Nothing scandalous enough happened for outsiders to be able to point to an exact day and say: that’s where it all started.
Slower.
More dangerous.
Like watching a wall crack on the inside while the outside still has its paint on.
At first I thought it was the natural weight of the disease.
Tiredness.
Sadness.
The routine that wears anyone down.
But then I understood that it wasn’t just that.
There was something else living with us.
Another thing that nobody mentioned.
And I had been breathing it in for three years without realizing it.
I got married thinking I was entering a family struck by tragedy.
Nothing else.
My husband always told me that his brother had been paralyzed after a severe crisis, something complicated, something painful, something they preferred not to talk about because it still broke their hearts.
I didn’t pressure anyone.
I never used to ask questions when people looked down.
Furthermore, at first I was moved by the way everyone seemed to revolve around that suffering.
My mother-in-law cooked in silence.
My husband moved around the house with that hardness of men who believe that to resist is to not feel.
And my brother-in-law remained mostly locked in his room, still, serious, looking out the window as if on the other side there was a life that no longer belonged to him.
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