He had been born on March 31. Two days later, someone put him inside a backpack and left him under the wheels of a truck parked on the outskirts of La Vega Central, in Recoleta, Santiago.
He did not cry to get attention. He cried because it was the only thing he knew how to do.
A passerby heard that cry. They alerted the Carabineros. The officers opened the backpack, and there he was, two days old, unharmed, with no known name yet, with no one.
They took him to Roberto del Río Hospital.
Four months later, there is a photo. A doctor on duty holds him in his arms. The baby rests on that chest with the absolute trust of those who have not yet learned to distrust. There is no mother in the image. There is no family. There is a man in a white coat who, in that moment, is everything.
That is what breaks you. Not the abandonment, which is already unbearable. But that image of a four-month-old child smiling without knowing what life had in store for him.
There are questions a photo does not answer. But there are questions a photo forces you to ask.
Who takes care of those who have no one?