At Dusk

Discrete values

It was the tenth time she browsed through the contents of the parcel since she received it from Isabel all those months ago, but it was the first since she had found out she was pregnant. It was no less strange now than it had been before.

Aside from the articles published, her sister seemed to have devoted a considerable amount of time to investigating the family. Isabel had done a good job assorting all the paper clippings and the emails she received into chronological order. She even went to the trouble of printing them out. 

There were bits and pieces dating back to the early 2000s from local newspapers, as well as one or two from national circulation. Most revolved around public contracts won by their construction company and then some about corruption complaints involving those contracts. Many speculated about the family's involvement, although there was no direct accusation.  

More than the family's entanglement in corruption scandals, however, what got her attention was a single article about their father's pharmaceutical pursuits and the promises they carried. The piece of writing, which featured a picture of a man dressed in a lab coat, spoke of accessible genetic treatment and "cross-correction" to any illness a person might suffer from. The article dated from 2010 and was full of optimism about the future. Her father being the man who would bring that wonderful future to fruition. 

She felt strange staring at a younger version of him, so confident before the accident that removed his ability to walk, talk or even live. But none of that mattered when the article had been written, none of that was real. He was still a man who liked to pose as a hero in front of the cameras, whilst behind them, he ensnared young girls and convinced them to carry his progeny, to accept his faith without question, and to undergo any genetic "enhancement" treatment that he deemed appropriate.

Her father had been the pinnacle of disturbing family traditions; manipulation, bribing, unethical relationships, and an endless stream of lies. All of that she had learned from Isabel and from Hector. And now too from her sister. Every new bit of information felt like a piece of a puzzle that was her family, a puzzle that only now she was beginning to assemble. 

The kettle in the kitchen whistled, waking her from her reveries.  

She placed all the papers aside and positioned her hands on her tights in order to get the push she needed to stand up. It was becoming more and more difficult to go about things in an ordinary way. 

She was still three months away from delivering, but her belly felt heavy and clumsy as if she were long overdue. She walked to the kitchen and poured the hot liquid into a flower-decorated teapot, causing the dried leaves inside to float and swell. Then she covered the infusion with a small lid.

Five minutes for it to be ready,  the precise time it took for the leaves to infuse the water with their flavor. 

The smell of the blend was already fantastic; she could almost taste the citric pull on her tongue just by inhaling the air around her. It caused her to relax her shoulders, which she had not noticed had tensed up while she was going through her sister's little family archive.

She didn't know exactly what she was expecting to find there. She had seen and read the documents over and over and yet she felt that there was something missing. When she received the package, she thought she was going to find something that could at least give her a clue about Laura's whereabouts. 

She took a deep breath and went back to the pile of papers that were now scattered about the couch. Tea in hand. 

She organized them again, in the same order Isabel had arranged.  There was nothing she hadn't seen, hadn't read. Except for a handwritten one-page letter from Laura herself. It was a strange thing, reading her sister's words after so long. The letter seemed to have been handled without much care. There were all sorts of unidentifiable words as if the text had been written in a hurry. 

Maybe Laura transcribed someone else's words because they sounded utterly unfamiliar. They talked about the universe, moving bodies, gravity, time, momentum, singularities, ripples, and collisions. Was it part of her job? She was a journalist, wasn't she?

Time is the atmosphere of this universe. What did that mean? Did Laura put that together before disappearing? Why would she send such a thing to their mother? 

She massaged her round belly with her hands while she went through different scenarios in her head. She wondered how time passed for her baby, who only breathed and grew, probably unconscious of everything and everyone, maybe even of himself. He or she didn't even have a name yet. Perhaps consciousness would only come with a name, but she had decided she would look him or her in the eye before she chose a proper one.

She sipped her drink, savoring the sensation, and watched the letter fall from her lap onto the rug. The letter had to have come in an envelope, which had probably been discarded long ago. Yet at the back of the sheet of paper, there was an address.

Her world swirled. How had she not seen it before?

As fast as she could manage, which wasn't much, she retrieved it from the floor and read it. Rua das Pontes, 453. Londrina.

Very calmly, she reached for her phone and started searching for a travel agency.