Vicky and Pablo were now reincorporated into his life. For some time, the contact with Vicky had been only by telephone, but the conversations were always torrential and direct, no evasions, no careful euphemisms. Vicky had been the first: she interrogated him, and told him how at night she slept in socks because she felt Omaira’s head; how she didn’t avoid passing by the house on Villarreal, but she had to sneak off to see it, because she wasn’t allowed to go; how she’d switched schools, and if her classmates knew who she was, they’d never said so. I want to see you, it’s not going to be bad for you, there’s a reason we can’t make new friends, or have you? Gaspar admitted he hadn’t. She came to the house in Villa Elisa happy and anxious; Gaspar thought, as well, that she looked very different, tall, her familiar, heavy hair now very long and cared-for, and her skin so fine you could see tiny vessels in her cheeks. Pablo’s return had been more careful. The phone calls were uncomfortable and nervous, but his first visit was an immense relief, one cold afternoon under a blanket on the sofa, like reaching shore and being able to tie up and forget the storm. It was always Vicky and Pablo who came to the house in Villa Elisa, never the other way around. And Pablo’s visits would soon become more frequent: his dad, who had gotten rich off the gas company, had signed a contract with the province’s Ministry of Production, and he would soon be moving the family to La Plata, the capital. He was already renting an apartment downtown, which for now he was using as an office, but soon they’d need a house for the whole family. Gaspar told Pablo he felt like someone was bringing them together. Pablo listened to him, thought about the hand that sometimes touched him in the darkness, and said nothing. Vicky wanted to move there too, once she finished high school, to study medicine at the National University of La Plata. Luis had his reservations about the reunion: he thought if the kids reformed their group it would only bring back all the drama. He would have preferred them to maintain a friendship of phone calls, birthday parties, an occasional concert. The way they understood each other disturbed him. He talked about it with Isabel, and she surprised him when she said it didn’t seem like the best thing to her, either. But they were teenagers: forcing them to separate was no longer an option. Suggesting distance after years of keeping them apart could also be counterproductive.

Gaspar had asked Vicky to go through his father’s drawers—he didn’t dare. There wasn’t much. A few photos of his mother, which Gaspar put in his backpack. Several decks of cards: he kept those, too. She threw away all the expired medication. She found drawers with candles and chalk and little aluminum pots stained with something brown that could be rust or coffee. Gaspar also kept some postcards from Europe and some notebooks. The books went into a suitcase.