Margarita walks down the corridor of the hospital bench, accompanied by two women also dressed in white who hold her one by each arm. Her face reflects a great disorientation, her lips open in a grimace where the white and cared for teeth indicate that she has had a healthy life, her gaze focused on an image that she is only able to observe. When they reach the end, the door opens and a nurse takes her to a stretcher, helps her to lie down and straps her down, although it seems that it is not necessary, that she just lets herself go, that she has no will of her own.
The next day Margarita is discharged from the Hospital, with her mind completely lucid, after 5 years of isolation and lost in her madness, she has returned to "normality". She does not remember when or why she was admitted to that place, but she does remember her parents and siblings who welcome her with open arms.
When she arrives home, the memories come back like in a movie, until she was 20 years old, the age when her mind suffered a shock and she became another person very different from the way she was, a quiet girl, loving with her parents and siblings, who loved to paint. Her black hair has some gray in it, but her caramel-colored eyes have regained their luster. Her body is thinner, but still young. Her mother and sister accompany her to her room, go upstairs and open the first door on the right. The breeze and light fill the room where her bed is neatly arranged and adorned with two large dolls. To the left is a large hairdresser with a mirror. Everything is very clean.
“You should get some rest”, her mother tells her as she helps her take off her jacket and her sister removes the dolls from the bed. “Later I'll look for you so we can have lunch”.
"Okay mom" replies in a barely audible voice, as she closes her eyes and lies down. Her long black hair contrasts with the pink of the sheet. Her mind is still fuzzy, she knows something has happened, but she can't remember. Dr. Alvarado tells her not to worry about it and just enjoy her life.
They go downstairs to eat and meet in the dining room, sitting around the big mahogany table are her father Raul, her brother Jose Luis, her sister Carla and her grandmother Rosalia. They all look at her with joy. "We are so happy that you have returned home, we are going to celebrate this event with this meal that your mother and grandmother have prepared for you". While they eat they talk pleasantly, but Margarita feels uncomfortable and cannot figure out why, she tries to enjoy herself, but does not succeed. Her brother José Luis stares at her and that makes her even more uncomfortable. At the end of the meal her father proposes a toast.
“To Margarita's health, because the family is together again, we thank God.”
At night everyone goes to their rooms to sleep and while Margarita sleeps, she has a dream that makes her uneasy. She is in a dark forest, where she feels afraid, she is running away from someone who is chasing her, she is running through the trees, it is getting cold and it is starting to rain, a young woman very similar to her is calling her, she tells her to go back home, where she will be safe. She sees her, but she can't reach her, something immobilizes her and no matter how hard she tries she can't, and the person following her gets closer and closer. When he goes to grab her, she wakes up. She doesn't want to go back to sleep and the morning light finds her in bed with her eyes open.
She gets dressed and reaches the first floor of the house, her family still asleep, and goes to her painting studio. The door is locked, but she has the key. Her latest sketch is still there, placed on the easel, the watercolors and canvases are lying on the floor. The windows are closed and the smell of paint has become concentrated. He opens them to let the air in. He approaches the sketch and it is the painting of a forest like the one in the dream. The green colors are intermingled with browns and blacks, the shapes are blurred and a blurred figure is painted among the trees.
“Do you remember why you were painting that forest?”
Her brother's voice surprises her, she turns around and looks at him standing in front of the door, with that look that scares her.
“My mother didn't allow anyone to enter here, It's Margarita's place and I don't want it to be changed, I want it to stay the way she left it, she told us." And we have respected that, everything so that you are well.”
“Thank you José Luis, I feel like a child who is being overprotected and I understand you, although I don't remember the reason for my absence.”
“Well that is something that is not important, I advise you not to look for an answer to that and live your life quietly.” And saying this, he leaves her alone.
Margarita cleans the place and begins to paint, it is something she does by impulse and when she starts she can't stop. On the blank canvas she begins to trace green, brown and black spots that take shape... it is the forest. At the end she paints a big white spot with yellow and blue tones, it is a light in the darkness.
Her mother and sister invite her to go shopping, she needs new clothes and spends a pleasant afternoon, distracted. They enter a cafeteria and talk while eating sweets and drinking coffee.
Margarita takes the opportunity to ask her mother what José Luis is doing, what happened with his psychology studies, the question makes her sister Carla nervous,
“He dropped out of school and now works with your father, he is in charge of the sawmill.”
“It's good that he is doing something he likes. I knew he wasn't going to finish his degree.”
When she returned home it was already getting dark and Margarita told her mother that she was going to bed early because she had not slept well the night before. When she goes to bed she feels that there is a person in her room and sees a shadow near the window hidden behind the curtain. She is paralyzed, she tries to scream, but she can't and a terrible memory comes to her mind, it can't be happening again. Her brother covers her mouth and tries to throw her on the bed, she fights back as best she can, they struggle and she manages to push him off. She runs out of the room calling for help, but when she gets to her mother, she stops her and asks her what is wrong. She tells him what has happened. Her father and sister have also listened.
“Daughter! You can't blame your brother, he is sick and doesn't know what he is doing. If you accuse him he will go to jail.”
Margarita can't believe what she is hearing, she turns around and locks herself in her studio. She looks at the canvas she painted and imagines she is entering the forest. The woman is waiting for her in the brightness, walks towards her and takes her by the hand. Her mind that had been blocked has begun to remember her other life, where she is safe, away from her family and it feels good to be back, she had been lost, but she has found her way.
Margarita's parents and sister find her sitting in front of the canvas she painted, her face has changed, she has no expression, her eyes have lost their shine, she doesn't listen, she doesn't speak, she lives in her other world.
Margarita's mother calls the psychiatric hospital and asks to speak to the doctor who treated her.
She explains to him what happened and claims that you told me that she was not going to remember her other life, you deceived us, this treatment does not work.
“Mrs. Josefina, I warned you that Margarita could not go through the same trauma that made her lose her mind and you did not protect her. You are responsible for the fact that she does not want to be in this life, her mind searched again for the place where she feels protected.”
Marguerite is back in the hospital, she is sitting on a chair in front of the garden,but she is not seeing the white and yellow roses, nor the carnations in bloom. There a part of her brain keeps her alive and the other part has created a reality where she is protected from the dangers outside.
Thanks for reading