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When Julieta woke up just a little more than an hour ago, she thought it all was just a bad dream, but as she noticed both her daughters were sleeping in the bed with them and that it wasn’t her room, she panicked.
Agustín woke up immediately and both girls a few seconds after him, all three of them looking at her tears and the grief that she experienced all over again.
When she eventually calmed down, Isabela made her take a bath, insisting that the warm water will help her to feel a little better and that she’d have some time alone, before the rest of the family comes to see them.
Julieta agreed, though hesitantly.
That’s why she was sitting motionlessly in a bath, her legs curled up to her chest, her cheek resting on her knees. She was staring at the colourful piles that the wall was decorated with, and she trembled.
She heard a knock. Then another one. And a third.
She didn’t answer.
“Juli?”
It was Agustín, but she didn’t respond, still staring at the wall.
She felt a shiver going all over her skin when the doors to the bathroom opened and a flow of cool air got in.
She heard the steps. “Querida,” Agustín kneeled next to the bath and wet his hand in the water. “Ay, it’s cold!” he said, worry tinting his voice. “Come on, you need to get out, you’ll catch a cold!”
She shrugged. “One arepa and–” she stopped.
He sighed. “I know it’s hard, but you can’t stay here like that all day.”
“I want to go back to bed.”
“Juli–”
“Agustín, I can’t–” she said, turning her head to look at him. She was tired. “I can’t look at all those people and see pity on their faces. I don’t want to go out.”
Agustín hesitated for a moment, looking at her face intently and she knew that instant that he was debating whether he should tell her something.
She lifted her head to have a better look at him. “What is it?”
He licked his lips. “They started cleaning up after the Casita this morning. There is a plan to start rebuilding it tomorrow–”
She gasped. “What?” her voice was harsh. “So soon? They can’t!”
He frowned.
“They can’t,” she repeated and finally moved, gripping the edges of the tub to lift herself up. “Why if they destroy something? I haven’t looked for…” Agustín offered her his arm and helped her out.
“Do you want to go there?”
“I–” a brief hesitation as he wrapped her into one of the towels. “I have to. There are some things that we may find and I don’t want them to be damaged or thrown away.”
“They wouldn’t throw away anything without our permission–”
“Whose permission?” she asked him tiredly, as she rubbed slowly her arm. “ Mamá’s?”
“I haven’t seen her today yet.”
“She’s probably up there,” she answered quietly, shrugging and walking over to the pile of clothes Isabela left for her. But her every step was heavy and she lacked the energy to do anything faster. For the first time in her life, she felt her age.
“Maybe,” Agustín followed her closely.
She glanced at him. “You don’t have to walk after me like some lost puppy, Tino,” she started with her underwear. “I’m fully capable of taking care of myself, you know–” but her vision became fuzzy for a moment and she swayed on her feet, gripping the edge of the wall tightly. “Ay.”
Agustín’s hands landed on her waist. “I think you need to eat something.”
“I’m not–”
“Si, you are,” his hands were gentle but his voice was firm. “When anyone of us was sick, and when we lack our appetites, you always told us to eat, even if we didn’t want to. That’s your turn to follow your own rule, querida.”
She hummed.
“I’ll prepare you something for breakfast.”
He kissed the back of her head, then left.
Julieta stood still where he left her, still gripping the wall. The world stopped moving on its own and she could turn her head without feeling dizzy anymore, so she continued with dressing up.
When she left the bathroom about five minutes later, there was a plate waiting for her on the table, although Agustín was nowhere to be seen.
She sat in the chair and looked at food.
Agustín wasn’t a bad cook. He could prepare some simple meals and on those rare occasions he’d make her something to eat, but when usually those were sweet gestures, now she felt weird.
It all was so strange because she knew that from now on, her food would be just that - just food. Not special food, not healing food. Just food.
Without her gift, she was just an ordinary cook, without any special talents or creativity. Without the motivation to do anything.
She wondered who would prepare the meals now, as she was in no state to even look at food.
Agustín came back about fifteen minutes later and he looked at the plate with a sigh. “At least you ate something. ”
She hummed, looking at her half-drunk chocolate con queso and barely touched almojábana.
“Anything else I can do?”
“No. But I think I need a walk after all. This chocolate made me quite nauseous.”
He smiled tightly. “Ay, I shouldn’t have done it for you after that many hours with an empty stomach.”
“Don’t worry, it will pass,” she smiled back, though her voice was dim and her eyes remained sad. “Where are Isa and Lu?”
“I think I’ve seen Isa with Dolores sometime ago,” he said, taking the plate back to the little kitchen. “And Luisa went for a walk, but I guess she’s helping them with cleaning up.”
“I want to go there.”
He just nodded.
That day, time was passing exceptionally slowly.
As Julieta sat at the windowsill after one of the windows from her destroyed kitchen, her eyes were observing every movement of people that walked around.
She waited and waited, and waited, hoping that they would finally find something she wanted to see, not just broken plates, shattered pots and any piece of furniture that cracked in half.
Some of them stopped once in a while to look at her and she looked back at some of them, her eyes hard and unblinking and she must have looked… somehow different, because all of them turned their heads away after brief eye contact, visibly uncomfortable.
It was good. She swore that if one person more looked at her that way, she’d start thundering, just like Pepa.
“Juli,” as if answering her call, her sister appeared at her side. “Hola.”
“Hola.”
Pepa was looking at her, her green eyes so perceptive and wide in worry. She sat next to Julieta and shifted for a moment. She took a deep breath, then stilled for a few seconds, before she put an arm around her waist and moved closer, pressing herself to her right side.
Julieta didn’t push her back, she just rested her head on her sister’s shoulder and let her be close, cuddling as they had often done when they were younger and full of worries.
It brought her minimal comfort, but Pepa’s breathing steadied slowly as the seconds passed and Julieta realized that her sister needed that just as much as Julieta did.
So she didn’t move. At all.
They spent a long time in silence, staring at people who worked at the ruins of Casita, observing floors and walls for something worth taking, just being in each other’s presence.
And then, as Julieta’s eyes closed briefly, a quiet, soft voice interrupted them. “Señora?”
Julieta looked up at the man who approached them. “Si?”
He had some wooden box in his left hand and he used his right to take off his hat. “Mi hombres found this box under the broken bed in that green room. I thought–”
Julieta looked at the box like it was the greatest treasure, but her throat tightened painfully. “Gracias,” she said as he handed her the finding.
“That’s nothing, señora,” he said, and walked away, his hat held close to his chest.
Julieta laid the box on her lap and Pepa shifted a little, looking curiously over her shoulder. “Any idea what it can be?”
Pepa shook her head.
Julieta took a deep breath and opened it, lifting the top lid up.
And she gasped immediately, her breath hitching once again.
There, in the box, was a hand-made card with neat handwriting that said on her birthday - for the best mamá in the world . She covered her mouths with one hand and she felt Pepa’s hand drawing circles on her back.
Julieta lifted the card and under it, there was a soft-blue apron with white and dark-blue embroidery. She took it out of the box and spread it over her thighs. Herbs, leaves and two little butterflies with the word mamá between them were embroidered into the material.
She sniffed, feeling hot tears gathering in her eyes. Pepa sniffed too, cuddling closer to her and Julieta let herself cry, bringing the apron close to her chest, close to her heart.
The last birthday gift Mirabel would ever give her.