Chapter 68 CHAPTER 69

Chapter 68 CHAPTER 69

Ana came through the front door carrying Luciana in her arms and holding Mateo’s hand.
Luciana had already turned three. She wore a yellow dress and a crooked bow that, judging by the look of it, Mateo had tied for her in the car. Mateo had grown. He almost reached his mother’s chest now. His face was longer. His eyes more serious.
When he saw Julieta coming slowly down the staircase, he let go of his mother’s hand and ran.
“Auntie.”
“Mateo.”
She hugged him as best she could around her belly. The boy wrapped his arms around her waist above the curve and stayed there for a long moment without lifting his head.
“Don’t leave again.”
“I’m not leaving again.”
Luciana, from Ana’s arms, let out a shrill cry and stretched both arms toward Julieta. Ana set her down. The little girl crossed the foyer with the quick, short steps of a three-year-old and attached herself to Mateo at Julieta’s legs, as if she were the other half of the hug.
“Fat Auntie.”
“Luciana.”
“Fat Auntie!”
Ana covered her face with one hand.
“She comes up with that all by herself, I swear. I didn’t teach her.”
“She’s telling the truth, Ana.”
“She is telling the truth. But she didn’t have to say it out loud.”
Julieta laughed. She stroked Luciana’s hair, kissed the crown of Mateo’s head, and let them go.
When she looked up, Ana was staring toward the staircase.
Gloria had come down.
Slowly, holding the banister, with the nurse behind her. She was three steps from the bottom, standing still, looking at Ana without daring to descend the last few.
Ana froze as well.
The two children turned and looked at the woman in the blue silk scarf, confused. Mateo had seen his grandmother over the past month at his mother’s house, but this thinner, quieter version wasn’t the same. Luciana barely knew her.
“Is that the lady from your house?” Mateo asked his mother softly.
“That’s your grandmother, sweetheart.”
“Oh.”
He said it without surprise, with the neutrality of a nine-year-old when a fact doesn’t change his day. Mateo didn’t move closer. He didn’t move away either. He stayed beside his mother, waiting to see what she would do.
Ana climbed the three steps.
She didn’t hug Gloria. She offered her arm. Gloria leaned on it. Together they descended the last few steps, each supporting the other, and when they reached the foyer Ana still hadn’t let go of her arm.
“Mom.”
“Daughter.”
Ana didn’t correct her this time. Daughter. She let it stand.
“You look tired.”
“I am tired.”
“I brought the kids.”
“I can see that. They’ve both grown.”
“Mateo, sweetheart. Come say hello to your grandmother.”
Mateo approached slowly, with the practiced politeness he reserved for sick adults. He held out his hand. Gloria laughed through her nose, a hollow laugh, and instead of shaking it, she bent down until she was at his height.
“Mateo. Did you know your mother stuck her tongue out at me when she was exactly nine years old over something I can’t even remember?”
“Really?”
“Really. She was grounded for a whole day. Ask her.”
Mateo turned to Ana.
“Is that true, Mom?”
Ana blinked. She had completely forgotten. It was one of those thousand tiny things two people keep from the years when one was a daughter and the other a mother.
“That’s true.”
“Wow.”
“Wow indeed.”
Satisfied with the information, Mateo stepped closer and gave Gloria a quick kiss on the cheek, the way children were taught to greet family aunts, then returned to his mother’s side.
Luciana, who had been watching everyone without understanding any of it, decided that the woman in the scarf reminded her of someone and deserved a pat. She held out her hand. Gloria took it. The little girl gave her two solemn pats and then hid behind Ana again.
“Approved, Grandma. From both sides.”
“So it seems.”

They moved into the large sitting room. Rosa brought juice for the children and tea for the women. Gloria sat in the high-backed armchair, the one that hurt her ribs the least. Ana sat beside her. Julieta sat opposite with a cushion behind her back. The children settled on the floor with Capitán, while Luciana handed out cookies that didn’t belong to her.
Ana took her mother’s left hand. Julieta had already been holding her right without thinking about it.
The three of them sitting that way, each daughter holding one of their mother’s hands, was the closest they had come to a family portrait in a very long time. None of them said it aloud for fear of spoiling it.
“Mom,” Ana said after a while, “you look better than you did two weeks ago.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. You’ve got better color.”
“It must be the scarf. Luciana gave it to me.”
“Luciana?”
“The nurse. Not my granddaughter.”
“Oh.”
All three laughed. A short, ugly laugh, but laughter all the same.
And Gloria did not apologize.
Not that afternoon. Not with words. Not with a speech. She didn’t say Daughters, forgive me. She didn’t say I failed you. She said none of the sentences she had spent ten years rehearsing for this moment and never dared to speak for fear of saying them wrong.
She stayed silent on that.
But she stayed.
That was what she did.
She stayed seated in that chair with both her daughters holding her hands, without moving, without running away, without drinking, without talking too much, without asking for anything.
She stayed.
The way she never had before.
And her daughters, without saying it aloud either, accepted it that way.
As an apology.
Not complete. Not entirely.
But the first real one the woman had ever given them in their lives.

An hour later, Julieta straightened in her chair.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going upstairs to spend a little time with Vladimir.”
“Go ahead, sweetheart.”
“Gabriela.”
The little girl lifted her head from the floor.
“Yes, Julieta?”
“Will you stay here a while with your grandmother and your cousins?”
Gabriela looked at Gloria. Then at Mateo. Then at Luciana, who was trying to tie a bow onto Capitán’s ear.
“Okay.”
“Show your grandmother your giraffe with the hat.”
“I’ll get it.”
Gloria made a small gesture with her free hand toward Julieta.
A tiny gesture that said, I’ll take care of it.
And Julieta understood, without needing to discuss it, that the woman in the blue silk scarf—her mother—was offering her something concrete for the first time in her life.
A few hours with the children.
An afternoon in an armchair.
A grandmother staying behind to watch over them so her daughter could go upstairs.
Ana understood it too.
She touched her sister’s arm without saying a word.

Julieta went upstairs.
The stairs were difficult. Everything was difficult at this stage of pregnancy. But she climbed them, and when she reached the master bedroom she opened the door quietly, greeted Lina with a nod, and walked to the bed.
She took Vladimir’s hand.
“Today is a good day.”
The machine beeped.
“My mother is downstairs. She came with a blue scarf and three gifts for Lucio, one of which is so ugly I’m going to treasure it forever. My sister just arrived with your niece and nephew. They’ve grown. Luciana called me Fat Auntie. Your daughter is showing a giraffe to her grandmother.”
She stroked his knuckles.
“It’s been a long time since this house has had an afternoon like this. And you’re missing it, Vladimir Rossi. You’re missing every bit of it. I hope you have a very good plan for making it up to me.”
She kissed his hand.
“I’m right here.”
The machine beeped.
Julieta adjusted the chair, sat beside the bed, and for once said nothing more, because downstairs a woman was taking care of her children and granddaughter without asking for anything in return, and upstairs there was a sleeping man whose only need was her company.
She remained there for a long while, wordless, his hand between hers, listening to the slow rhythm of the machine and, far below, the laughter of three children and two women in a room that had spent months finding nothing to laugh about.