I knew before I entered the house. There are things that are perceived without seeing them: fresh paint, sawdust, that chemical smell that betrays money spent without explanation.
Lucía got out of the car with her backpack and her sheet music folder. I was excited. The cello lived in my grandmother’s old music room, a room cared for in detail, with a humidifier and shelves full of old sheet music.
“Do you think great-grandmother is here today?” Lucia asked me, adjusting her ponytail.
“No, love. Then we called her.
But something didn’t fit.
The pool where there used to be music
As we entered, we saw the orderly mess of a work in progress. Plastics, tapes, boxes. And looking out the back window, we understood everything.
Where there used to be grass, there was now a huge gap. Irons, molds, workers. A swimming pool under construction. Big. Impossible to ignore.
“Is it for us?” Lucia asked with a hope that broke my soul.
I didn’t know what to answer.
The silence of an empty corner
We enter the music room.
The humidifier was still on. The support was there. But the corner where the cello always rested… it was empty.
Not moved. Not saved. Empty.
Lucia approached slowly, as if she feared that something invisible would bite her. He looked at the floor, the shelf, behind the chair.
