As soon as the baby was born, the evil stepfather took it in his arms and threw it into the sewer. That’s where poor little Alberto was left, the name given to him by the homeless man who saved him from dying in that place. He raised him without knowing that years later this would happen. It was Friday afternoon and Donald Alfonso, a man who collected plastic waste to sell, heard the cry of a baby in that filthy riverbed and thought he was crazy. But when he looked closely, he saw the newborn baby also.
Don Alfonso managed to get out of that place full of putrid water and place the child in the small wheelbarrow in which they carried the waste he was selling with the money he had earned. c That day he went to the store and brought diapers, milk and bottles for Albertito, the name he had chosen in honor of his late father. He carried him wrapped in his old sweater, and when his friends asked him about the child, he told them that he had found him and they all agreed that he was crazy to take care of a child whose origin he had never even met while he was with his child in his arms. In the house of Daniel Gregoria, the child’s mother, everything was crying in desperation.
The woman was middle class and fell in love with an engineer who was at a construction site near her house. They fell in love and made love. Months later she was pregnant, and when she arrived at the construction site to look for her beloved, she was told that he had suddenly been transferred to another construction site. Grigori was dismayed and didn’t understand how fate could be so cruel to her and her child. None of the masons knew where to find the engineer and she was inconsolable.
She arrived home and when she told her parents what was happening to her, her father exploded in fury and told her that she would have to marry anyone to cover up her mistake. Ignacio, the girl’s best friend, who had always been in love with her, offered to be her husband and raise her son as his own. Ignacio, I don’t love you and I hope you understand that our marriage will only be for appearances, said the woman, to which the man replied that he only wanted to help her. Just a month later, the wedding took place. It was supposed to be a family ceremony, but the girl’s parents invited all their friends and it turned into a big celebration.
It was everything in abundance but happiness, because although Ignacio looked happy, Gregoria couldn’t hide her tears and told everyone that she was crying with happiness. However, the murmurings began. They went on their honeymoon and the young husband couldn’t stand the girl’s rejection and decided to party with her money. The following days things went from bad to worse. When they returned, they settled in the beautiful house the Gregorious parents had given them and the man made it clear that the gentleman would have to pay all the expenses because he wasn’t willing to work.
The gentleman accepted the deal and he lived an excellent life. He would go out partying without worrying about expenses and if the woman complained to him, he would tell her that thanks to him she had not been seen as dishonest in the eyes of society and that he’d better keep him happy otherwise he’d tell everyone that she was carrying another man’s child in her womb. Because of all these situations, the man pondered what he would do when the child was born.
So he came to the conclusion that he should get rid of it to punish Gregoria for her rejections. Many ideas came to his mind until he decided that he would steal the child to abandon it. He didn’t let the woman go to the hospital to give birth, but hired a midwife and when the child was born he gave the mother a tea with a sleeping pill and took advantage of her sleep to take the child and leave it in the sewer. When Gregori awoke, her husband was asleep beside her.
She got up to see the child in a crib and began to scream because he wasn’t there. The man got up in astonishment and when they went down to the second floor they saw that the house had been disturbed, several things had been stolen and they immediately deduced that the child had been kidnapped. Gregoria called her parents, who notify the police. Ignacio was crying for his son and no one suspected that he might be involved. The search began immediately but was unsuccessful. Donalfonso was happy with his Alberto.
He made a space for him in his bed and every day he got up at dawn to wash his baby’s clothes. He had bought clothes and some people who saw him on the street gave them to help him. He would take the child to work, so he would tie a sheet around his body. While in the wheelbarrow he’d carry the things he collected to sell at the recycling center. Donald, Alfonso’s friends made fun of him and assured him that he was sacrificing himself in vain for someone else’s son because when he grew up he would be ashamed of him. However, that didn’t matter to him in spite of how badly he had fared with his blood family.
Don Alfonso lived in solitude in the middle of the forest because his wife and two children left him. When she met a man who had a lot of money, they didn’t care that he had been a hardworking father who paid for the best schools with his salary as a bus driver. They left and never came back. He sold his house and built the little cabin in the woods where Albertido grew up. The boy always walked with him and when he started to walk, he even helped him pick up the bottles they sold for recycling.
The child never lacked for anything. Donald took great care to keep him well dressed and well shoot. When he was four years old, he enrolled him in a school where he spent the whole day. There he was fed and his education was of high quality. In the afternoons the man would take him to pick him up and when he did well in the sale of recycling materials, they would have lunch in a modest restaurant to celebrate. Alberto called Don Alfonso, his father, who had told him that his mother died during childbirth.
The boy loved his father and promised him that one day he would no longer have to work because he would take care of him. The man enjoyed those words and was sure that his son would be a great man. The boy continued studying and when he was 14 he got a job as a gardener in the house of one of his classmates. Every Saturday he went to mow the lawn and water the plants, a job for which he was paid a considerable amount. So his father helped with that money.
When he graduated from high school, alberto studied to become an auto mechanic and to his surprise, his father told him that he had some money saved in the bank and gave it to him to set up his own shop. Alberta was excited and couldn’t believe it. With that money he bought the machinery and tools he needed to open his business the day they inaugurated the shop. After the opening party, when they were both about to go to bed, the man decided to reveal the truth to his son. Alberta was surprised and ran to hug his father as he thanked him for everything he had done for him.
Despite not carrying his blood, the young man promised him with more emotion that soon he would be able to stop working. The first days in the workshop were not easy because he had no customers. However, three months later he had already grown not only his number of customers, but also workers. In fact, the boy didn’t allow his father to continue working and told him that he was going to start looking for his biological family. Without a clue, the boy hired a private detective. Here he showed him the sheet in which he had left him abandoned, but that was insufficient. After two years of searching, Alberto stopped paying and felt defeated.
One morning the detective arrived at the workshop to return the sheet he had given him and when he saw it, the lady who was asking for money from the workshop’s customers started to cry. She said it reminded her of her lost son, Donald Alfonso, who remained in the workshop was curious and approached the woman. She related the date of her son’s birth and it was the same date he found the child. The detective told him that it could be a coincidence, but suggested doing a DNA test. Two weeks later the results came back and the beggar was Donna Gregoria, from whom Ignacio had taken all her property and forced her into destitution.
Alberto confronted Ignacio and he laughed when he told him that he threw him into the sewer without imagining that he was accompanied by a police officer who arrested him. And in a trial he was stripped of the goods he had taken from his wife. Alberto finally had his mother. He took care of her, who is still a young woman and on. Alfonso was happy because she was older and his son would not be alone when he was gone. The three of them lived happily while the evil stepfather spent ten years in prison.