The weekend niece. from the book, Searching for treasures

   How, deeply and desperately, she missed her mother, especially in moments like these, when she found herself alone with her grandparent’s lack of interest in her. She felt trapped in a situation with no possible escape. How she missed the mornings, back home when her mother was still alive!

     On a long weekend like this one, she would get out of bed and go down to the kitchen and help prepare breakfast. They’d talk about this and that while she squeezed the oranges for juice or helped warm the arepas. In those days, her father had not forgotten how to smile and did it often enough.

     Sadly, that cheery and carefree disposition he had, belonged now to the past. In her mind’s imagination, she recreated the sound of her parent’s laughter in the house during those mornings, while they sat together eating breakfast in the breakfast area.

     “And, now? Whose daughter, am I?” she asked. At least as far as Abundio and Katalina were concerned, the answer was clear. She felt her temper rise as she thought: I don’t feel like their granddaughter. I’m not even their weekend granddaughter! She grasped perfectly that in her grandparent’s life, there simply was no room for a child. Maybe when I’m an older woman, she will accept me into the grown-up world: but meanwhile, what am I supposed to do with myself. Become invisible…?

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