Her father rings her from a restaurant in Malaga. You know the place, he says, and begins listing the names of bars and restaurants next to the one he is in. She can’t quite hear him over the din of what she imagines to be giant dishes of paella being served to sunburnt retirees the same colour as their oversize Aperol Spritz.
You remember it, he insists—our local. The daughter has been to Malaga only a handful of times, mostly when her father first bought the apartment and before he met Sandra. She has no recollection of any restaurant but she knows how important it is to her father that his old life connects to his new one, so she nods into the pitch-black of the car park of the regional hospital.
“How’s the little lad?” he asks.
The daughter scans the cars. Something about the configuration of the dark shadows makes her feel certain that no one has come or gone in the fourteen hours they’ve been here. This thought increases her nausea. It is Sunday, she has been reminded many times. Sundays are tricky for sick babies in regional hospitals.
