore. I dedicated myself exclusively to…

Erica: But… You mean because of your family’s way of being… Because you had a child without being married?

Manoli: Yes, of course.

Erica: It’s just that it had to be…

Manoli: No, no, very bad, very bad, very bad… Those were other times. It is that people were very bad. I had a neighbor down here who even followed me to know where I was going when I went for a walk with my belly, when they told me I had to walk.

Erica: Really?

Manoli: Yes, yes… And everyone in the neighborhood knew about it because of her.

In fact, Erica’s family also remembered her that way, as the girl from the neighborhood who got pregnant without being married.

Manoli: I remember that when you went out with someone… Everyone said yes, they didn’t care, what did it matter…. But they didn’t care until… If they could get something out of you. Then, if you have a girl, they didn’t want anyone with a girl.

Manoli told them that her family took care of the child, but they didn’t do it for free.

Manoli: Whether you like it or not, they are doing you a favor by keeping here what you have had… Well, I had to give my salary until my mother died, in 2009. And all your life throwing… Your own family throwing it in your face, huh? So, no, very bad. Very bad. That’s why I tell my granddaughters to prepare themselves, to live life, to live it to the fullest…

Erica and Andrea spent a long time talking to her, understanding how this woman who chose another life had it: the one Loli could have had if she had stayed in Madrid. The other side of the coin. The possibility that didn’t happen.

Manoli: Well, honey, anyway, keep on looking so cute.

Erica: Thank you very much, see you later, bye.

Manoli: And live life, sweethearts, but be very careful, ok?

Erica: Okay.

Manoli: And even more so now with everything that’s going on.

Erica: Bye.

We will never know, of course, what would have happened to Loli if she had stayed. We only know what she lived through, and we know it after many months of investigation by Erica and Andrea.

But what about Mateo? What did Mateo do meanwhile? That we do know.

[Music]

Shortly after Conchi was born, Mateo took a job opportunity to leave Madrid, and from there he continued to travel.

Later, he formed a family, with a wife and children, while Conchi grew up with the story of a mother who had abandoned her and a father she never knew about but whose name the whole family remembered. Until, as Erica recounted at the beginning of this episode, when she was 33 years old, Conchi began to investigate. She wanted to know her father. This is what Erica and Mateo talked about, almost at the end of the conversation, back in that hotel in Seville.

Erica: When mom was about the age I am now, more or less, she decided she wanted to meet you and talk to you. And she looked you up and I think it was… The phone book, I don’t remember very well how it was.

Mateo: Yes.

The families got to know each other, spent some time together and Erica started calling Mateo “grandfather”. But one day he and Conchi had an argument. Mateo kept saying that he was not Conchi’s father.

Mateo: So, when I saw her, I said “Ah, the same face as the mother”. Of course, if I arrive and she totally looks like me, then… Well, I said that to your mother, I said “I don’t think I am your father”, right? “No, no, yes, well, she says yes”, like that. “I say no, I don’t think so”, because…

It was around that time that reliable paternity tests began to exist and Mateo decided to settle the matter and ask for one.

Mateo: I was the one who asked for it, huh? It cost me some money too, it cost me 300,000 pesetas. It didn’t cost me a few pesetas.

The results of that test say the following:

First. The study of the different molecular genetic markers used has not allowed to exclude the paternity of Mateo Sanchez as the father of Concha Sanchez.

Second. The statistical analysis of the probability of paternity of Mateo Sanchez with respect to Concha Sanchez, taking into account the genotypic structure of the presumed father and the distribution of the different markers analyzed in the population, has granted a probability of paternity of 99.9%, which corresponds to a practically proven paternity.

Loli, the locatigüisquis, the carefree woman, the one who, they said, slept with many men, had only pointed to one of them as the father of her daughter. And she was right.

Mateo: Well, look, if you want me to tell you the truth, I still say that… I’m doubtful, anyway.

Erica: And why do you think that is? If the DNA test…

Mateo: Because, when we go to do the test, the girl, the lady, the doctor, says to me “Oh, are you such and such? Ah, yes, yes, come this way”. And I went in and it turned out that she was a friend of your mother’s, or your mother had called them to do the test… And then I saw everything very easy, very prepared… I don’t know, that’s why I say that I… I don’t know, I don’t know. But, I must be wrong. I still think it’s not…

Erica: Do you think it’s harder to think that you are? I mean, maybe you think not, because it’s harder to recognize that you are?

Mateo: To recognize… I don’t know, to be honest. No, I can’t tell you that. I, the truth is that I… It’s a great shame, I think about it a lot sometimes and… It was a shame, to be honest, in my life, you know? I am a very good person, I have done good for everybody, I have worked and I have done things well and that… It hurts me a little , to be honest.

Erica: But then, can I still call you grandpa or not?

Mateo: Well, yes.

Erica: Oh, okay (laughs).

Mateo: Well, yes, of course you can.

Mateo has always been very affectionate with Erica. Today, for example, he let her record this conversation because he knows it’s important to her. Even if it makes him uncomfortable.

But the relationship with his daughter, with Conchi, has always been more difficult.

Mateo, who has had a good job, remembers some moments when he helped Conchi financially. One summer, for example, he gave her money to send Erica to a camp she could not have afforded on her own.

But Mateo wasn’t there when his daughter really needed him. He wasn’t there when Loli disappeared and Conchi had to be raised by her grandparents. Nor was he there later, when Erica was born, or at any other important moment in his daughter’s life.

What about Conchi? How did Conchi live through all this? The absence of her father, the absence of her mother, the stigma of being the daughter of a single mother. Growing up with her grandparents. News of her mother in dribs and drabs and then a new stigma.

In the final episode, we sit around a table and talk, finally, with her, with Conchi.

[Theme music]