Part 3
The taxi arrived at 3:38 a.m.
Valencia slept under warm humidity, and I left with my suitcase without making noise—even though I was no longer obligated to protect anyone’s sleep.
Before closing the door, I looked one last time at the hallway, at the console table where for years I had left other people’s backpacks, other people’s letters, other people’s problems.
Then I locked the door and dropped the key into the inside mailbox, just as I had decided.
On the drive to Barcelona I didn’t feel guilt.
I felt something stranger, almost unbearable because it was so unfamiliar:
relief.
At 7:15 a.m., already on board, my phone began vibrating endlessly. First Daniel. Then Lucía. Then Marta. Then Daniel again and again until the screen filled with notifications.
I didn’t answer immediately.
I sat near a huge window overlooking the harbor waking up and ordered a coffee.
When I finally opened the messages, Daniel’s first one was a photo of the dogs in the car with the words:
“Where are you?”
The second:
“Mum, this isn’t funny.”
The third:
“The girls are crying.”
And the fourth—the only honest one of all:
“How could you do this to us?”
So I called.
Daniel answered furious. At first he didn’t let me speak.
“You left us stranded. We’re already at your door. What are we supposed to do?”
I waited until he finished and replied with a calmness that surprised even me:
“The same thing I’ve done my whole life, son: figure it out.”
There was a heavy silence.
Then I told him that on the table he would find the address of a dog boarding facility paid for one month, that my personal documents were not to be touched, that I would not cancel my trip, and that from that day on any help I gave would be voluntary, not imposed.
He spat out the words:
“You’re going on a cruise now, with Dad barely dead?”
And I answered:
“Precisely now. Because I’m still alive.”
He hung up.
Half an hour later Lucía texted me. Her message wasn’t kind, but it was less cruel:
“You could have warned us.”
I replied:
continue to the next page.”
