The revelation of the passionate "fever" that had united her parents in their youth, and the tense presence of her uncles in those photographs of Calakmul, left Lysandra with a whirlwind of new questions. The trunk, far from being exhausted, seemed like a bottomless pit of family enigmas. She carefully moved the photographs aside, her fingers brushing over the images of a young and fiery Julian and Elara, and continued her exploration.
Beneath a layer of embroidered silk scarves—one of them still holding the faint scent of her mother's violets, so vivid it made her heart clench—she found a thick cardboard folder, tied with a cloth ribbon that must once have been a vivid color, but was now faded and fragile. It bore no label. The echoes emanating from it were different from those of the letters or the photographs; they were colder, more clinical, tinged with a dull anxiety and a faint hope.
With growing apprehension, Lysandra untied the ribbon and opened the folder.
What she found inside completely baffled her. These weren't just love letters or treasure maps. They were documents. Reports with hospital letterheads she didn't immediately recognize, sheets with columns of numbers and medical terms that were foreign but ominous, and dates that made her pale. Dates that corresponded to her mother's youth, long before she was even born.
Her violet eyes scanned the pages, at first in disbelief, then with blood-curdling horror. The language was technical, impersonal, but the conclusion was unequivocal. She read the words over and over again, as if by doing so she could change their meaning: Carcinoma... Early stage... Prognosis guarded... Aggressive treatment recommended...
Elara. Her mother. Diagnosed with cancer at an insultingly young age.
A lump formed in Lysandra's throat, choking her. The image she had always treasured of her mother—a vibrant woman, full of life, with that smile that was pure light and an energy that seemed inexhaustible—cracked, threatening to shatter. How was that possible? She remembered a healthy, active mother, who took her running through sunflower fields, who swam with her in the sea, who always seemed invincible. Had it all been a façade? A titanic struggle waged in secret, hidden behind that radiant smile? The echoes of the documents were a whirlwind of silent fear, of sleepless nights, of the antiseptic smell of hospital wards, of the fragile hope clinging to the doctors' every word. She felt her young mother's anguish, the terror at the fragility of her own body, and the shadow of her father's fierce determination fighting by her side.
With trembling hands, she continued to sort through the papers, as if searching for a rebuttal, proof that it had all been a mistake. And then, among the medical reports and appointment letters, she found something else. Something that, if possible, struck her even more deeply.
It was a small, thin envelope, with no return address, tucked almost as an afterthought into the folder. Inside, there wasn't a medical report, but a single sheet of paper, neatly folded, and a small lock of incredibly fine, pale, almost white hair tied with a pale blue silk thread.
She unfolded the paper. It was a letter, or rather a note, written in the elegant but visibly distressed handwriting of her father, Julian. It wasn't dated, but from the context of the other documents, Lysandra knew it must be from those same difficult years.
"My beloved Elara," the note began, the words blurred in places, as if tears had fallen on them. "Today, heaven weeps with us. Our little angel has spread his wings before his time, before we could even teach him to fly. There are no words for this emptiness, for this cradle that will remain forever empty. But look at me, my love, look into my eyes. You are not alone in this darkness. I will hold your hand, I will collect your tears, and together we will find a way for the sun to shine again in our hearts, even if it seems impossible now. This pain will either unite us or destroy us, Elara. And I choose to let it unite us. I choose to fight for you, for us, for the future that still awaits us, even if it is now veiled by this fog of sadness. Our love is stronger than this loss. It must be."
Lysandra felt as if the ground had disappeared beneath her feet. A child. Her parents had lost a child. A brother or sister she had never known, whose existence had been a secret buried beneath layers of pain and time. Before they were married, before she was even born. The echo of that loss was overwhelming, a sadness so deep and ancient that it pierced her like a spear of ice, making her gasp for air. She felt her mother's heartbreaking pain, her father's helplessness and iron determination. The passionate "fever" that had
What she had perceived in the photographs of Calakmul suddenly took on a new dimension, perhaps also forged in the crucible of this shared suffering, this joint struggle with illness and loss.
The room seemed to spin. She placed a hand on the edge of the trunk to steady herself. Her mother's cancer. A lost child. These weren't simple historical events; they were the secret battles that had shaped the two people she had loved and admired most, the storms they had weathered together long before she came into their lives.
The trunk, which had begun as a source of romantic mystery, had transformed into an archive of resilience, of hidden pain, and of a love that had been tested to its utmost limits. And Lysandra, sitting on the floor of her parents' room, surrounded by the ghosts of her past, felt smaller, more confused, and, strangely, more connected to them than ever. The need to understand how they had survived all of that, how they had found the strength to carry on, and ultimately, why they had made the decision to disappear on that distant island, became a burning thirst, a question that demanded an answer, no matter how painful it might be.