Unlike her mother, who could have given master classes in holding grudges, her father was a kindly, fair, calm person. In her memory, that argument was an anomaly. Hearing her childish voice wailing sent a cold shiver down her spine. She told herself that Apep Otein was acting just as her mother would have done in life, seeking out the most painful spots from some vague need that could never be satisfied. She felt pity for her. The following days eased her torment as light-hearted, happy, everyday images returned to the wall. Those suspiciously saccharine scenes made her think that what her mother hoped to achieve through the Facebook account was to invalidate her daughter’s memory, leaving only those recollections in which Pepa Nieto played a role, with the result that her past would be completely filled by her progenitor, excluding all experiences in which that woman was not present. As if her life had only involved episodes to which her mother had been a witness.

That notion disturbed her so much that she decided to delete Apep Otein from her life forever. She kept it up for three weeks before finally giving in. When she next passed the cursor over the name, her hand was trembling with impatience. There was no new content on the page. She clicked on the photograph of her dead mother: the face outlined by the shroud, the dark wood of the coffin, the wreaths.

During the period in which she’d abstained from visiting the ghostly wall she’d experienced a disturbing sense of longing. The jumble of images and audio files had been upsetting, so she was surprised to find herself hoping for a fresh memory of Pepa Nieto that had, until now, been buried in her hippocampus, the echo of an ordinary day in her childhood or adolescence: her mother spreading bitter orange marmalade on her bread, cleaning her red ballet slippers, walking her to the bus stop; the outdated idioms used by the whole family when they met up in the spring, and her mother’s singing would rise above the chattering voices. Each post had been like discovering a box of dearly loved but mislaid objects that still vibrated with energy.

The strong yearning she’d felt during the time she’d banned herself from visiting the page was no different than what she’d experienced as a child when, after school, she’d have an overwhelming desire to see her mother the moment she got home, only to find her bedroom door locked. Her mother would be doing her hair or makeup, and that terrified her. She’d be unable to stop herself shouting, “Mom, Mom, Mom!” knowing that the door might not be opened. Banishing Apep Otein was like standing on the wrong side of that locked door. She returned to the damned account, clicked on the wall, hesitated for a few seconds and then wrote, screamed:

“Mom!”