bok

Madonna was now gone and I think that for the first time I “saw” Helena,
the original Helena, the one in Nereida’s picture. The three of them sat in
the garage and I went inside to make lemonade. Maribel asked me to bring
the photo to show it to Helena. When she saw it she was unmoved and the
only thing she said was: “my family”.
That really got to me. To Helena we’re her real family. We accepted her
just how she was. As far as we are concerned she’s not crazy. She’s simply
different. We were all talking and drinking our lemonade when Mrs.
Matilde arrived. She was alone. Could what Helena said about hearing my
calling be true? Mrs. Matilde was very nervous. I introduced her to
everyone. The curious thing was that none of them shook hands; instead it
was all hugs and kisses. Everything was happening too fast. I wasn’t ready
to have all these people. Besides sodas, lemonade, and hot dogs, I had
nothing to prepare a dinner. I was planning on cooking a great meal for
when we got together. They were fine with it though. When Mrs. Matilde
saw the picture she almost fell backwards; she had to sit down. She asked
all the questions we were asking as well: when did we take that and who
were the others. I pointed out Oscar, Nereida, and Mr. Toño. Absolutely
no one said anything about individual in the center of the photograph.
Everyone avoided talking about Amarón. Were we scared? I do not know
but a few times I was tempted to do it but I stopped myself. While I told
Mrs. Matilde about Nereida and her picture another car pulled up. It was
Oscar and a few minutes later Nereida arrived. It was as if I threw a party.
Everyone took turns with the picture. They all talked amongst themselves
and asked each other if they recognized any other person in the picture.
Still there was no talk of Amarón. I knew we were all thinking about this
147