Because her mother seemed like the biggest obstacle. She never let Simona spend time with her father: she took over and dominated every aspect of her life, and her little sister’s life. She made them food, brought them to school, to birthday parties, took them shopping for clothes. When her father came home from work, her mother went on taking charge of everything herself: checking the girls’ homework and their backpacks, drying their hair after their baths, making sure they brushed their teeth well, tucking them in and turning out the light. Simona received a “good night” from her father only when he got up to lock the doors. And then there were Sundays. The day she and her father could finally have fun, her mother would butt in with her scolding. “Don’t bother her, Alejandro,” she said when he lunged at Simona to start a tickle war. “She’s a little girl!” The same thing at lunch, when her father started in with the jokes: “Hey, look over there!” he’d say, and then steal food from her plate. “Let them eat in peace,” her mother said. But Simona didn’t want him to leave her alone, she didn’t want her mother to defend her. She knew they were games, and she liked them. But her mother didn’t understand, and she complained to her girlfriends that it was “like having three kids instead of two,” or that “he always makes me into the bad guy.”

But as it turned out, things only got worse after he lost his job. And then Simona realized that there was an even bigger wall that separated her from her father.

The first day he was home, she got up very early, eager to snuggle up with him in bed. She ran to his room, but when she turned the knob she found it was locked. She knocked a few times, gently, but the door stayed closed until lunchtime. When her father finally appeared he was in a bad mood, and he complained that her mother hadn’t left anything to eat. After making some gluey noodles with half-cooked hot dogs, he told her and Pía that, starting now, they’d have to make the beds and divide up the housework. Then he locked himself in his room again. There were no jokes or tickle wars. Her father came out only to go to the bathroom, his face scruffy and ever less healthy. And everything they did made him mad. Things that had never bothered him before, like when she sang the songs from The Little Mermaid, her favorite movie. Before, they’d always sung those songs together, and they’d recited the dialogue from memory. “Poor Unfortunate Souls” was her favorite, and the one they sang the best.