Pablo came to see him. For Pablo, he left his father’s room and sat down in the restaurant. They ordered coffee with milk. Pablo told him the police had gone into about twenty houses. Including his. Raids. Then he said the police hadn’t seen doors in the house, or pretty much anything else. And no one believed them. They say what we saw in there was an optical illusion. From the shock. They don’t believe us about the teeth. Apparently, they found clothes in the house, new clothes, and they think they might belong to the guy who took Adela. They say maybe the guy put light in the house to attract us. They say someone kidnapped Adela. Was it the guy who was in the house?

“We don’t know if there was someone in the house,” said Gaspar. “That house is a trick. It told us a big lie. I’m going back to my dad.”

“Not yet,” said Pablo, and he went on talking: “A TV channel came round and interviewed the neighbors, including Hugo. They interviewed Vicky after she gave her statement in court. They’re talking about Adela on TV,” he said. “Haven’t you seen?”

“I’m not watching TV.”

“They want to interview you because I told them you got us out.”

“I’m not going to talk to anyone.”

Gaspar stood up, though he hadn’t touched his croissants. He looked at Pablo, who bowed his head, and suddenly he felt alone. Without thinking, he pushed the table aside to get closer to his friend, who, astonished, stood up. Gaspar hugged him tight, without tears. I have to get back to my dad, he said. I miss you guys. Vicky too, but I have to be with him.

Someone was in the room, sitting on the bed and talking to his uncle: the kid is in shock, he’s stressed, he’s depressed. Gaspar had gotten under the bed, and, from the floor, he watched what went on in the room. He didn’t even come out when a nurse came to “sanitize” his father, as they called it. They summoned him to court again and his uncle told them Gaspar couldn’t go, that he was sick, and they excused him. He found out later that a family lawyer intervened with a writ so they couldn’t summon him anymore. A psychologist evaluated him and determined that he was in no condition to give any more statements.

Gaspar felt sick and tired because sleeping meant dreaming of Adela, Adela who slipped from his hands like a little fish; they’d been in a fish tank where large eyes had seen everything. Whose eyes, only his father knew, and he was so far away, his own eyes black and opaque. Gaspar talked to him every day while his uncle watched them and cried a little.