He separated cardboard.
I was putting plastic together.
He collected cans.
With what he got he bought simple food and kept some coins to clean himself in a public bath or wash his clothes.
I hadn't always lived like this.
Many years ago, Mauricio had worked as a paramedic.
It was one of those men who could hear a scream in the middle of a street and run to him while everyone else walked away.
He had treated accidents, falls, house fires and emergencies he preferred not to remember.
For almost twenty years, his job had been to arrive when someone was living the worst time of his life.
And for almost twenty years I had thought I could take it all.
Until the worst moment came to his own house.
His wife, Laura, and seven-year-old daughter, Camila, were killed in a road accident while returning from visiting relatives.
Mauricio was working when he got the call.
He had spent his whole life trying to save strangers.
But that afternoon he could do nothing for the two people he loved the most.
After the funeral he returned to work too soon.
He thought keeping busy would help him.
It didn't work.
He started sleeping poorly.
Then he stopped sleeping almost completely.
Every time I heard a mermaid I felt like I was coming back to that call.
He stared at Laura and Camila’s photos for hours.
He stopped answering messages.
She stopped visiting friends.
One day he couldn't finish a shift.
Then he missed the next one.
And the next.
His life began to get rid of in a silent way.
It didn't happen suddenly.
First he lost his job.
Then he sold some things.
He then left the apartment where he had lived with his family because he could no longer afford it.
He spent a season with an old partner.
Another with a cousin.
But Mauricio was increasingly isolated.
I didn't want to worry anyone.
Nor did he know how to explain that getting out of bed could feel like carrying a stone sack.
In the end, he ended up living on the street.
People saw the sloppy beard, old shirt and worn shoes.
No one saw the man who had held the hand of wounded people years before so that they would not be afraid.
No one saw the father who was still keeping a drawing of his daughter inside a plastic bag so that it would not be damaged.
No one knew that some nights, before bed, he played the little red pendant he wore around his neck and reminded himself that he had ever been able to help someone.
Because that jewel had a story.
A story that Mauritius had never told complete.
It happened nine years earlier.
Mauricio had been living on the street for a short time.
That night I was walking near an old train station that was no longer used for passengers. He had gone there because he knew a protected hallway where, sometimes, he could rest without being disturbed.
Then he heard a noise.
He thought it was a cat.
Then he heard a sob.
Mauritius stopped.
"Hello?"
There was no response.
He approached an old bench and discovered a shrinking child behind her.
I'd be about eight years old.
He wore a sweatshirt too light for the night and had a small knee wound.
The boy was shaking.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mauricio said, keeping a distance. What's your name?
The boy opened his mouth, but did not answer.
He seemed completely disoriented.
Mauritius sat on the ground several steps from him.
He didn't try to touch it.
He waited.
He had learned during his years of work that a scared person often needed to first feel that someone was willing to stay.
It was several minutes.
Finally, the boy whispered:
I don’t know where my mom is.
Mauritius felt a strange pain in his chest.
“It’s okay. We're gonna find her.
The boy denied with his head.
“I got lost.
He slowly managed to tell her what happened.
He had been with his family in a crowded celebration. At some point he separated from them.
He tried to return to the place where he had last seen them.
He got confused with streets.
He walked for hours.
A driver stopped to see him alone and wanted to help him, but the boy, scared, ran.
I had ended up near the station without even understanding how I got there.
Mauritius sought help.
He got a night worker from a nearby local to notify authorities.
Then he came back with the boy.
I didn't want to leave him alone.
He had a half a pen in a bag.
It was all I thought I was eating that night.
He broke it in two.
"Take."
The boy looked at him.
“And you?”
“I already ate.
It was a lie.
But Mauricio smiled.
The little boy agreed.
Shortly afterwards he began to shiver harder.
Mauricio took off his jacket.
“Put it on.
But you are cold.
I am great. You're not.
The boy put it on.
Mauritius spent the next few hours sitting next to him.
They talked little.
The little boy was still too scared.
At some point he fell asleep leaning against the wall, covered with the jacket.
Mauricio remained awake.
Every day I checked to breathe well.
He watched the wound on his knee.
He was watching the hallway.
And while I was doing it, I was thinking about Camila.
I thought about what he would have wished for if his daughter had ever been lost.
The answer was simple.
I would have wanted someone to stay with her.
Nothing more.
That she wasn't alone.
Near dawn several people appeared looking for the child.
When they heard his description, everything happened very quickly.
They covered it.
They asked him questions.
They spoke on the phone.
One of them explained that the family had been looking for him all night.
Mauritius backed down.
The child was safe.
That was enough.
“Sir,” said someone, “we need your data.
Mauritius gave his name.
But in the midst of the confusion, when more people arrived and the little one was transferred to reunite with his family, no one spoke to him again.
Mauricio did not insist either.
He picked up his sack and left.
He only discovered the pendant an hour later.
It was in his jacket pocket.
It was a small red stone, surrounded by an ancient frame.
He remembered seeing her hanging from the boy’s neck.
He went back to the station.
He asked.
No one knew where to find the family anymore.
For a few days he tried to find out something.
But he didn't have a phone of his own.
I didn't know the boy's full name either.
He finally kept the piece with the intention of returning it if he ever found it again.
That day never came.
Over time, the pendant took on another meaning.
In his worst nights, Mauricio squeezed him in hand.
Not because I thought I belonged to him.
But because I remembered him that night.
The night when he was convinced that his life was no longer of any use.
