With the excuse of going to get a glass of water, I left my room, my mother was sitting in the living room, the lights were off, the light bulb in the dining room was barely bright.
"Girl, what are you doing up at this hour?" she said, pressing her lips together.
I jumped so much that I almost hit my head against the ceiling; "You scared me, Mom".
"Go back to your room".
"I'm going to get some water, I'm very thirsty".
"Go to your room, I'll bring you a glass of water".
I noticed that my mother was a little nervous, she was staring at the street door, my curious alarms went off, "Why did Aunt Yuli come, so late, what object was that?"These questions whipped my mind.
"Inés, what are you waiting for, go to your room," my mother insisted.
I could not wait for grandma to come in, I went to my room, shuffled my feet and grumbled.
When I entered the room, I ran to the window to see if I could see anything, but just at that moment, the car started, grandma hugged that object and entered the house.
A few minutes later, my mother came in with the water and I asked her: "Why did Aunt Yuli come and not enter the house?".
"Stop snooping through the window, one of these days, you're going to get a scare", was what she answered, said goodbye to me and left.
My mom knew something, but I knew she wasn't going to tell me; so there was no point in continuing to question her, no way, I would have to go to sleep, curious to know what Aunt Yuli had given grandma.
The next day, the first thing I did when I woke up was to go to grandma's room.
"Blessing, Grandma".
"God bless you, you got up early today!" she said and tenderly, she hugged me.
I responded to her embrace, while I looked everywhere, looking for that object that Aunt Yuli had secretly given to Grandma.
When I was about to give up... Bingo, there it was, on grandma's window, the dark bag that wrapped the mysterious object; it was of no use to me to have discovered its whereabouts, because it was very high, and being so small, it was almost impossible for me to reach it.
"If I could touch it, maybe I could find out what was in the bag," I thought.
"Come Inesita, let's go to breakfast", said grandma, taking me by the hand.
We went to the dining room, I greeted my mother, who was serving breakfast, I sat down, took a sip of coffee and ate the arepa in pieces.
When we finished eating, my mother cleared the table, and got ready to leave.
"Mom, can I come with you?".
"You'd better stay with Grandma, I'll be back quickly."
"Go on, please," I told her with a doggy look, scolded.
No matter how much I insisted, she didn't want to take me with her; I got annoyed watching cartoons.
It didn't take long, I felt the door of the house open, it was my mother, she went straight to her grandmother's room, she locked herself in there for a long time; I knocked on the door and she answered:
"I'm coming to Inesita".
"Open up, I want to come in.
"Wait a moment".
When she finally opened the door, I entered quickly and I realized that the object was no longer on the window. My mother had scissors and a sticky date in her hand. On grandma's bed, there were some pieces of pink wrapping paper.
I wanted to ask my mother where that object that Aunt Yuli had brought was, but I knew she was not going to tell me anything, so I better not ask anything.
December 24th arrived, I wore my new clothes for the first time, to wait for Baby Jesus, then, at midnight, my mother woke me up.
"Inesita, wake up, the baby Jesus has brought you your present".
Excited, I stood up, more surprised to see that the paper of the gift was the same as the pieces I had seen the day before on Grandma's bed.
"Open it!", exclaimed Grandma.
I opened the gift, it was the skateboard that I had asked for. In the letter that I had written to Baby Jesus, I immediately said, "Grandma, this gift, Baby Jesus didn't bring it to me, it was Aunt Yuli, who bought it".
"Why do you say that?" asked Grandma.
"The other night, I saw when Aunt Yuli gave you an object, wrapped in a dark bag, and I am sure that my mother wrapped it in this wrapping paper".
My mother and grandmother gave each other nervous looks, and grandma made up the story that Baby Jesus didn't have the money to buy the wrapping paper, and asked them to help her with it.
At that time I believed that, today I know that they did it, so as not to take away the illusion that the baby Jesus existed.
This is my Participation in Creative Nonfiction in The Ink Well Prompt # 42, I hope you like my publication.
The image used were made in Canva
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
