Chapter 9 - Lucia Answered With One Word
Alejandro dialed the number from the newest letter.
It rang four times.
Then:
“Hello?”
He knew her voice immediately.
Older.
Lower.
Still Lucia.
His throat closed.
“Lucia.”
Silence.
Then one word.
“Dad?”
Alejandro could not answer for several seconds.
Finally:
“I got your letters.”
Lucia inhaled sharply.
“All of them?”
“The ones Isabel kept.”
Another silence.
“She never gave them to you.”
“No.”
Lucia began crying.
Not loudly.
Alejandro stared out the windows at the garden.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The question surprised him.
“For the last eight years.”
“That’s a large apology.”
“I know.”
Lucia almost laughed.
Then stopped.
Alejandro continued.
“I believed you chose silence.”
“I believed you did.”
“I should have contacted you directly.”
“You told me not to.”
“I said something angry eight years ago.”
“You meant it then.”
“Yes.”
No rewriting.
He had meant it.
Lucia had too.
Their first separation began honestly.
What Isabel stole was the chance for either of them to change afterward.
Alejandro said:
“You came here.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know that now.”
“She told you I didn’t want you.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept writing.”
“For a while.”
Six years was more than a while.
Neither said that.
Finally Lucia asked:
“Why now?”
“Sophie found your hummingbird.”
A tiny laugh escaped her.
“That ridiculous bird.”
“You wore it for fifteen years.”
“I know.”
“Why did you leave it?”
“It fell.”
Lucia had realized before reaching the airport.
She almost turned back.
Then remembered Isabel’s words:
He finally has peace.
Lucia decided retrieving jewelry was not worth disturbing him.
She bought another hummingbird years later.
Never felt the same.
Alejandro looked at the original on his desk.
“Do you want it back?”
Lucia went quiet.
“Maybe.”
Not yes.
Not no.
Maybe.
Alejandro accepted it.
Then:
“Do you want to see me?”
A long pause.
“I don’t know.”
The answer hurt.
It was also honest.
He refused to bargain.
“When you know, tell me.”
Lucia whispered:
“Okay.”
Before ending the call, she asked:
“Who is Sophie?”
Alejandro explained.
Marianne’s foster niece, effectively raised in the household after Sophie’s mother died three years earlier.
Lucia listened.
Then asked:
“Is she okay?”
Alejandro looked toward the downstairs sitting room where Sophie was coloring beside Marianne.
“She will be.”
Lucia’s voice changed.
“What did Isabel do?”
Alejandro did not soften it.
“She hit her trying to get the brooch back.”
Silence.
Then Lucia said:
“Dad.”
He knew that tone too.
May you like
Not daughter asking permission.
Daughter preparing to return.
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