“Calm down little one, you’re not alone, I’m here with you and nothing is going to happen to you,” Mom was saying from there beside the bed, while she was gently stroking her head.
It seemed that Chelito was not listening, until Carlitos came running in and lying on the bed, hugged her and said:
“Here I am to defend you, don’t be afraid, I won’t leave you alone.”
At that moment she woke up and was surprised to see everyone around her bed, and in her feverish eyes I could see how confused she was, but she couldn’t say a word, all she could do was stare at us, from one to the next.
“It’s okay, it’s over now, you see? You’re not alone, we’re with you little one, don’t be scared, nothing’s going to happen to you,” Mom was saying to her, while she hugged her and gave her an affectionate kiss.
“Why don’t you call the doctor Mom?” I asked worried about what was happening, because I didn’t understand it, it was the first time I’d saw my little sister that way.
“But son, am I going to bother him at this hour for a cold? I’ve been through this situation many times before,” she answered more calmly.
“But Mom,” I protested, “it’s not even like Dad’s here to take her to the hospital if we need to,” I insisted, “and what if she gets worse, what will we do with her?”
“That’s not going to happen, calm yourself and don’t be a child, you’re already a man, and now that Dad’s not here you’re the man of the house, look at how Carlitos has managed to face the situation.”
“Yes, but it’s woken her up and I don’t know if she’ll be alright,” I said a little embarrassed.
At that moment, Tono came into the room with a glass of water, and told Chelito:
“Take it, this will help the fear pass, for sure.”
We all laughed, this pair of twins certainly never failed to surprise us. The situation changed, and despite her fever, Chelito was calmer, so Mom sent us all to bed.
“Go back to sleep, you know that tomorrow’s exam is important, and Dad doesn’t want to hear any excuses about why you didn’t pass it,” she said to the twins.
“But it’s easy Mom,” said Tono, the most unruly of the two.
“Yes, easy, it will be for you because you’re a nerd,” Carlitos said.
“Get outta here! Mom, he called me a nerd when he doesn’t stop studying even on vacation,” protested Tono getting cranky because he did not like being called that one bit.
It made us smile once again, and my mother, already adopting a more serious tone of voice, told us:
“Right, off to bed all of you, I’m staying here. I don’t need to hear any more talk, you have to rest so that the night passes quickly, go to bed without complaining.”
Down the hall, on the way to our rooms, I told the twins:
“Well done guys, you should always protect your sisters.”
“Yeah, but Carmen is already very big and she doesn’t need us,” Tono protested.
“Look, she thinks she doesn’t need you, but women always need a man by their side to defend them and protect them, and who better than a brother? Don’t listen to her when she says she’s the biggest and doesn’t need anyone. Surely she’s a little jealous of you guys, not having a sister her age to talk to about things, because Chelito is too little to give her advice. What happens to me is I get bored when I’m not sleepy, and you’re lucky enough to be able to chat quietly until you fall asleep. When I hear you, it makes me want to take my mattress and come here into this room with you guys.”
“Are you also afraid about what’s happening with Chelito tonight?” Tono asked softly.
“No,” I said with a smile. “Come on, let’s get some sleep, the time for talking is over. Mom is going to really get angry and she’ll punish us for not obeying her. Besides now that Dad isn’t here, we have to behave better so that Mom is happy with us.”
Closing their bedroom door, I went into my own room, that place they allocated to me, saying that I was already big and had to sleep alone because I was almost a man. I still didn’t understand, Carmen and Chelito shared a room, although tonight Carmen was on a trip with my father, so her bed was empty. Well, now Mom would sleep in it, but I had to go to sleep in that tiny room where the bed barely fit, to make room for the twins. That didn’t matter much, but I felt lonely sometimes and I didn’t like that.
“Why doesn’t he close the door?” Dad would ask. “It’s like he’s afraid of how old he is,” but no, it was only because I wanted to hear others talk, the twins had more fun from their bunk beds than I did. I knew that there was no room for my bed in that room, but there are reasons that children just don’t understand, and this was one of them.
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As time passed quickly, there was plenty of room in the house before we knew it. Carmen started University, and of course, like all her friends, she left home, “It was modern,” as my father put it. Even though Mom was opposed to it, she had no choice but to give in, on the condition that she had to come home every Sunday, and she wasn’t going to accept any excuses.
“If you miss one Sunday, it’ll be harder for you to come back,” my father told her, “so, even if you’re ill or if you have to study here, I want to see you. Well, if you get ill, then come whatever day it is. That way we can take care of you; just because you leave doesn’t mean you stop being a member of the family, nor that we’re going to stop loving you the same way.”
My sister promised very seriously to come home every Sunday and said that we should also call her if anything ever happened and we needed her, that she was not going to stop being our daughter and sister just because she didn’t sleep at home.
She was two years my senior, and that was how those two years passed. As I said, the time flew by, and I think it was my good grades that decided my future.
When Carmen left, I asked myself a question, although I didn’t share it with anyone. I also wanted to go and live away from home, but I knew it was impossible, that Dad had a secure job and that his salary was good, at least that was what he told us. I never knew how many pesetas he earned, but it would never allow him to have two independent children, since he still had three others at home with their own needs, so I told myself, “If I push myself and I get a scholarship, I’m sure he won’t oppose what I ask him.” That’s how the last two school years passed. In addition to attending class like I was part of the furniture, as I had done for a long time, just to listen and take notes, I started to take on extra work and the teachers noticed the change in me straight away, because some of them made comments to me about it in jest.
“It seems that you were asleep before and you’ve finally woken up and you’ve begun to take an interest in the classes and as the saying goes, ‘Better late than never,’ at least that way you’ll leave a little more prepared.”
I had finished sixth in my class, with the best grades for that year. Even the teachers had congratulated me. That made the final examination easy for me to
