"too beautiful a dream"

My Dear Angelita,
        A year ago you asked me to save you from being removed to the miserable province of Trenque Lauquen with your family. Because I loved you, and you leaned slightly towards me and touched my forearm while you asked me, I brought you to live with me on my turkey farm in the mountains. Here I thought we would be safe and live happily forever. But now I see that it was too beautiful a dream, Angelita. Too beautiful. And we had to wake up.


         When I kidnapped our “son,” Little Ricardo, from a wealthy family in town, I thought we made up the perfect family... I think Ricardito misses you, but also, he misses his original family. I think it’s probably just a phase. If I could get anywhere near my suppressed memories, I'm sure I would remember that it took me a while to accept my captors as my parents, too.


        I understand that the life of the turkey farmer wasn’t for you. Every day, the turkeys attacked you. There were endless chores. The people in the nearby village despised us. Ricardito constantly asked to be returned to his original family. And sometimes, the police came by. Yes, they were very suspicious… Yes, I see now. The life of the farm was very difficult for you.
       
      But, the farm is now strange without you. And I am strange.
      
       This morning I woke up in an empty bed, confused. Then I found your letter saying you had left. Oh how I chewed at the sleeve of my pajama shirt, buried as I was in the deepest woe. Ricardito came to me and asked,
       
     “Excuse me, where is the woman who cooks the food?”


        “Ah, Ricardito,” I said, with great sadness, “Your mother is not here! Our perfect family is shattered!” Ricardito left me in solitude, surely too upset to say anything. I sat with your letter for ten or twenty minutes. I read it ten or twenty times, with my mustache absorbing my tears like a kitchen sponge cut into the shape of a mustache. Then I started to read the phone bill. Were you making long distance calls to arrange your departure? Do you expect me to pay for these?


        Then I heard the remote screaming of the turkeys. When I ran to the barn, there I viewed our precious Ricardito among the turkeys, eating with them, playing with them… Evidently, our child, this boy without his original family, with no perfect family… he has a family of turkeys.
I will vaccinate him accordingly.

Everlasting love,
                          Carlos