I left my breakfast untouched that morning. Her dedication, something about Aunt Nana’s friendliness, disturbed me enormously. I ran to my room and hid under the bed. I knew she wasn’t responsible for Sonia leaving. But if not her, then who? To my mind, someone had to be held responsible and be punished. Maybe that’s what really disconcerted me—I didn’t know who was to blame, or if anyone was. I went to school alone, and although I spent the rest of the morning hungry, when I got home I went on refusing to eat. I didn’t see Aunt Nana again for the whole afternoon. To disappear under my bed: that was the only thing I wanted.

Not long ago I read a terrifying news story. A fire had destroyed the second story of the house of a very poor family. The bathroom water heater exploded, and the children were upstairs. Four dead siblings. The smallest a boy of two, the oldest a ten-year-old girl. In the final paragraphs it was reported that the bodies had been found under a bed, in the room where they all slept. It was a detail, a couple of lines at the end, but I couldn’t stop imagining the whole scene: the frightened children who didn’t know what to do, where to run. Only one place seems able to protect them from the flames. A place that has protected them on other occasions, that at some point has seemed like a stronghold, but that now is a trap. Still, the oldest sister thinks they’ll be safe there, or that at least she can calm her brothers and sister by making them think they’ll be safe, as they had been in previous situations. The image of the children holding hands, waiting for it all to be over, returns to my mind over and over. Who is to blame? The neighbor who was taking care of them couldn’t get up the stairs to rescue them. And the children stayed under the bed, wrapped in flames. What can we think about something like that? Who is responsible, not for the accident, but for the children thinking they would be safe under the bed?