Arita

Arita


-Mom, do you know someone by the name Arita- asked Matilde, that night after deciding that no mater how much she tried to remember, the name didn't brought a memory.
-Not exactly by that name, but you were the only person who called her that.
-I used to called someone like that??? How could I not remember.
-You really don't remember??? I can understand it was in your early childhood, but I would think you would remember your Aunt Sara, or Arita as you used to call her.

And like if the memory long gone started to come back, Matilde's memory slowly build a face, first a small head, with a pair of tiny squared glasses in front, that were more likely floating in front of a pair of eyes in a color so dark it was almost black, with a tender but sad look. A mouth with a tiny hint of a smile. Certainly it had been a long time since Aunt Sara's death, and almost that time since Mathilde stopped thinking about her.

Slowly a few memories started to surface, the day Arita showed her the new swing installed in her garden when she was 5 years old, and that for many visits would be her place. Or the day they went shopping for the little gnome statues for the front garden, and she picked the one who was carrying the toolbox. Or the year the two of them decorated the Xmas tree with teddy bears instead of the usual decorations.

And then she remembered, how just a little before she became 8 years old, she went to her first funeral, a dark room, the ugly noise of several voices all talking in whispers, like wanting to hide. The long lines of chairs with too many people she didn't know. The tears in her mother's face and her shaky hand as they walked through the room, towards the big wooden box that looked so strange, so new and old at the same time. Her curiosity to look inside, the feeling of danger as she hold the border of the box while making her feet go up, and then

-Matilde, Matilde, are you okay - said the voice of her mother through the phone
-Yes, mom, is just that I started to remember- said as a little tear started to appear.
-Are you going to Sara's house? Do you want me to go with you?
-No mo, thanks, but I think from her letter that she wanted me to go alone.

Aunt Sara's house, Arita, a place were she created memories on her childhood and somehow she had forgotten them all. Why, why????