A mother on the edge of the abyss discovers that her daughter’s letter hides a secret, and that emptiness can also be the beginning of an unexpected struggle.
By Nuria Ruiz Fdez
HoyLunes – The hours, slow, felt like stones in her pockets. Each tick-tock was a sharp blow against Margarita’s chest as she wandered through the house aimlessly, like an animal trapped in a cage.
The soup tureen, still on the shelf, watched her with the patience of objects that have witnessed too many farewells. Margarita stroked it with her fingers, as if within the ceramic she might find the answer to her doubts.
—*What do I do now?* —she whispered, staring at it, as if that tureen could hold the reply—. How do I live with this emptiness, with this open wound?
The silence of the kitchen replied with the memory of Lucía. Her little girl. Eyes like the sea, so much like her father’s when he was young. Her teenage rage, which had now turned into flight. Margarita repeated the last words of the letter over and over: “Don’t follow me”. But how not to? How not to run after the only thing that bound her to life?
Days went by without news. At dawn, Margarita would go out with her daughter’s red scarf in her pocket; she returned at night, exhausted. She asked at the station, in the bars, in the shops. No one seemed to know anything. The neighbors barely dared to look at her: they knew too well the face of a broken mother and preferred to remain silent.
One afternoon, the sea was wild, the dirty foam clawing at the shore. Margarita approached and, for the first time, thought of throwing herself in. “My girl, if you have abandoned me, why go on? Perhaps in the water I will find the same peace your father found”. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The salty smell struck her face like a slap. The waves embraced her hips like the arms of sirens, inviting her to let herself be carried away by the current.
Then, from the depths of memory, Mariano’s voice returned, that murmur on his deathbed:
— Do not forget to live, even if it hurts.
She opened her eyes suddenly. The sea roared with the fierce Levante wind, and she stepped back. She pulled out the red scarf, pressed it to her chest, and understood: if life had brought her to that bitter shore, she was not going to surrender to the tide without a fight, just as she had resisted the fire when it consumed everything back in León. She had to resist. Somewhere else, in another way, but in the same spirit. For herself. For Lucía.
That night, back home, the soup tureen gleamed faintly under the bare bulb.
Margarita took it in her hands and, for the first time in a long time, filled it with boiling water and, with hard bread and a bit of garlic, made a simple soup. She ate alone, but in every spoonful she felt the company of the women of her lineage, surrounding her in silence, reminding her that life, though it burns, though it drowns, though it suffocates, also mends.
When she finished, her lips still warm, she made a decision: “I will find my daughter, even if I have to cross half the world”. But first, she reopened the letter. She slid it between her fingers, as if to heal a wound. She read again: “Don’t follow me”. And there, between the curves of the ink, a suspicion broke out like a crack. “This handwriting isn’t Lucía’s! The shape of the ‘t’, the pressure of the pen on the paper, that strange stroke…”. Something twisted in her chest: *“Someone wrote this, it wasn’t her!”
The house, until then quiet, seemed to sway as if it were a ship adrift. And at that moment, an unfamiliar silhouette appeared in the window; she only had time to make out dark skin, perfect teeth, and honey-colored eyes. Margarita froze. She clutched the soup tureen, which trembled in her hands as if it, too, had shuddered.
She opened the window. The figure looked at her urgently. Perhaps bringing news. Perhaps a trap. Margarita took a deep breath, reached for the scarf in her pocket like a talisman, and with a serious gesture and serene gaze, pointed to the door:
—Come in.
To be continued…
#hoylunes, #nuria_ruiz_fdez,
