We cleared out the Carrascos’ bedroom—they slept in the living room during that whole period—to train on the wooden floor. We left our socks on so the cotton would muffle the noise, and we got into a single-file formation: whoever went first gave the orders and moved around the room with full freedom to make noise. The rest had to imitate his movements, but without making the floorboards creak. Like in a game of Simon Says, except we were raising our legs and walking carefully on tiptoe. The first one to make noise lost. Another exercise: we crouched down without leaning on anything, and competed to see who could stay in that position the longest. I almost always won, and Pancho was the first to give up. Last exercise: we blindfolded one person and put him in the middle of the room. He had to catch us while we moved around him, not breathing, in a kind of blindman’s buff. By nightfall we were exhausted, though we always had more energy for the next day’s work.

Some nights, or in free time when we weren’t training, I searched among my father’s things for a gun. I don’t know why, but I wanted to know if he had one or not. I went through his drawers, his clothes, some old suitcases, his toolboxes, even my mother’s things. All I found were pieces of wood, and that was strange for him. He had always been so orderly and meticulous, thanks to his military training. Eventually I realized there were bits of wood scattered all over the house. Different sizes and types, almost all useless: broken, old, or burned. I thought he must have been planning to make something, or maybe he was getting materials together to start the workshop my mother was always insisting he open.

As the days passed, he went on accumulating more and more unworkable wood. The house had been a disaster since my mother and sisters left for my grandmother’s; the only upside was that the smell of bleach had faded. There were also piles of old newspapers with classified ads circled in marker: “company seeks security guards . . .,” “workers skilled in vibrated concrete . . .” Most of them were for jobs outside Talcahuano, in Santiago or farther north. My mother had bought the newspapers. She’d circled the ads and left them for my father on the table beside his breakfast. She talked about these opportunities in other cities, and how everyone was leaving Talcahuano. Until now, I’d thought my father had just thrown them away. One time he had yelled at my mother that he was never going to leave his house. But here they were now, all those newspapers, like one last chance, though I suppose they held more resignation than hope.