“You come up with such things! I remembered that I have to get to work early today, Good Morning for you all.” My father moved his eyebrows like he meant it, folded his newspaper, and went right to the garage. He was never in a hurry to go to work. It was boring according to him.
This was an unexpected reaction for such a simple goofy conversation. I found it weird, but not enough to quit my meal. So, I finished it and went to class as I did every day, on automatic pilot.
After class, I spent the rest of my afternoon helping at the Kaleidoscope, my Auntie’s Eva antique store. I never told her that besides being my only aunt, in number and personality, she was my only friend too. She was the one who cared the most about me. She was single, free, had this very yellow messy hair, walked around with that esoteric style and had a very bright soul, like the sun. She is that presence that everyone can notice without even trying. She’s always one level above the others in her happiness, attracting everyone around her, she makes life seems easier. For this reason, every time I said something not so optimistic, she would pop her eyes out and advise me.
“You see, auntie, for me life is just like math. If it is easy, it is wrong.”
“Stop being silly, Lola! I have told you so many times, it is not good for you to have such negative thoughts! Stop that.”
She graduated in Natural Science from Stockholm University, back in the time when she lived at the capital with my grandparents. She was still a student when she made a trip with her colleagues to a Hindu retreat. She spent two weeks learning everything about the energy Earth gives to humans. She likes to say that her life was never the same after that, she felt free being able to see the truth beneath. That our power goes beyond what we can see, we have a mind able to create a completely different world. She says that everything is made from energy, that we are our thoughts, we are responsible for everything happening in our lives. For this reason, she never feeds my negativity, she always says I must keep my vibrational frequency high (don’t ask, I have no idea of what that means) and some other mumbo jumbo. Once, I found this weird cigarette in the compartment of her sky-blue Beetle, maybe it was a good explanation for that “high vibrational frequency”
Besides her craziness, Auntie Eva was always in place when the matter was taking care of her family. Even when we lived in Florida, she always sent us letters, she was a part of our life. Very often we could hear her saying that after we came to live closer, her life was complete. Since she never had kids, we are the family she didn’t build. If I needed to get a problem off my chest, the ones my mother was never interested in, I had her to go to. She always had good advice, for me and my father, her biggest concern. Maybe because she was the older sister, she feels responsible for him, even until this day, even if he already had some gray hair showing. Just like my mom, Auntie Eva was always trying to ease the grudge he made me feel, but nothing really worked. The thing is, she would protect him for other reasons and not because of emotional dependency. To tell the truth, sometimes not even she could stand him, I could see it in her eyes, but she never said it out loud.
Many times, she came to the house and had long conversations with him behind closed doors. It always had a high tone that would go from moments of discussion to silence. It always ended up with her leaving without saying goodbye, passing by me in a hurry, leaving me with a little wink.
“Bye dearest, take care. Everything is fine!” she would say with a half-smile.
But by the strength with which she shut the door of her Beetle and left, ripping off the engine, anyone could tell that everything was far from fine.
When this happened, there was always someone glued to the window hidden behind her curtains, Mrs. Lena, the know-it-all of the neighborhood.
My mom never approved of this nickname I gave her (only because she took care of Rodrigo), but that was simply the truth. She always came to our house with gossip to share. My mom is always polite to others, she listens peacefully and never makes a face, very different from me. Mrs. Lena is a lady older than her fifties, widowed twice. Her face is thin and long, which gives a good contrast to the bun she wore on the top of her head, pulling together her hair that I never could tell was blond or totally gray. She spent most of her life in Italy with her first husband, then came back to Sweden because the man died living her with a trail of arrears to pay. She has three kids, the boys Giovani and Mats, from her first marriage, they are now twenty-one and twenty-three years old, and Lucy who is fifteen, from her second marriage. We are the same age, go to the same school and live in the same neighborhood, but Lucy and I were never friends, interesting as it is she who manages to be more introverted than I am. Mrs. Lena’s second husband at least left them the house they live in, it is right in front of ours, on the other side of the train line that crosses the street. So it is very common, at least once a week, to have dinner together, at their house or at ours. The last one was in October on a very cold Tuesday, at our house. This was the night everything started to change. My life would never be the same.
Chapter Two
The Accident
The noise of the silverware, mixed with Mrs. Lena’s pitchy voice, told everyone that dinner had already started in the kitchen. My seventeenth birthday would be in two days. We were going to have a simple celebration at the house, my aunt’s idea. By me, we could have forgotten that.
Dad, Mom, Rodrigo, Auntie Eva, Mats, Giovani, Lucy, and Mrs. Lena were already at the table, all those people there but believe me, they only could hear one voice. Everybody was making a plate when I stumbled in through the door. I was late. My mom was waiting for me always looking at the window.
“Lola! What took you so long? It is already dark, and everybody has been waiting for you to have dinner! Apologize for that now!”
“From what I can see, people already began without me. And dark is very relative here, it is still six o’clock in the afternoon. I was with Gustav and lost track of the time, I’m sorry,” I replied, taking off my heavy coat.
“Dearest, it is ok! Come, sit here,” said Auntie Eva, pulling a chair out for me.
“It is just like that, Jessica. We always have a kid that makes us worry more,” intruded Mrs. Lena, the know-it-all from the table, and she kept going while we sat down.
“I have suffered that with Gigio (nickname for Giovani, her middle son) since birth. What a horrible pain, Lord! It took him hours to come out, he was the hardest of all.”
“Mom, please!” said Giovani, while the rest of the table laughed.
When she opened her mouth, I couldn’t hide my lack of patience. I felt someone kicking me under the table, it was my mom noticing me rolling my eyes while Mrs. Lena spoke. Everyone was thinking the same, I was just showing it. But she didn’t stop there.
“But nothing shadows the joy of seeing the face of your first child, so much love! I barely could believe it. Did you have the same sensation, Jessica?”
My mom’s smile faded away. At that moment, I really thought Auntie Eva felt a shock, because her fork fell on her plate. My father’s face, looking like he just bit a hot pepper, went as red as our tablecloth. There was a brief silence, brief enough to build a situation, leaving everyone uncomfortable. Didn’t she have anything else to talk about at dinner?