It was late when Gaspar got home. His father was in the hospital now and things were calmer at the house, no bustling nurses, no need to be silent. He didn’t know if his uncle was there; he divided his time between the clinic and trying to be there for Gaspar. There was pizza in the oven, and though it was cold and several slices were missing, he ate it standing at the kitchen counter. It was a stroke of luck: the café in the park had closed without warning, and he was really hungry after spending the afternoon at the movies. The bedroom door was cracked open and for a moment he thought he saw his dad’s shape in the bed, but it was just a movement of the shadows.

He heard keys in the door. The steps that followed were his uncle’s: decisive, fast, sneakered. They headed straight for the kitchen, and when Gaspar saw his face, tired and frowning, an expression between worried and sad, he thought: there’s a talk coming. The talk.

His uncle sat down on one of the kitchen chairs and asked for a glass of something cool. Gaspar poured some apple juice over ice. Maybe he wanted wine? No, he would have said so.

“You want to come to the clinic with me? You haven’t visited your dad since he’s been there.”

“What for? Did something change?”

“Why so angry, son?” Luis shook the ice in his glass like it was whiskey on the rocks, then said: “Something’s changed, yes. Your dad is no longer conscious. He had an embolism this morning. You know what that is?”

“No.”

“They explained it more or less, I don’t understand it much either. In the end, what it means is that they don’t know if he’s going to wake up.”

Gaspar felt his knees start shaking, and at the same time he felt such an immense relief that he didn’t know how to react.

“It’s time for you to say goodbye, I think. They don’t know if he can hear or not. They say your old man is unpredictable.”

“Why should I say goodbye if he’s not even going to know? You’re lying,” said Gaspar, and he didn’t want to hear anymore. He went to his room and locked the door so his uncle wouldn’t bother him. In case he came knocking on the door, Gaspar lay faceup on the bed and put on his headphones and an album by The Cure—the one that was on his stereo, on repeat—and he cried in the dark, trying not to make any noise, until he fell asleep with the music in his head. He dreamed his father was talking to him while he held a giant knife, like a hunter’s, in his hands. He sat there on his deathbed and talked to Gaspar, and he had cut off his eyelids, with the knife, maybe, though Gaspar didn’t see any blood in the dream, only his father’s yellow eyes wide open, and on the sheets, blond eyelashes stuck to bits of dried skin.