He couldn’t understand what his father was saying, and that was what disturbed him the most in the dream, because it seemed important.

That Saturday was the day. They had agreed to meet there, in the barren front yard of the house on Villarreal, after dinner. Gaspar said he would rather go in when it was light out, and by 6 P.M. it would be dark, but his friends ignored him and he didn’t insist. His father hadn’t woken up now for two days. In the end he had gone to the clinic; his uncle stopped insisting but he decided on his own. Juan had a special room in intensive care all to himself. Gaspar sat on the bed. His dad’s eyes were closed. Gaspar opened them. The pupil on the right was fixed and black, like a beetle. The other one was normal. Touching his body was like touching clay. He couldn’t believe his father had been extinguished like that. He wasn’t dead but neither was he fully alive, and although Gaspar was still angry, he would have liked to talk to him some, maybe for the last time, tell him that he didn’t forgive him but that he loved him. Was his dad going to die without ever speaking to him again? Had it really ended so suddenly? When his dad moved slightly Gaspar leaned closer, relieved—he wasn’t dead yet. But it had only seemed he was moving because of the strange way he was breathing: he would go nearly a minute without breathing at all and then gasp suddenly, as if just remembering he needed to, quickly, frantically, and then stop breathing again. He didn’t open his eyes, but could he hear? Gaspar leaned down close to his ear and said: Wake up, Dad. He took his father’s hand, but there was no reply. When he left the room his uncle was waiting for him, and Gaspar asked if he’d noticed how he was breathing. His uncle said yes and put an arm around his shoulders, but Gaspar pushed him away. He didn’t want to be touched. And where were Esteban and Tali, if they were such good friends? Why had they left him alone? On Friday morning, before going to school, Gaspar stopped by the bedroom and thought he saw his father lying dead in his bed, so motionless, the sun filtering in through the metal shutter, and he stood in the doorway until the image vanished. Yes, he was going to move in with his uncle, whom he liked, who was so different, so similar to his friends’ parents, but he felt expelled from his real house—a house he didn’t fully know and where he’d only been allowed to enter some rooms, yes, but a secret house that was completely his. He felt like a door had been slammed in his face, like he’d been sent to a different world to be raised by a stranger, like in Star Wars.