Everything his parents repressed, Severin contracted and kept, collected almost, with the ambition to revive it when needed.

The mother was convinced that the purchase of this piece of furniture would facilitate the bond she so hungered for with Gabriela, although she hated the unnerving history associated with the paravent. But, she thought, what could it possibly do to a child?

He locked himself up in his sanctuary of art and carried the keys with him at all times. He maintained the social façade for financial security. The more tragedies were shackled to his name, the more demand there was for his public persona to clean up after the family name and showcase his art to overshadow his domestic disasters. His prominent reputation in the limelight of the town kept buzzing while the man behind the infamy withered in privacy.

By the time he painted Estefania's features, her appearance had already been hag-ridden and struck by sheer madness and delusion. But he still did what so many other male painters did before him; he created an idol.

This would be the room of new beginnings, the room of madness, of death, where everything needed to be cleaned and fixed for the next couple to flourish.

The widower glanced at her wedding ring and contemplated a solitary life with his son, but then the mayhem of his marital allegiance resurfaced, and he decided not to betray her.

While his parents never stopped being enigmas to him, Estefania's physicality felt graspable to him, a promise that would not withdraw itself. In Estefania, he saw a world to be painted.

Suddenly, Gabriela felt an unusual hand on her shoulder, branding itself through her clothing. Someone leaned against her body. A head now lay on her shoulder, and blond-reddish strands of hair that were not hers fell over her chest. The hand was glisteningly white with a hint of gray and overflown with blue, halted seams, and rested on Gabriela's hand like a stone on sand.

That was when Estefania, who had made her pain the world’s pain, stood up, her knees dirty, shaking, her tights torn. She took a distanced look around and then she started tearing her tights even more. She kicked her expensive shoes through the wind, then she ripped off her dress, screaming as if it were burning, her second skin, her role as an actress, her one-woman show, as if she herself were on fire, as if her clothes were drenched in acid and abandoned love.