The silence was not absence, but a dense weight that spread like liquid lead over the Persian rug, anchoring itself in walls, forgotten toys, and in Javier’s devastated heart.
For months after Carmen’s brutal loss, that silence remained the only constant inhabitant of the mansion, filling every corner with an unbearable echo that the quadruplets still never fully understood.
But the afternoon Lidia knocked on the door, the air vibrated timidly as if it recognized something ancient, a faint promise struggling to awaken amidst shadows that were too long.
Lidia was twenty-two years old, with a simple braid, earthy eyes marked by difficult worlds, but untouched; she wasn’t looking for luxury, just a decent wage and a minimal opportunity to survive.
Javier, overwhelmed with guilt and exhaustion, observed her without truly seeing her, saturated with useless experts, cold white coats, and diagnoses that never provided any real solution for his four children.
“I don’t have a diploma,” Lidia said calmly and firmly, “but I know what it is to lose, and I also know what it means to desperately need someone to stay with you unconditionally.”
Javier was about to reject her; the word « no » was already on his tired tongue, when a childish noise interrupted everything and forced his attention to turn abruptly and unexpectedly.
Camilo, the most easily frightened, went down the stairs with dilated eyes fixed on an invisible terror; his body trembled with an ancient panic that no one knew how to contain.
Dolores, the previous nanny, shouted with military force: “Camilo, stop that charade right now!”, her voice breaking the air like a cruel and utterly unnecessary whip crack.
But Lidia didn’t scream; she knelt gently on the cold floor, lowered herself to the child’s level, breathed slowly and deeply, inviting him to follow her calm rhythm.
Camilo looked at her; “It’s okay,” she whispered in a voice that enveloped him like a warm blanket, “breathe with me, slowly,” and the trembling subsided after several transformative moments.
Javier didn’t understand it with reason, but with a visceral knot that tightened in his stomach; he hired Lidia immediately, without doubts, without superfluous technical questions.
Lidia didn’t try to fix anything quickly; she was simply present, listening to the silences of Cristian, Federico, Camilo, and Esteban, four six-year-old shadows trapped in mourning.
One rainy Tuesday, while checking a cold kitchen, she found a notebook hidden in a high cupboard; Carmen’s worn handwriting filled pages with simple and loving recipes.
One page read: “Corncake, my children’s favorite, always make it on Fridays”; Lidia looked at the calendar: three days until a special Friday.
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