PART 2
His back slightly hunched over.
Her huge eight-month-old belly pushing against the edge of the countertop.
His wet hands moving slowly through a mountain of dirty dishes.
The clock on the wall showed ten o’clock at night.
The house was silent, except for the sound of falling water.
I stared at her for a few seconds.
Lucia thought she hadn’t seen it. She continued to work slowly, breathing with difficulty from time to time.
Then a cup slipped from his hands and hit the sink.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
As if he was trying to gather the strength to continue.
At that moment I felt something strange in my chest.
A mixture of anger… and shame.
Because suddenly I understood something that I had ignored for a long time.
My wife… was alone in that kitchen.
While my whole family rested.
While she carried not only the weight of the plates.
But also with the weight of our child growing inside his body.
Breathed hondo.
I took the phone out of my pocket.
And I dialed my older sister’s number.
“Isabel,” I said when she answered. “Come to the living room. I need to talk to you.”
Then I called Patricia.
Then Carmen.
In less than two minutes the three of them were sitting in the living room next to my mother, looking at me curiously.
I stood in front of them.
I could hear the water still running in the kitchen.
The sound of Lucia washing dishes.
I felt something inside me finally break.
Then I looked at them one by one.
And I said in a firm voice something I never thought I would say in that house:
May you like
“From this day on… no one ever treats my wife as if she were the servant of this family.
The silence that followed was so heavy… that even from the kitchen the water was no longer heard.
