This morning, like any other day, I was rushing to wash the dishes after breakfast. Esteban, my oldest son, had left for work early, leaving the house silently for my grandson Mateo; that clever little seven-year-old devil had also been taken by the school bus. And Araceli, my daughter-in-law, Esteban’s wife, had just come up the stairs.
Her soft voice reached my mother. I’m going to take a shower. Yes.
I nodded, smiling. I had barely finished arranging the last plate. When the landline rang, I dried my hands on my apron and walked quickly to answer Iván’s cheerful, young voice.
My youngest son filled the line. “Mom, I’m just calling to say hello. I had a little free time during a layover at the airport.”
Hearing his voice was like a hug for my heart.
Iván is my pride, a young copilot always on the go, living the childhood dream of conquering the skies. I smiled and asked him a few things about his flight, about how he was. He laughed loudly and told me everything was going well, that work was going smoothly.
But suddenly his tone changed, as if hesitant to say anything. “Hey, Mom, something really weird happened. My sister-in-law is home.”
I was surprised.
I looked toward the stairs where the running water in the bathroom could still be heard. “Of course, son. Araceli is upstairs taking a shower.”, I answered very confidently.
Araceli had spoken to me less than ten minutes earlier and was wearing that white blouse she always wore around the house. “How could I have been wrong?”
But on the other end of the line, Iván remained silent for a long time, so much so that I could even hear his breathing. Then his voice became very serious, full of astonishment.
“Mom, it’s impossible because I have her passport here in my hand. She just got on my flight to France.”
I started to laugh, thinking he must have been mistaken. “Oh, son, you must have been mistaken her for someone else.
I just saw Araceli. She even told me she was going to take a shower.”
I tried to explain calmly to calm him down, but he didn’t laugh. He didn’t answer me like always.
He told me in a slow voice, as if he were trying to organize the story in his head, that when all the passengers had boarded, he ran out to look for some papers he’d forgotten and by chance found a passport lying near the boarding gate. At first, he thought about giving it to the airport staff, but when he opened it to see who it belonged to, he froze. The photo was Araceli’s.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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