“Do you think great-grandmother is here today?” Lucia asked me, adjusting her ponytail.
“No, love. Then we called her.
But something didn’t fit.
The pool where there used to be music
As we entered, we saw the orderly mess of a work in progress. Plastics, tapes, boxes. And looking out the back window, we understood everything.
Where there used to be grass, there was now a huge gap. Irons, molds, workers. A swimming pool under construction. Big. Impossible to ignore.
“Is it for us?” Lucia asked with a hope that broke my soul.
I didn’t know what to answer.
The silence of an empty corner
We enter the music room.
The humidifier was still on. The support was there. But the corner where the cello always rested… it was empty.
Not moved. Not saved. Empty.
Lucia approached slowly, as if she feared that something invisible would bite her. He looked at the floor, the shelf, behind the chair.
—Did the great-grandmother change her mind? He asked quietly.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I felt something inside me tense until it hurt.
“Your father took care of it”
I went to the kitchen. My mother, Marta, was there, coffee in hand. My father, Roberto, was checking his tablet. My sister Carla drank something green and expensive.
“Where is Lucia’s cello?” I asked.
“Your father took care of it,” my mother said, as if talking about a bill.
“Did you order how?”
“We sold it,” my father replied. It was valuable. It was there unused.
“It wasn’t his,” I said. It was my daughter’s.
“He’s eleven years old,” Carla sneered. You can use a student one.
That’s when I understood everything.
“Lucía is going to be fine”
That phrase. Always the same.
“Lucia is going to be fine.”
It’s the elegant way of saying: we did what we wanted and we’re not going to take responsibility.
