The paint in the study is beginning to flake. I touch a dry patch of the claret wall, loosening particles. Underneath is beige, a colour I detest. Yet this is my house, the one I’ve been raised in, married from, and inhabited for fifty-four years.
I remember applying the claret paint, first laying down sheets of newspaper, El Mercurio, to protect the carpet, then stepping carefully around blazing photos of the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York. That awful event in 2001 cast such a horrific shadow it seemed to obliterate our own September 11th, the day of the military coup in 1973 – temporarily at least.
When Carlos comes home from his office I ask him about the beige.
“You chose the shade, mi amor. Don’t you remember? You were a little depressed. Neither lasted long, your depression nor the beige.” Carlos strokes my cheek, kisses me softly. My heart stirs.
After we have eaten and Marta has tidied the kitchen and left for the night, I take my book to the study. I stare at the beige wound in the claret wall and recall that brief spell in our lives. Ours was a lively, noisy household until our three children married, all in one year. Two of them moved to Canada soon after. Beige was apt.
I open my book.
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