Lysandra's nerves were frayed like violin strings about to snap. Every page of her father's diary seemed to unveil a deeper layer of secrets, each revelation leaving her with a more bitter, more confused feeling. She wondered, a shiver running down her spine, what other worse things could her parents have experienced? What else was hidden in those yellowed pages she held with trembling hands?
Despite the knot in her stomach and the tightness in her chest, an indomitable force compelled her to continue. It was as if, having opened that door to the past, she could no longer close it until she reached the end, no matter how painful the journey. She took a deep breath of the fresh, humid air from the lagoon, trying to calm the turmoil within, and refocused her gaze on Julian's handwriting.
She turned several pages, entries detailing more of the tension with Colonel Vance, the way Elara fought to defend their love, and Julian's growing resolve not to give up on her, regardless of the cost. And then, her eyes stopped on a passage that surprised her. At the end of a relatively short entry, her father had drawn a small smiley face, a detail so unexpected, so almost childish, amidst the seriousness of his reflections, that Lysandra felt a pang of curiosity tinged with an incipient hope.
"October 20th," she read. "I think today, finally, and in the strangest way, I began to 'know' my father-in-law. Or perhaps, he began to know me, beyond his prejudices."
Lysandra frowned, intrigued. Colonel Vance, the man of steel, showing some sign of change?
"I arrived at the Vance hacienda this afternoon," the entry continued, "to pick up Elara. The sky was overcast, black as a wolf's mouth, and you could feel that heavy humidity that announces a good downpour, the kind that floods everything around here in Quintana Roo when the rainy season approaches. I found the Colonel in the back garden, alone, his shirt sleeves rolled up, moving sacks of earth with a shovel, trying to reinforce a small embankment near his wife's orchid greenhouse. It looked like a losing battle against time and the impending storm."
"He said nothing to me when he saw me. Not even a greeting. Just that look of his, impenetrable. But there was something in his expression, a kind of fatigue, a genuine concern for his wife's flowers, that touched me. Without him asking, I grabbed another shovel that was leaning against a tree and started to help him. We dug and piled earth in silence for almost an hour, the wind beginning to howl through the trees, the first fat drops of rain falling on us. It was hard, exhausting work. And then, when we had finished reinforcing the embankment as best we could, just before the deluge broke, he stopped, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, and looked at me."
"And I saw it. I swear I saw it. A smile. Not a laugh, not even a broad smile. It was barely a twitch, a slight curve of his stern lips, but it was there. A tired, almost surprised smile, appearing on Colonel Vance's face. 'It seems you're not as useless as I thought, Thorne,' he said to me, his voice still with that dry tone, but without its previous hostility."
Lysandra felt a small smile touch her own lips. She could picture the scene: her father, covered in mud, and the Colonel, the same, both facing nature.
"Then, before I could answer, he added: 'Come inside the house. We'll have a glass of water before this rain turns us into soup.' And he went in, without waiting for my reply. I followed him, of course, feeling as surprised as he probably was. We drank fresh water in the kitchen, in silence at first. Then, he asked me about my travels, about my knowledge of ancient cultures, and for the first time, I felt he was listening to me, not to judge, but with a genuine, though perhaps reluctant, curiosity. It was the beginning of something… I don't know what. Perhaps a strange and somewhat odd friendship, one that I myself don't fully understand. But something changed today. And when Elara came down and saw us talking, the way her eyes lit up, the confidence that seemed to be reborn in her gaze towards her father and towards me… that, that was worth everything." 😊
Lysandra reread the entry, the little smiley face at the end now taking on a poignant meaning. After so many painful revelations, this small glimmer of connection, of incipient understanding between her father and the man who had so opposed him, felt like a balm. It didn't erase the dark past or the difficulties, but it added a layer of humanity, of hope, to her family's complex story.
Colonel Vance, the implacable father-in-law, had seen something in Julian that day, something beyond the shadows of his past. And Julian, in turn, had glimpsed a crack in the Colonel's armor. The idea of that "strange and somewhat odd friendship" between two such different men, united by their love for the same woman, was both improbable and deeply moving.
Lysandra closed the diary for a moment, the bitter taste in her mouth beginning to dissipate slightly, replaced by a faint warmth. Her parents' story was, without a doubt, a storm, but even in the fiercest storms, sometimes, just sometimes, an unexpected ray of sunshine appeared.