"So your mother was a singer?" Leon asked.
Violetta nodded. "I wish she were here right now, she'd probably be proud of me."
"Oh yeah? And why is that?" Leon asked.
"Because I found someone like you..." She realized what she had said and stopped.
Leon chuckled.
"Hey, could you show me how she looked like?" Leon asked.
Violetta asked herself why he would ask something like that, but just shrugged and grabbed a photo from a nearby table.
She handed it to him, and he took it. He stared at it for a long time, until he said, "You really look like Maria."
Vilu stared at him. "How do you know her name?"
"Uhh . . ." Leon ended up shrugging. Still holding the photo, Leon turned it around and took out the frame, leaving just the photo.
"Leon, what are you doing?" Violetta asked.
"Hold on. I think there's something here."
Sure enough, hidden between the photo and the frame was a key.
Violetta snatched it from him and admired it. "How did you know there would be something behind this photo?"
Leon shrugged, so Vilu then said, "What does this key open anyway?"
Leon leaned closer to her, and in his mysterious way, asked, "What about the door?"
At that moment, they heard the front door opening. Surprised, Violetta instantly got up and dragged Leon to where the back door was.
Instead of leaving quickly, Leon stood where he was, winked at Violetta, and walked away as if he had all the time in the world.
As the front door finally opened then closed, Violetta was sitting on the couch of the living room, pretending as if nothing had happened, and hiding the key and the photo so he wouldn't suspect anything.
"Hey Dad," she said.
"Hey, Vilu. I thought you were at school."
"Uh, I was. School ended early. Where's Olga?"
There was a pause. "You mean, she isn't here?" he asked.
"No, I didn't see her anywhere since I got here. I thought you'd know where she was."
"Well, when she does get here we'll have a good discussion then," he said. "But right now, I gotta get some work done. Love you, V."
"Love you too, Dad." Violetta watched her father walk off to his room where his office was.
Once she heard the door close behind him, she immediately took the frame, the photo, and the key and ran to her room upstairs as quietly as she could.
There, she began to wonder what that key Leon found was for. How did he know it would be there in the first place?
She stared at the photo once more. She gasped when she remembered Angie was holding this same photo that morning. Did she...?
She looked at the time on her watch. Two hours had passed from when Leon and Violetta came to the house 'till her father arrived. Just like he had said it would.
What does this thing open anyway? Then that's when it hit her as soft and ominous as a whisper: The door to the attic.
"Of course!" she said. She got out of her room and closed the door ever so gently.
She checked to see if her dad was still in his room. Sure enough, the door to his room was closed shut. Lucky enough for her, the attic door was right next to her room, so she wouldn't be running around the house, knowing her father would hear her footsteps.
Holding the key tightly with both hands, she headed to the attic door. She placed the key in the keyhole—it fit perfectly. She turned the key, and sure enough, the door unlocked.
Violetta's heart began to race faster and faster as she opened the door further and further. Closing the door behind her, she saw that the attic had some stairs parallel to the door. Going up the stairs, she admired the walls. There were pictures of a woman—no, she was not just a woman. It was Violetta's mother, Maria.
Violetta gasped a gasp of complete surprise and awe as she touched the photos so gently as if the photos were priceless artifacts from the 3rd century.
Once she got to the top of the stairs, she found herself in what seemed like another bedroom, except that there was no bed. There were beautiful clothes in what seemed to be an enormous wardrobe. Violetta couldn't help but think this was all her mother's stuff.
Dad, she thought. No wonder he never told me what was hidden up here.
She then thought it best to keep her discovery a secret. If her father found out, Violetta had no idea what he would do to her mother's stuff.
She decided she had been long enough in there, so she quietly left the attic and locked the door behind her, as if nothing had happened at all.
"Don't worry mother. I will come back soon," Violetta said as she looked back at the attic door one last time before entering her own room again.
She needed to rest a bit, after all, anyone would have felt that way if they had gone through all that had happened to her that day.
She sat down on a chair next to her window. Looking out into the front of the yard, she noticed something. It looked like a white piece of paper stuck to the fence. Violetta decided to go outside to find out.
When she got there, she realized it really was a piece of paper.
She took it out of the crevice of the fence and unfolded it.
She found there was a number written there. A phone number? Could this be Leon's?
She smiled and began to walk back into the house. As she walked and glanced at the phone number, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye.
There was a dried up rose near the sidewalk. She got down on her knees to inspect the flower.
"Hey rose," Violetta said to the flower. "Who did this to you? Someone didn't take care of you?"
She was about to touch it, but was interrupted by her father.
"Vilu, don't touch that flower!" he yelled at Violetta, startling her.
Vilu got up. She decided this was her chance. "Why Dad? Why?"
"Why what V?"
"Why keep so many secrets away from me?"
Her father was about to answer with another question, but Violetta had already gone inside the house and up the stairs to her room.
He looked back at the rose Violetta was about to touch. Seeing it all dried up, he thought she was the one who touched it. He was beginning to worry that Vilu would soon discover who she really was...
In her room, Violetta grabbed her cell phone and typed in the number from the paper she had found.
Just to make sure it wasn't some fake number, Violetta sent a message saying, 'Is this Leon?'
Immediately, someone responded:
'Hey there, Vilu ❤'
