Boy Disappeared in 1982 — 30 Years Later, a Mason Discovers This…

São Paulo, June 12, 1982. Saturday. Strong sun beating down on the backyard of the house on Acacia Street, Vila Matilde, East Zone. Lucas Ferreira, 8 years old, messy brown hair, knees scraped from playing so much, runs after a worn-out soccer ball. The ball bounces on the dirt floor, kicking up dust.

“Lucas, don’t go far, you hear? Stay here in the backyard,” shouts Marta from the kitchen window. She is washing the lunch dishes, hands soapy.

“Okay, mom.”

The house is simple. Unplastered masonry in the back, peeling paint in the front, three bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a small basement that serves as a junk storage. At the back of the lot, a small annex where Uncle Paulo lives, the younger brother of Roberto, Lucas’s father.

Paulo is 32 years old, too thin, distant look, never married, doesn’t work properly, has some “head problems” as the family says, takes controlled medication, but doesn’t always take it right. Lucas kicks the ball, it hits the wall, comes back, he kicks it again. Loud laughter, little screams of a child. In the annex, Paulo is lying on the bed, trying to sleep. His head throbs.

The voices, those voices that only he hears, are louder today. And that kid’s noise won’t stop. Boom, boom, boom. The ball hitting the wall.

“Lucas, stop that, dammit,” Paulo shouts from the window.

Lucas doesn’t even hear, keeps playing. Paulo presses his temples. The voices say bad things. They say the boy is doing it on purpose. They say he needs to make the noise stop.

“No, no, no,” Paulo murmurs alone, shaking his head, but the ball keeps hitting. Boom, boom, boom.

3 PM. Marta finishes washing the dishes, dries her hands, looks out the window. Lucas is not in the backyard.

“Lucas, silence. Lucas, where are you?”

She goes out the back door, looks around. The small side gate leading to the street is closed. The wall is too high for an 8-year-old child to jump. Lucas, nothing. Her heart begins to tighten. She runs to the annex, knocks on the door.

“Paulo, is Lucas there with you?”

Paulo opens the door sleepily, hair disheveled.

“What is it? Lucas? Did you see him?”

“Saw nothing. Was sleeping. That infernal noise of his wouldn’t let me, but I managed to sleep.”

“He’s not in the yard. Didn’t you see him leave?”

“I told you I was sleeping, Marta.”

She runs back to the house.

“Roberto, Roberto.”

Roberto comes out of the living room; he was watching soccer on the radio.

“What is this shouting, woman?”

“Lucas is gone.”

“What do you mean gone? He was in the backyard playing.”

“I went to wash dishes. When I came back, he wasn’t there anymore.”

Roberto runs to the backyard, shouts his son’s name. Nothing. Opens the side gate, goes out to the street.

“Lucas, Lucas.”

Neighbors begin to come out to their doors, windows. Mrs. Conceição, the neighbor on the left, approaches.

“What happened, Mr. Roberto?”

“Lucas is gone. Did you see him leave?”

“Saw nothing, my son. Was in the kitchen the whole time.”

4 PM, half the street is searching. They scour vacant lots, the little field at the end of the street, the corner shop. Nothing.

5:30 PM, Roberto goes to the neighborhood police station. A bored police officer notes everything in an old notebook.

“Sir, you know how it is, right? A child that age disappears, but usually, he’s at some little friend’s house. Forgot to warn you.”

“My son isn’t like that. He never leaves without telling us.”

“We’ll register it, but have to wait 24 hours to start an official search.”

“24 hours? My son could be in danger.”

“Those are the rules, sir.”

Roberto goes back home desperate. Marta cries sitting in the kitchen. Paulo is in the annex. Door closed. Night falls. Lucas does not appear. Sunday dawns. No sign of the boy. Monday.

The police finally start the investigation. They interrogate the family, neighbors, business owners in the region.

“Did the boy have enemies? Someone who didn’t like him?”

“He was 8 years old. What enemy is a child going to have?”

Roberto has red eyes from crying so much.

“And do you have any beef, debt, problem with anyone?”

“Nothing. I’m a factory worker, I work at the factory, pay my bills, I don’t owe anything to anyone.”

“And your brother, this Paulo guy.”

“My brother has mental problems, but is harmless. Lives locked in his little room, only comes out to eat.”

“We’re going to need to speak with him too.”

Paulo is interrogated right there in the annex. Detective Carvalho, 50-something years old, gray mustache, looks around the messy room.

“Did you see the boy at the time he disappeared?”

“No, was sleeping.”

“What time did you sleep?”

“Dunno, 2, 3 in the afternoon. He was making noise, kicking a ball. Gave me a headache. Took my medicine and slept.”

“When did you wake up?”

“When Marta knocked on the door looking for him. It was already some 3:30, 4 o’clock.”

“Didn’t hear anything strange? Screaming, crying, car stopping?”

“No, I told you. I was sleeping.”

Carvalho notes everything down. Doesn’t seem to suspect anything. A week passes. Posters with Lucas’s photo are glued to poles, walls, bus stops. The local TV does a story. Nothing. Two weeks, a month, two months. The case goes cold. Marta doesn’t leave the house anymore, cries all day.

Roberto keeps working because he needs to, but is destroyed inside. Paulo remains in the annex, quiet, taking his meds. And Lucas’s body, inside a false wall in the basement, a few meters from where the family eats, sleeps, and cries, begins slowly to decompose in the dark.

August 1982, two months since Lucas’s disappearance, Detective Carvalho sits in the creaky chair at the station, looking at the pile of documents on the case, statements, photos, reports. Nothing leads anywhere. He lights a cigarette. The smoke rises slowly to the ceiling fan that spins slowly.

“Carvalho, any news on the boy’s case?” Delegate Tavares appears at the door.

“None, boss. It’s as if the boy evaporated.”

“Checked everything? Relatives, neighbors, family acquaintances.”

“Everything. The family is simple people, hardworking. The father is a worker at the auto parts factory. The mother a housewife. No debt, no enemy, nothing that justifies a kidnapping. And that brother of the father, that Paulo guy, has schizophrenia, takes controlled medication, but his psychiatrist confirmed he has no history of violence. He’s just another poor guy who lives in his own world.”

Tavares sighs.

“Without a body, without a witness, without a clue. It’s going to end up being another archived case.”

“Worse thing is, it will.”

In the house on Acacia Street, life follows a ghostly rhythm. Marta loses 15 kg in two months. Spends the days sitting in the living room, looking at the door, waiting for Lucas to enter at any moment.

“Marta, you need to eat something.” Roberto places a plate of food in front of her.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’re going to get sick.”

“So what? My son is gone, Roberto. My boy is gone and no one knows where he is.”

Roberto sits beside her, holds her hand. Both cry in silence. In the annex, Paulo is sitting on the bed, looking at the wall. The voices continue, but lower now. They were satisfied after that day. They say he did the right thing, that now there is peace.

But Paulo doesn’t feel peace. He feels a huge void and something else. Something that might be guilt, but he isn’t sure. The medicines make everything confused. He remembers that Saturday, remembers the noise. Remembers leaving the annex, nervous with his head throbbing. Lucas was alone in the backyard.

“Boy, stop that noise.”

Lucas had looked at him scared. Paulo never shouted like that.

“Sorry, Uncle Paulo.”

But the voices were shouting louder than everything. They said the boy wasn’t going to stop, that he was going to keep making noise, that it needed to stop. Needed to stop now. Paulo had grabbed the boy. Lucas tried to scream, but Paulo’s hand covered his mouth. Too strong, too heavy.

The boy struggled for a few seconds, maybe a minute, then stopped. Paulo looked at the small body on the dirt floor. What had he done? The voices said: “Hide it, hide it fast, no one can know.” He carried the body to the basement. Deep in the back there was an old wall, half loose.

He pulled out some bricks, made a hole, put the boy inside along with the backpack that was in the yard, the sneakers, the toy car. Spent the whole afternoon rebuilding the wall: bricks, cement, plaster. When he finished, no one would say there was anything there. It looked like any other wall. Then he went up to the annex, took medicine, and slept.

When Marta knocked on the door looking for Lucas, he pretended he knew nothing and continued pretending. Paulo shakes his head trying to push away the memories. Maybe it was a dream, a nightmare from the meds. Maybe Lucas ran away from home and that thing in the wall is just his imagination, but deep down he knows it isn’t.

September turns to October. October turns to November. Detective Carvalho officially archives the case in December 1982. Missing child, whereabouts unknown, no conclusive clues. Case remains open, but without active investigation. Marta stops leaving the house completely. Roberto works, comes back, takes care of her, sleeps, wakes up, repeats.

Paulo remains in the annex, increasingly isolated. January 1983, six months since the disappearance. Mrs. Conceição, the neighbor, knocks on the door.

“Marta, can I come in?”

Marta opens, sunken eyes, disheveled hair.

“Hi, Mrs. Conceição.”

“My child, I came to say one thing. You need to keep living. I know it’s difficult, I know it hurts, but you can’t give up like this.”

“How do I keep living without knowing where my son is? If he’s alive, if he’s dead, if someone is hurting him?”

“You need to have faith, my child. Faith that God is taking care of him wherever he is.”

Marta collapses in tears. Mrs. Conceição hugs her. In the basement, a few meters from them behind the wall Paulo rebuilt, Lucas’s body remains there, forgotten, hidden, silent.

March 1983, 9 months. Roberto makes a decision.

“Marta, we can’t stay in this house anymore.”

“What?”

“Every room here holds a memory of him. The bedroom, the backyard where he played, the kitchen where he ate. It’s killing us to stay here.”

“But what if he comes back? How will he find us?”

“We’ll leave the new address with the police, with the neighbors. If he appears, they’ll warn us.”

Marta cries, but agrees. She can’t take it anymore either. They put the house up for sale. It will take two years for a buyer to appear, but eventually someone buys it. Paulo goes with them to the new apartment. No one speaks about Lucas. The boy’s name becomes a ghost that hovers over the family, but is never pronounced. And the house on Acacia Street is left behind with all its secrets buried in the walls.

The Ferreira family finally sells the house on Acacia Street. The buyers are the Silvas, a young couple, two small children, stray dog. They think the house is perfect for what they can pay.

“Have to renovate a lot of stuff, huh, love?” The wife Cláudia looks at the peeling walls.

“Yeah, but the price is good. We’ll do it little by little.” Marcos, the husband, is optimistic.

They know nothing about Lucas. The Ferreiras didn’t tell. The realtor didn’t mention it. It was just another house. In the apartment in São Miguel Paulista, Roberto, Marta, and Paulo try to rebuild something that looks like life. Roberto continues at the factory. Marta gets a job as a cleaner at a school. They need money. Paulo continues without working, locked in the little room that is now his.

“He doesn’t get better, right?” Marta asks softly one night.

“The doctors say it’s chronic. It’s going to be like this for the rest of his life.”

“Sometimes I look at him and feel anger, you know? He’s here alive and Lucas…”

“Don’t talk like that. Paulo is sick, it’s not his fault.”

But Marta feels it anyway. The injustice of a son being there eating, sleeping, breathing while the other simply vanished from the world.

The years pass. 1986, 87, 88. Lucas would be 13, 14, 15 years old. Marta imagines what he would be like. Tall like his father, would he play soccer, have a girlfriend? Every birthday of his is a day of silent mourning. In the house on Acacia Street, the Silva family does small renovations, paints walls, changes plumbing, renovates the bathroom, but the basement stays untouched.

It became a storage room full of junk.

“One day we’ll fix up that basement,” Cláudia says every year.

“One day,” Marcos agrees, but the day never comes.

8 years since the disappearance. Roberto develops a heart problem. Stress, the doctors say. Marta has chronic depression, takes antidepressants. Paulo remains the same. Meds. Room. Silence.

13 years. Paulo wakes up on a July morning. Feels a strong pain in his chest. Tries to get up, can’t. Falls from the bed. Marta finds him an hour later. He is already dead. Massive heart attack. He was 45 years old. At the wake, almost no one appears. Paulo had no friends. The family is small. Some old neighbors.

Roberto looks at his brother’s coffin.

“He suffered a lot in life.”

“He suffered,” Marta agrees, but without real emotion. She spent all her capacity to feel pain when Lucas disappeared.

Paulo is buried. Takes with him the secret he carried for 13 years. Never told anyone, never confessed. Died with that inside him.

18 years. Roberto retires from the factory. Health is bad. Marta also stops working. They live on his pension, meager, but it’s enough. They never spoke of having another child again. It would be a betrayal of Lucas’s memory.

“Do you think he’s alive, Roberto?” It’s the first time in years she asks directly.

Roberto takes a while to answer.

“I don’t know, Marta. I want to believe so. That he was adopted by someone, that he’s living well somewhere. But deep down, deep down…”

“Do you think he died that day?”

“I think so.”

She leans her head on his shoulder. Both old now, tired, broken by life.

23 years. The Silva family finally decides to renovate the whole house. The children grew up, left home. Now there is money left over.

“Let’s modernize everything. New kitchen, new bathroom, finishing. And that basement, let’s turn it into a TV room.”

They hire a foreman. Budget made. Renovation set to start in 2006, but problems arise. The foreman disappears with the deposit money. Lawsuit takes years to resolve. The renovation is left for the future again.

28 years. Marta has a stroke, becomes partially paralyzed. Roberto takes care of her as he can, but is old too, 78 years.

“Roberto, I want to know what happened to my son before I die.”

“Me too, love. Me too.”

But it seems they will never know.

30 years. Marcos Silva dies of cancer. Cláudia, now a widow, decides to sell the house. Too many good and bad memories. Wants to start over, live near the children in Santo André, but before selling, wants to leave the house nice, valued. Hires a renovation team. The person in charge is José Santos. Experienced bricklayer, 50-something years old, has worked in construction since he was 15.

“Mrs. Cláudia, what exactly do you want to reform?”

“Everything, but mainly the basement. I want to turn it into a useful space. Today it’s just a hole full of junk.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll do a beautiful job.”

José and his team start in March 2012, exactly 30 years after that Saturday in June 1982. José Santos goes down the narrow stairs to the basement. The flashlight in his hand illuminates the dusty space, smell of mold, spider webs, old boxes piled up.

“Damn forgotten place,” he murmurs.

Adilson, his helper, comes down behind him.

“Boss, what are we doing here?”

“Mrs. Cláudia wants to knock down this back wall, expand the space. Then we’ll do new plaster, floor, lighting. It’s going to look good.”

“This wall here.” Adilson taps the wall with his knuckles. “Sounds hollow. Damn, boss. Think there’s a space behind it.”

José approaches, taps too.

“Really, the sound is different. Weird. See if you can find a hammer. Let’s open here to see.”

Adilson goes up and comes back with a hammer and pickaxe. José starts hitting, the old plaster comes off easy. Then the bricks. One, two, three.

“Look boss, there really is a hole behind it.”

José stops, shines the flashlight through the hole he made and freezes.

“Holy sh*t.”

“What is it, boss?”

José doesn’t answer. Keeps looking, the flashlight trembling in his hand. Adilson approaches, peeks too.

“Holy sht. Holy sht. Is this what I’m thinking it is?”

Inside the hollow space in the wall, illuminated by the flashlight, there is an old school backpack, half disintegrated, a child’s sneaker, rotted clothes, and bones, small child bones. José backs away, heart racing.

“Go up, go up now. Don’t touch anything else.”

They run up. José, with trembling hands, grabs his cell phone. Dials 190.

“Hello, police. I… I found a body, a child’s body in the wall of a house here in Vila Matilde.”

20 minutes later, four patrol cars stop in front of the house. Military Police isolate the area with yellow tape. Residents begin to gather on the sidewalk.

“What happened?”

“They say they found a body.”

“A body here?”

Mrs. Conceição, now 86 years old, almost deaf, is brought by her great-granddaughter.

“Grandma, they found a body at the Silva house.”

“What house?”

“The Silva house, the one that belonged to the Ferreiras before.”

The name Ferreira makes something click in her head.

“Ferreira? Roberto Ferreira.”

“That’s it, grandma.”

Mrs. Conceição feels her legs go weak. Memories from 30 years ago invade her mind. A boy playing in the backyard. A disappearance. A destroyed mother.

“My God in heaven. Could it be the boy?”

Inside the house, the criminal expert goes down to the basement with proper equipment. Photographs everything before touching anything. Delegate Mendes, 40-something years old, goes down too.

“What do we have?”

“Human bones, apparently a child. Male, approximately 8 to 10 years old. The body was placed here many years ago, decades, probably.”

“Identification.”

“There’s a school backpack here. I’ll open it carefully.”

The expert wearing gloves opens the zipper of the half-destroyed backpack. Inside, notebooks completely ruined by humidity and time. But in a laminated internal part, there is a school document. He shines the flashlight. Reads.

“Name of student: Lucas Ferreira. Municipal School São Jorge, year 1982.”

Mendes writes down 1982, 30 years ago.

“I’ll ask to check the system if there is any missing person case from that period with this name.”

An hour later, the answer arrives.

“Delegate, we found it. Lucas Ferreira, 8 years old, disappeared June 12, 1982. Case never solved. Parents, Roberto and Marta Ferreira. Last known residence: Rua das Acácias, 247.”

“Exactly this address.” Mendes feels a chill down his spine. “The boy disappeared from his own house and was here the whole time, in the basement wall.”

“Exact.”

“We need to locate the parents, if they are still alive.”

The police social worker searches. Roberto Ferreira, 80 years old, retired. Marta Ferreira, 79, housewife with health problems. Current address, São Miguel Paulista.

“I’ll go there to communicate personally,” Mendes decides.

6 PM. The sun sets in São Paulo. Mendes rings the doorbell of the ground floor apartment in a simple housing complex. Roberto opens the door. Elderly, bent over, white hair, tired eyes.

“Good evening. Are you Roberto Ferreira?”

“I am. Did something happen?”

“Can I come in? I need to speak with you about a delicate matter.”

Roberto feels his heart tighten. Invites Mendes inside. Marta is in the wheelchair in the living room, watching TV.

“Marta, there’s a policeman here.”

She turns off the TV, looks at the delegate with a mixture of fear and hope she hasn’t felt for 30 years. Mendes sits down, takes a deep breath.

“Mr. Roberto, Mrs. Marta, today we found mortal remains in the house where you lived in 1982, Acacia Street.”

Marta brings her hand to her mouth. Roberto closes his eyes.

“The remains were identified preliminarily as being of Lucas Ferreira, your son.”

The silence that follows is absolute. Marta starts to cry. A cry that comes from three decades of dammed-up pain. Roberto leans on the wall, his legs won’t support him anymore.

“Where? Where was he?”

“In the basement wall, hidden for 30 years.”

The news spreads through Vila Matilde in a matter of hours. Local newspapers arrive the next day. TV cameras, reporters. Boy missing in 1982 is found in the wall of his own house 30 years later. The coroner collects the remains. Forensic analysis initiated. Roberto and Marta spend the night awake. He sitting in the kitchen, she in the wheelchair beside him, both in silence. There are no words for this kind of pain.

“He never left the house, Roberto. Our son never left the house.”

“I know. We sold the house with him inside. We abandoned him.”

“Marta, we didn’t know.”

“But who did this? Who killed our son and hid him in the wall?”

That is the question the police are also asking. The next day, Delegate Mendes officially reopens the case. Requests all old files from 1982.

“Who lived in the house at the time of the disappearance?”

The assistant reads the report.

“Roberto Ferreira, his wife Marta, son Lucas, and Roberto’s brother, Paulo Ferreira, who lived in an annex in the back.”

“This Paulo, where is he now?”

“Dead. 1995, heart attack.”

Mendes frowns.

“Tell me about him.”

“Had psychiatric problems, schizophrenia, lived isolated, took controlled medication. He was investigated at the time. It was the detective who handled the case, Carvalho, who interrogated him, but nothing was found. He had an alibi. Said he was sleeping.”

“Sleeping on the same property where the boy disappeared.”

Mendes takes the files, reads all the statements. Paulo Ferreira, 32 years old, unemployed, schizophrenic, lived in the back annex. Statement: “Was sleeping. Didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything.”

Mendes looks at the photos of the house, taken in 1982. Sees the annex, calculates the distance to the basement. The guy lived less than 20 meters from the place where the body was hidden. He calls Roberto.

“Mr. Roberto, I need to ask a few more questions about your brother Paulo.”

“Paulo, what about him?”

“Did he have access to the basement of the house?”

“He did. Everyone did. It was an open basement, had the stairs there in the kitchen.”

“Did your brother have tools, know how to work with construction?”

Roberto thinks.

“He knew? My father was a bricklayer. Taught me and Paulo when we were young. Paulo was actually good at it, before he got worse in the head.”

“And the day Lucas disappeared, was your brother home all day?”

“He was. He rarely went out.”

“Mr. Roberto, I’ll be direct. We believe that whoever hid Lucas’s body was someone who knew the house, had easy access to the basement, and knew how to work with bricks and cement. The wall was rebuilt with technique. It wasn’t done by an amateur.”

Roberto stays silent for long seconds.

“You’re saying my brother killed my son?”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility that we need to investigate.”

“No, no, it can’t be. Paulo was sick, but wasn’t violent. He wouldn’t do that.”

“People with untreated schizophrenia can have violent episodes. And according to his medical records, in 1982, he wasn’t following the treatment correctly.”

Roberto hangs up the phone stunned. Marta looks at him.

“What did the policeman say?”

“They think it was Paulo.”

The silence is heavy. Marta processes the information.

“Paulo, your brother Paulo.”

“They say it makes sense. He had access, had technical knowledge, was there that day.”

Marta starts to remember. Small details. Paulo always complaining about the noise Lucas made. Paulo getting nervous when the child shouted. Paulo locked in his room after the disappearance, refusing to speak to anyone.

“My God, Roberto, what if it’s true?”

“I don’t know, Marta, I don’t know anything anymore.”

Mendes continues investigating. Requests exhumation of Paulo’s body, needs judicial authorization, takes a week. Meanwhile, the forensic analysis of Lucas’s remains is ready. Cause of death: asphyxia, fracture of the hyoid bone consistent with manual strangulation. No signs of other serious injuries. Death was quick. Mendes reads the report. A child strangled, probably by someone stronger, adult.

The timeline fits. Paulo was in the annex. Lucas playing in the backyard, making noise. Paulo snaps, grabs the boy, kills without clear intention, panics, hides the body. All in a matter of minutes. Marta was in the kitchen washing dishes. Roberto in the living room listening to the radio. No one saw. No one heard.

Paulo’s exhumation is authorized. The coffin is opened. After 17 years buried, not much is left, but they manage to extract DNA from the bones. Compare with DNA found in fabric fibers that still remained on Lucas’s clothes. Three days later, positive result. Paulo Ferreira’s DNA on Lucas’s clothes. Mendes goes personally to communicate with Roberto and Marta.

“The evidence confirms. It was your brother.”

Roberto collapses. 30 years believing a stranger had taken his son and the whole time it was his own brother, someone he protected, cared for, loved.

“Why? Why did he do this?”

“Probably wasn’t premeditated. His untreated schizophrenia, a psychotic episode, the child’s noise irritating him. We’re not talking about a calculating killer. It was a tragedy, but doesn’t change the fact.”

Marta cries convulsively.

“We lived with our son’s killer for 13 years. Ate at the same table, shared the same roof.”

“He probably lived tormented by guilt. His mental illness got much worse after 1982, didn’t it?”

Roberto confirms.

“Got even more isolated, even more strange.”

“Guilt does that. Even in a sick mind, there is guilt.”

Two weeks after the discovery, the coroner releases Lucas’s remains to the family. Roberto organizes a funeral. After 30 years, his son will finally have a dignified burial. It is a gray April day. The small cemetery in Guarulhos is almost empty. Roberto, Marta in the wheelchair, some distant relatives, Mrs. Conceição leaning on a cane. The coffin is small, white, closed.

The priest says a brief prayer, speaks about innocent children, about mysteries of God, about forgiveness. Forgiveness. The word echoes in Roberto’s head. How to forgive one’s own brother? How to forgive someone who betrayed in the most horrible way possible? But Paulo was sick. His mind was broken. He wasn’t completely responsible for his acts. Or was he? Roberto doesn’t know, doesn’t know anything anymore.

The coffin is lowered. Marta sobs. Roberto remains firm because someone needs to. After everyone leaves, he stays alone in the cemetery. Sits on a stone bench, looks at the new tombstone. Lucas Ferreira, 1974-1982. Our beloved boy. Finally in peace.

“Sorry, son. Sorry for not protecting you. Sorry for letting that happen under our roof.”

The tears finally come. 30 years of compressed pain explode at once. When he returns home, Marta is in the living room, looking at an old photo of Lucas, the boy smiling, holding a soccer ball.

“I should be relieved, right? Finally we know what happened. But I’m not. I’m just empty.”

“Me too.”

“Do you hate Paulo?”

Roberto thinks before answering.

“I hate what he did. Hate that he took our son from us, but I can’t hate him. He was my brother, was sick. If he had taken the meds right, if we had given more attention…”

“No, don’t blame yourself. The blame is his alone.”

“The blame is on a lot of people, Marta. On the health system that didn’t take care of him right, on us who underestimated his illness, on the police who didn’t investigate right, on everyone.”

In the house on Acacia Street, Cláudia gives up selling. No one wants to buy a house where a child was murdered and hidden in the wall for 30 years. Haunted house, the neighbors say. José, the bricklayer, still has nightmares with that vision. The small bones, the destroyed backpack, the child’s sneakers.

“Boss, are you okay?” Adilson asks a week later, when they return to work on another site.

“I will be, but I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.”

The newspapers cover the case for two more weeks. Then, as always, another scandal takes the place. Lucas Ferreira’s case becomes just another statistic. Child missing in 1982, found dead 30 years later. Uncle with mental problems is pointed out as the killer. Headline of one day, forgotten the next.

But for Roberto and Marta, there is no way to forget. They live the rest of their days with the truth, a truth that in a way is worse than uncertainty. When you don’t know what happened, you can imagine happy endings. Your son adopted by a good family, living well somewhere. But now they know. Lucas died in less than a minute, scared, without understanding why his uncle was hurting him, and stayed in a dark wall for 30 years, while life went on on the other side. There is no comfort in that.

Three years later, in 2015, Marta dies. The heart finally gives up. Roberto says she died of a broken heart, literally. One year later, Roberto follows her. 84 years old. Also the heart. They are buried beside Lucas, finally together again. On Roberto’s tombstone, the family puts a phrase he repeated always in the last years: “I forgave, but never forgot.”

It’s all that remains: forgiveness without forgetting, love without happiness, closure without peace. The house on Acacia Street is eventually demolished in 2018. In its place, they build an apartment building. No one who lives there today knows the story, but some nights, the oldest residents of the street say, you can still hear a ball bouncing. Boom, boom, boom. The sound of a boy playing in a backyard that no longer exists. A memory that neither 30 years nor concrete walls managed to erase.