He drew obsessively, filling page after page with the same image. Carmela gave him a new box of crayons.
Can you show me what you see in your dreams, little one?
Salomé picked up the crayons and began to draw. This time the drawing was different, more detailed, as if five years of maturity allowed her to express what she couldn’t before.
She drew the house, the room, a figure on the floor, another standing with a blue shirt, but she added something new, a half-open door in the background and behind it another small figure, a girl with yellow hair, herself observing everything.
And in the corner of the drawing, something Carmela did not expect: a hand sticking out of the window of the house, as if someone were helping the figure on the ground to escape.
“What is this, Salome?” Carmela asked, pointing at the hand. The girl wrote a single word beneath the drawing.
Mom. Carmela felt the air leave her lungs. Your mom escaped. Your mom is alive. Salomé looked at her with those enormous eyes that seemed to carry the weight of the world. She nodded slowly.
