The photographs of Claris were still everywhere.
But now they were surrounded by new photographs.
The girls at school.
The twins covered in flour.
Julia smiling.
Laura with her hair growing back.
Sofia sleeping peacefully.
Isabela speaking in complete sentences.
Mariana winning a school competition.
And Ricardo.
Always somewhere in the background.
Present.
Not perfect.
But present.
Luía had finished another year of her psychology program.
Her mother recovered.
Her father retired completely.
And the girls had stopped calling her “the housekeeper.”
They called her Luía.
Sometimes they called her “our Luía.”
The twins still argued over who got to sit beside her.
Julia still occasionally had panic attacks.
Grief didn’t disappear.
It simply became easier to carry.
On the anniversary of Claris’s death, the family gathered in the garden.
Ricardo had prepared something.
A wooden box sat on the table.
Inside were photographs, letters, recipes, and memories.
