The house was asleep.
The fire in the hearth had died down,
leaving only a golden glow that flickered with the wind.
Valeria slowly tidied the kitchen,
with the calm precision of movements she knew by heart.
Each plate was in its place, each cup turned upside down.
But her hands, despite their confidence, trembled slightly.
On the table, a candle was burning down.
The wax dripped in a steady stream,
forming small rivers frozen on the wood.
She stared at it for a moment, then sighed.
"She's asleep," she whispered to herself.
The sound of her own voice surprised her.
She hadn't spoken to anyone in hours.
But there were nights when the silence became too thick to bear.
So she spoke.
Not out loud, halfway between a breath and a prayer.
"You saw her, didn't you? So fragile..."
A slight smile crossed her lips.
"She has your eyes when she cries. That mixture of pride and fear...
As if she wanted to disappear without ceasing to exist."
She placed her hands on the back of a chair and lowered her head.
The fire cast her shadow on the wall:
a body that seemed larger than life,
but with a slightly hunched, tired back.
"You would surely tell me not to meddle in her affairs," she continued softly.
"That young people have to make their own mistakes, just like us."
She gave a short, joyless laugh.
"Just like us... Yes. It's always the same story, isn't it?
The same choices we think are unique.
The same loves we swear are impossible, until they really are."
She went to the sideboard, took an empty cup,
and rinsed it mechanically.
Her movements seemed to want to fill a void that no words could appease.
"I was her age, you know. Barely twenty-two."
She now spoke as if someone were sitting at the table,
right there, invisible.
"And he... he was almost twice her age."
A silence.
Then, more quietly:
"He played the cello."
Her eyes clouded over.
"The first time I heard him, I thought the world had stopped.
That everything I thought I understood about time no longer mattered."
She let herself fall into the chair, her hands clasped.
"He was a married man. Of course. Great loves always are."
A weary smile.
"We loved each other in the gaps between days,
when the world was looking elsewhere.
Thursday afternoons. Rainy evenings.
Moments that don't exist on any clock."
The fire crackled.
She looked up at it, as if the flames were a memory.
"When he left, he left his watch on the table.
It had already stopped working.
I thought it was a sign.
That even time had decided to stop with us.
But the next day, it started ticking again.
And I went on living."
Her fingers mechanically brushed the necklace around her neck,
a small, thin chain, half-hidden under her sweater.
"Catarina thinks she's the first.
That loving someone she shouldn't love makes her a sinner."
"But what she doesn't know is that our lives repeat themselves,
my dear. Always."
A sigh.
"We think we choose differently,
but it's just that the setting changes."
She stood up and walked to the window.
Outside, the snow continued to fall, thick and silent.
The flakes crashed against the windowpanes,
turning into drops before disappearing.
"I'll protect her," she said softly.
Her voice trembled slightly.
"No matter what she's done. No matter whose memory she carries."
"Because I know what it's like to carry something you can't tell anyone."
She stood there for a long time, motionless,
her gaze lost in the white outside.
Then, almost whispering:
"If you were here, you would tell her that silence protects no one."
"But I can't."
She placed her hand against the cold glass.
"I can only watch over her. As I was taught to do."
A thin smile crossed her lips.
"And pray that she finds what I never knew how to keep."
The candle blew out by itself with a little puff of air.
The fire grew softer, almost calm.
And in that house, lost at the end of the world,
an old woman stood facing the night,
halfway between memory and promise.