Dinar frequently went in and out of the funeral parlor where his mother lay. He felt everyone's gaze on his back.

He had been able to evade as much as possible the commitment to be there, but an internal force forced him to take a plane to make an appearance during the wake.

Felicia had been the family point of reference when it came to the family's financial possibilities. It was she who defined which of the sons and nephews occupied the different positions in the hierarchical structure of the companies.

Now she was lying there. Unrecognizable. Dinar thought the same thing each time he approached, driven by the tension of looking heartbroken, as his disordered reflections crowded into the sight of the dead woman. He began to imagine that he was opening his eyes, aware of his closeness.

He was her youngest son, the one who received the greatest reproaches from her, but at the same time, to whom she had devoted the greatest efforts of her life. Looking at her, it occurred to him that he had, by putting land in between, been able to hide a large part of his life from her, playing with her an elastic and intelligent game of love in close proximity and of indifference when they were far away.

It also occurred to him that now the dominant spirit of his mother floated in all spaces and that he could read her thoughts, so he walked from the place of the coffin to the entrance of the funeral home and back. Now, he thought, the spirit of his mother knew of all his tricks, of his hidden loves, of his agreements with third parties to make him believe that he lived in the right way that she had prepared him.

Deep in his ideas, he sat down on a bench. He wanted to speed up the time, so that the four hours until the burial of the body would pass. He had no idea how many laps he would make in that time, or how to avoid the conversations of the affected relatives of his mother in that period. His greatest wish was for time to fly so that later it was all a matter for the lawyers to deal with.

He did not feel the arrival of the woman who sat next to him as she surrounded him in an affectionate hug. He recognized the perfume before looking up. She was his sister, the only child of Felicia's four children. Before he had hugged her silently, like the other two brothers, when he arrived at the funeral home.

Dinar was a quiet man, to whom his brothers, being the youngest and the mother's spoiled, paid little attention. The relationship between male siblings was always marked by a feeling of jealousy and competition for the mother's favors. From a very young age the two older brothers acted as Felicia's assistants. Astrid was the third, with her the relationship was different.

Dinar's intelligence captured what a scenario like that of his brothers would mean for his life and he was able to unburden himself from that by choosing a university degree impossible to pursue in the region of his mother's residence. With this, the distance between him and his brothers was accentuated, while, incomprehensibly, the emotional closeness with Astrid was increasingly defined.

─Don't think so much, Dinar, leave your nerves. Astrid whispered in his ear. As soon as he heard his sister's words he burst into tears.

In the distance, for those present, they were the picture of two brothers embracing, sharing the pain of a loss. But between them that hug and that cry were just a sample of the great rapport that existed between them.

─Will you tell me why you are crying, Dinar?

─Because even looking at her there, motionless, I'm very afraid of her. The man said as he looked for the eyes of his sister who watched him cry, moved by the brother, but, internally, serene, controlled.

─It happened. Astrid said, it's over, bro.

─Are you sure? Never knew anything? Is everything in order now?

─Yes, everything is in order. He never knew anything.

Astrid got up from the bench and held out her hand. Thus, like someone carrying a small child, he directed it to a further bench where no one could see, or even imagine, what was happening.

Once there he wiped her eyes lovingly.

In Astrid's voice, Dinar always found the shelter and peace that it never occurred to him to look for in his mother.

─You don't know all the girlfriends that I invented for our mother's ears… I once told her that a jealous husband was chasing you. From there came those tickets to Greece and that hotel payment for a month ... I know you needed it ...

The heartbroken people at Felicia's wake could not imagine that at that moment the two brothers were laughing, embracing, with a suppressed, hidden laugh, as they had done so many times during their childhood and adolescence, when no one could see them.

─Now what will happen, Astrid. How will this end?

Everything will be quiet. It was clear, before Mom died, that we would all have twenty-four percent and you would have twenty-eight percent of the companies. You were her favorite, we all know it, and mine too ... You don't have to be tied down if you don't want to, I'll take care of you and mine, if you want to ...

Dinar began to calm down. Despite that, the tears flowed free from her eyes.
I loved her, sister. I told him little. I was so afraid of her!

─Mom knew… she made me promise to take care of you. She loved you with a kind of love that is scary, but that is love, even though she would never have accepted Ruben as your husband.

─Now you can live your life in freedom, without the need to hide.
For that money will serve you well.

When they returned to the viewing room, the two brothers looked equally serene. Sad, but serene.