At eight the corridor of the Semefo in Cuautla is in shade and it is better to come now, before the sun swings round. Marisol opens the folding chair, orange canvas, the back foot wrapped in black insulating tape. She always opens it in the same spot, under the printed notice: ENTREGA DE RESTOS · VENTANILLA 3. There are two windows in the corridor. Number one for the lawyers, la dos for the families. The notice has come unstuck at the bottom right corner and nobody has pressed it back. Marisol settles the clear plastic folder on her knees. Inside are Emiliano's birth acta, the report filed in dos mil veintidós, the copies of the copies, ordered by date. Beside the chair she sets the two small bottles of water, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. Then the cardboard fan advertising the óptica La Milagrosa. At a quarter past eight the others arrive, with the paper numbers taken at the door. Marisol has the tres. In four years she has learned that low numbers are worth nothing; she takes them anyway: things are done in order. Window dos opens at nine. The line moves by numbers, and every number is given a sentence. Emiliano's file está en integración. It is the same sentence as on the tres de junio, when they called to tell her that her son's remains had been at the Semefo since dos mil veintidós, four years inside the building she passed on the pesero. It is the same sentence as the ocho de junio, and all through July. On the siete de julio they let her into the courtyard for the exhumation from the panteón ministerial: a white box, the name written on the side in marker, EMILIANO R.G., and one minute to look at it before the van took it back inside. Since that day the sentence has not changed. Today the clerk at the dos prints the pase para mañana almost without looking at the screen: her hand is already on the stamp. The corridor clock has said tres y veinte since mid-morning, but closing comes on time all the same, announced over the loudspeaker. It is hot. The óptica fan goes back and forth. At two Marisol drinks the second bottle, folds her handkerchief, cleans the glass of Emiliano's frame, then the arms of her glasses, then the edge of the chair. In any case tomorrow is Wednesday, and on Wednesdays the perito in charge comes down to the office early: everyone in the line knows it, the way bus timetables are known. Behind the window, when it opens, a piece of the office shows: metal shelves, folders tied with string, and a trolley marked INTEGRACIÓN with a loop of Christmas tinsel still around the handle, silver, in August. Nobody takes it off. The woman with número cinco says her husband está en integración, two years now. The young man with the seis says nothing: it is his first time, he keeps his documents in a new folder with an elastic band. Marisol passes him the fan without saying anything, and he takes it. At three the loudspeaker announces that reception is closed. People stand up. The folding chairs snap shut one after another, that dry sound canvas chairs make, seven, eight snaps down the corridor. Marisol does not stand. She takes the chair and moves it a metre, under the dome camera on the ceiling, where the frame takes in the window and the wall. On it she props the photograph of Emiliano, the one in the secundaria shirt, the glass of the frame cleaned since this morning. Then she goes to the window, rests her hands on the aluminium ledge and says: "Me quedo." The clerk looks up. She looks at Marisol, then at the chair with the photograph, then at Marisol again. "La recepción cierra a las tres," she says. "Lo sé," says Marisol. "Me quedo." She does not raise her voice. She never has, in four years. The clerk keeps her hand on the internal telephone. On the glass there is the sticker with the opening hours, and under the hours the number for the seguridad floor. She does not call seguridad. She dials another number, three digits. The perito comes down after ten minutes. Blue coat, badge turned the wrong way round, a folder under her arm. She looks at the chair under the camera, the photograph with its cleaned glass. She does not ask who the boy is. She opens the folder on the ledge of the window, turns it towards Marisol and holds her finger on a line. "El expediente entró en integración el nueve de agosto de dos mil veintidós," she says. Nueve de agosto. Marisol looks at the line. Four years exactly, in three days. It is not a date of release: it is the first true date anyone has shown her on a sheet of paper, with a stamp beside it. The perito closes the folder. "No puedo darle un día. Puedo decirle qué falta." She says it, and it is a short list. Marisol listens to the end, then goes back to the chair, takes the photograph and puts it in the plastic folder with the documents. The chair she leaves there, open, under the camera. She goes out into the half past three sun. From the street, through the glass doors, the orange chair is perfectly visible, in the middle of the empty corridor. The notice for the ventanilla tres is still on the wall, its corner unstuck.