They went on with their lives alone, more or less the same as before, except that the lightbulbs seemed to burn out faster, the drains to clog more often, and the faucets to drip more frequently. Her father’s ghost only appeared then, when they had to press hard on the remote control buttons because now no one remembered to change the batteries. What had surprised the daughter was to find, a couple of months later, her father’s drawers filled with stockings and scarves. Or to not have the mirror of her father to see herself in, because they were identical, she and he, the same green eyes, the same long eyelashes, the curly hair, the easy and defensive smile, nothing frank or open about it. Or to hear the serenity in her mother’s voice when she told the telephone operators that he wasn’t there. And if the caller asked what time he would be back, she clarified in the same calm voice that he wasn’t going to come back. Once, even, the phone operator had insisted to the point of asking if he was dead, and her mother, after a second of silence but without swallowing a drop of saliva, let a composed “No” slide out along the phone line.

After a few years they moved to a new apartment, and then she’d left, too.

A drop runs down her cheek, another over her breast. Her body is hot and red. She always liked to take showers with the water boiling. She’d read the labels on the shampoo and stay a while longer under the water. She liked the change that came when she emerged from the steamy bathroom into her cold bedroom. She liked to feel dizzy, see fluorescent sparks, and fall onto the bed just before she fainted. Now, too, she’s a bit dizzy, a little out of it. She looks at the ceiling. It’s white, with spots of mold in the corner. When she left, the apartment was still like new.

Some Sundays she’d gone to visit her mother. They would have lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon watching Law & Order, sitting on the living room sofa. She always fell asleep during the first episode and woke up with a cramp in her neck. On one of her last visits, before the man she had lived with left, her mother told her a story. They were having supper. The TV was on in the background, nothing in particular. They were both pretending to pay attention.

Her mother told her about the time when she, the daughter, was two years old and had gotten very sick and gone to the hospital. She knew something about that episode, but not much.