“Hi, April,” she said, looking at the camera. “I’m your mommy. If you ever see this, I want you to know you were wanted. So much. Your daddy pretended to be serious, but he bought you three identical pairs of socks because he didn’t know which color you’d like.”
I covered my mouth. “I also want you to know something about him,” she continued. “Your daddy wasn’t born knowing how to love. It was hard for him. Sometimes he shuts himself away. Sometimes he gets hard. But inside he’s pure bread soaked in coffee. Have patience with him, daughter. And when he messes up—because he will mess up—look at him with those eyes I don’t know yet. I’m sure he’ll give in.”
I couldn’t watch any more. I doubled over on the bed. I cried like I hadn’t even at the cemetery. I cried for Marina, for April, for the cruel man I had been those six weeks. I cried for every bottle given without love, for every time I let her cry a few minutes more because I wanted to punish someone. I cried until my body felt empty.
Then I heard April crying in the living room. My first impulse was to run. The second was to stop myself. I breathed. “I’m coming, honey.”
Daughter. The word came out on its own. And it didn’t break me. It put me together.
The following days were clumsy. I didn’t become a good father overnight. That would be a lie. Guilt isn’t a door you walk through. It’s an entire house you have to clean room by room.
I learned to bathe her without feeling like she was going to slip. I learned that she cried differently when she was hungry, when she was sleepy, or when she just wanted arms. I learned that her nails grew like tiny threats.
My mom looked at me strangely. “What’s with you now?” she asked me one afternoon, seeing me singing to her while folding onesies. “Shame,” I told her. “And sleep deprivation.” “Now that is parenthood.”
Mrs. Elvira kept coming, but she no longer sat by the crib as a guardian of mourning. Now she made traditional drinks, scolded me for not eating, and talked to April about Marina. “Your mommy danced even to the sound of the blender,” she told her. “Your mommy would get burned by spicy food and still put salsa on it. Your mommy said your daddy had the face of a grumpy man but the heart of a rescued stray dog.” I pretended to be offended. April opened her eyes as if she understood every word.
One Sunday, when she turned three months old, I took her to the historic district. It wasn’t easy. Everything there was full of Marina. The stand where we bought the bracelet. The bench where she craved a snack. The wet street where she told me that if she died before me, she didn’t want me to turn into a statue. I told her then: “Don’t talk nonsense.” But Marina almost never said nonsense.
I walked with April pressed to my chest, wrapped in a yellow blanket. The balloons shone over the gardens, the street musicians played a sad melody, and children ran with sticky ice cream hands. I stopped in front of the craft stand. The same woman with white braids was there, arranging bracelets and metal charms. She looked at April. Then she looked at the little red bracelet. “I sold that to a pregnant girl,” she said. “She cried when she bought it.”
I felt a knot. “She was my wife.” The woman crossed herself. “And the baby?” “It’s her. April.”
The woman smiled with a tenderness that hurt. “So it worked then.” “What did?” She touched the tiny medal with a wrinkled finger. “It wasn’t to avoid death, young man. No one sells that. It was so that love could find its way back.”
I didn’t know what to answer. I bought another bracelet. One for myself. The woman tied it on my left wrist with three knots. “One for the one who left,” she said. “One for the one who arrived. And one for you, so you don’t get lost again.”
That afternoon I took April to the Cathedral. Not because I believed God owed me explanations. I didn’t want explanations anymore. I wanted to learn to live without them. There were entire families entering with flowers, candles, and photographs. A little girl wore a white dress. Outside smelled of street food, incense, and hot pavement.
I stayed in the back. I didn’t know how to pray beautifully. I never did. I hugged April and said the only thing I had: “Watch over her. And tell Marina I held her.”
April opened her eyes. The light coming from above touched her face. For a second, her pupils looked golden. Then she smiled. Her first smile. It wasn’t gas. I didn’t care what they said. It was Marina answering.
Months passed. The house stopped being a mausoleum. I kept some of Marina’s things, but not all. Her yellow dress stayed hanging behind my door, not to cry over it, but to remind me that we were once truly happy. I painted April’s room with imperfect clouds. On one wall I put photos: Marina pregnant. Marina eating on the street at midnight. Marina asleep with a hand on her belly. April as a newborn. April with milk on her chin. April squeezing my finger. Under all of them I wrote: “You arrived with a storm. You stayed like April.”
The guilt didn’t disappear. Sometimes, when April cried too much and I had gone three nights without sleep, an old shadow would rise up in my chest. The same rage. The same rotten voice. But then I would look at the little red bracelet. Hers. Mine. And I would breathe. “It’s not your fault,” I would say to my daughter, though really I was saying it to myself. “It wasn’t your fault.”
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