If your daughter wanted to show off, then let her learn not to overshadow the birthday girl”, my mother told me, as if she had just justified the unjustifiable.
I arrived at my sister Marisol’s house at almost eight at night. I had been leaving a heavy shift at the General Hospital of Querétaro, with swollen feet, a wrinkled uniform and guilt stuck in my chest for not having been able to accompany my daughter Sofía to her cousin Valeria’s party.
Valeria turned twelve years old. Sofia was eleven.
That morning, before leaving, Sofia was happy. She had gotten up early, took a bath, chose her yellow dress and asked me to help her adjust her hair. Her hair was long, curly, beautiful. For her it was not vanity. It was something she cared for with love, like someone caring for a part of herself.
The night before I took her to a real salon, not to the corner aesthetic where they always cut unevenly. I paid more than I could, but when she looked in the mirror with her defined curls, a side braid and small pearls holding her hairstyle, I understood that she was worth every peso.
“Do you think Vale likes it?”, he asked me.
“You look beautiful, my love. Of course you’re going to like it.”
She also carried a gift she had made: a little box decorated with diamond, full of bracelets that she had knitted during the week.
I left her at Marisol’s house confident. It was my family. My mother Carmen, my father Ernesto, my sister, my nephews. What could happen?
When I got through it, the door opened and Sofia came out.
