The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman by Mamen Sánchez

impressive body mass was not exactly a coolly calculated decision. It was in fact the result of having smashed to pieces the solar-powered plastic scales that her sons had given her on Mother’s Day.
    â€œYou’ve got to start looking after yourself again, Mamá ,” they had pleaded with her. “Go out, buy new clothes, get your hair dyed . . . It’s been six months now since Papá left. You have to get over it, move on.”
    Although they were only fifteen and seventeen, they had dealt with being abandoned much more bravely than she had. And let’s be clear, their father had betrayed them too. He had promised at the altar to care for them responsibly and lovingly, to protect and educate them. He had agreed and consented and sworn on his wedding day that he would love them until death did them part. And, in the end, it wasn’t death that did them part but a flight attendant from Barcelona.
    Asunción had been suspicious of her husband’s frequent stopovers, two a week, but he had explained that he was openinga new branch in Ciudad Condal and asked her to be patient. Because until the office was up and running, he would have no choice but to fly back and forth like a boomerang.
    And then, after twenty years of cuddling up to her in bed, he started acting strangely.
    Until one evening, at eight o’clock, the doorbell rang. Asunción went downstairs to answer it. She was already wearing her pajamas, slippers, and woolen dressing gown. She had made a cup of tea and was halfway through reading The Red and the Black in French with her feet up. The kids were about to come home from soccer practice, the chicken was in the oven, the table was set, the romantic music was on, and the vanilla-scented candle was lit.
    At the door stood a tall, tanned woman squeezed into an Iberia uniform. If this had been wartime, it would have been a military uniform and she would have been bringing Asunción the news of her husband’s death in active service. But this was peacetime, unfortunately, and the woman came bearing no more and no less than her family’s death certificate.
    â€œCan I come in?” she asked with the sickly sweet air of someone accustomed to dealing with the oddities of the human race.
    â€œIt depends.”
    â€œYou’re Asunción, aren’t you?”
    â€œThat’s me.”
    â€œI’m your husband’s lover.”
    The soul weighs nothing. A Hollywood producer pretended it did for a good film title. It doesn’t weigh anything because it isn’t of this world, like love or pain. It holds the qualities that draw human beings a little closer to God.
    All the same, Asunción clearly heard the sound her soulmade as it thumped to the floor. It sounded like a stainless-steel pan bouncing down the kitchen steps.
    â€œCome in. Have a seat.”
    The flight attendant told her how everything had started with an innocent game of “Could you bring me another Coke, please? Could you bring me a pillow, please? I’m cold, can I have a blanket?” How there was a magnetic force of attraction that had destabilized the flight. How they started to meet in secret, in hotels and on beaches, until they decided to buy a flat together. How that secret would have to come out in a couple of months because, she told Asunción, “I can’t zip my skirt up anymore and I’m going to go on leave, because flying is dangerous for the baby.
    â€œI’ve come because he can’t bring himself to tell you,” she said, lowering her eyes. “He says you’re going to get divorced, that he doesn’t love you anymore. That it can’t go on any longer. But at this rate the baby will be born without a father, I can tell. Or his bigamy will mean we’ll both end up in the news. He’s capable of marrying me without divorcing you.”
    Then came the shouting, the weeping, and the gnashing of teeth. The hell. The kids