Flora confesses that Anne is her daughter

Flora’s confession that Anne Arbizu was her daughter transforms Amaia Salazar’s questions about the walnuts on Anne’s grave into a revelation about concealed motherhood, adoption, and years of grief. Flora explains that she gave birth to Anne at eighteen and surrendered her for adoption; after Anne later found her, the two began a relationship Flora had never imagined possible. The disclosure also makes clear why Anne’s death has left Flora devastated, while establishing that Flora neither killed Víctor Oyarzabal in revenge nor knew that he was killing girls.

The Question and the Confession

Amaia Salazar asks Flora why she leaves walnuts on Anne’s grave and denies loving her. She tries to reassure her sister that she will not judge her, but the question provokes a bodily response before Flora can explain herself: Flora sets down her glass and repeatedly rubs at a stain on her skirt with a paper tissue. The increasingly forceful gesture gives way to uncontrolled sobbing. Amaia has seen Flora cry this way before when Anne and their relationship came up, a recurrence that makes the intensity of the present scene legible even before its cause is disclosed. Flora initially answers by rejecting Amaia’s interpretation. She says she loved Anne as Amaia loves Ibai, then reveals the fact that changes the meaning of the conversation: Anne was her daughter. Amaia is left speechless. Flora’s comparison is not a declaration of romantic love but an attempt to name a maternal attachment that she had concealed for decades. Her confession joins what had appeared to be separate clues—the walnuts, her denials, and her grief—into one family history.

Pregnancy, Birth, and Adoption

Flora says she had Anne at eighteen. The summer she had supposedly spent with their aunts in San Sebastián was, she reveals, a cover story: she was away giving birth and placing the baby for adoption. At the time, she was already seeing Víctor Oyarzabal, but he was not Anne’s father. Flora says that when she was six months pregnant, before her condition became difficult to hide, she took her savings to a charitable home in Pamplona run by religious women who took in unmarried pregnant women. She stayed there until Anne was born. On the day of the birth, Flora said goodbye to the baby and gave her up with the promise that she would go to a good family. She returned home a few days later, resumed her life with Víctor Oyarzabal, and says that the subject was not discussed again. Her mother, however, never forgave her and made her pay for the decision. The adoption did not end Flora’s connection to Anne: when she heard that the Arbizu family had adopted a girl, she looked into the baby’s pram and recognized her daughter immediately. From then on, Flora lived with the knowledge of Anne’s identity while avoiding any look that might betray what she felt.

A Relationship Kept in Secret

Flora describes Anne’s presence as a source of lifelong bitterness and torment, but also explains that it kept her tied to the town so she could remain near her daughter. Their relationship changed only the previous year, when Anne came to see Flora at the bakery late one afternoon. Anne had investigated until she found Flora and already knew who Flora was and how they were related. Flora remembers her as beautiful, confident, and intelligent; Anne did not reproach her for the adoption. Anne wanted to maintain contact without hurting the feelings of her elderly adoptive parents. She suggested that they tell everyone after her parents had died. The secrecy was therefore not simply imposed by Flora: Anne helped define the terms of their renewed relationship, balancing closeness to her birth mother against care for the people who had raised her. Anne also gave Flora a photograph of herself as a baby. Flora points to the photograph on the wall, which Amaia had mistaken for a picture of Ibai. The resemblance between the children intensifies Flora’s response: she says that seeing Ibai both breaks her heart and makes her adore him because he looks so much like Anne.

Grief and the Limits of Flora’s Knowledge

Flora says that the short period in which she knew Anne as an adult made her feel things she had never imagined. She had never been so happy and believes she never will be again. That brief happiness ends in Anne’s murder: Flora says Víctor Oyarzabal killed her daughter and breaks down openly, no longer trying to hide her grief from her sister. Amaia, who had considered other possible explanations for Flora’s connection to Anne, recognizes that this relationship had not occurred to her and listens in shock as the concealed history comes into view. The disclosure does not establish Flora as Anne’s avenger. When Amaia asks whether Flora killed Víctor because he killed Anne, Flora denies it. Asked whether she knew what he was doing, she denies that as well; when Amaia presses her on whether she suspected Víctor was killing girls, the question remains part of the interrogation that follows the confession. This distinction matters to the scene: Flora reveals the depth of her attachment and loss, but the account does not make her an accomplice or a killer. The confession resolves the mystery of her bond with Anne while leaving Amaia to test what Flora knew about Víctor’s crimes.