The Mustard Toast

Juanita doesn’t sleep, and she doesn’t know why.
It’s annoying—this inability to close her eyes, this systematic waking at the same hour, these habits that no longer suit her.

Something has to change, but how? Sleeping pills? No effect on her. We don’t even know if she still takes them, or if she’s stopped, or if she’s changed again.

When she talks about her sleepless nights and early mornings, it’s always with a complaint. When advice is given, it slides off her like water off a duck’s feathers.

The solution must come from somewhere else—someone or something. Maybe one of her favorite shows? No, never.

Her habits and truths, she won’t change them.

When the Spanish presenter lists all the things to avoid before bed or when you’re in bed, Juanita listens with a sly smile:

• Don’t watch TV in bed.
• Don’t eat less than two hours before going to bed.
• Don’t go to bed with your phone on the nightstand.
• Don’t eat sweets.

You have to see and hear it to believe it! But Juanita won’t change anything. She wants things to change without changing herself. It’s annoying, especially when it comes to something as unchanging as time.

Time doesn’t hold Juanita back; she does what she wants with it.

When she talks with Agatha or Aunt Myriam, she wakes up irrevocably at six in the morning.

So when Eva gets up at eight, and look at Juanita exiting her room like if she’d just returned from a heavy night out. No one can help but smile, thinking of her early mornings recounted to anyone who’ll listen.

But Juanita doesn’t care: she knows she gets up at six every morning without exception. So when it’s eight o’clock and she says to Eva:

— « You’re getting up early today? »

Eva holds back from replying: « No, no, it’s six o’clock, like every morning. I’ve fallen into your rhythm. »

The morning routine can then begin. Eva loves having her breakfast quietly, often alone.

It’s her moment, the one where she thinks about her day, what she wants to do, what she couldn’t do.

She enjoys her coffee and breakfast, everyone knows it, and no one bothers her. If she gets up before everyone else, it’s also to enjoy this moment of solitude with herself.

We all have moments when we like being alone, and the morning is hers.

Once she’s finished, she likes preparing breakfast for Jean and later for Olivia.

Everyone appreciates this attention, and no one bothers her during this moment that belongs to her.

Jean has understood this well: he’s more adept at these moments of solitude.

They’re not bad moments for him, a bit more so since he’s lived with Eva and Olivia. Yet, he still appreciates them just as much. Being alone during certain moments isn’t a problem for him.

Thus, they make him appreciate the moments when he isn’t.

These habits, these life moments unique to each person that define our character, mainly this moment after waking up.

It marks the starting point of our day; it’s of capital importance. Jean and Olivia have always tried to instill this in Olivia.

For Juanita, it’s different. Today, yesterday—we don’t know if it’s important, we don’t even know if it ever was.

Be that as it may, for her at the present moment, breakfast is a coffee and a roll quickly swallowed standing in the kitchen.

No, for her, what’s important is constantly bothering Eva during her moment—the one that belongs only to her.

She goes back and forth, follows her everywhere in the apartment, shows her neck still swollen. If it’s not, then she shows her itching stigmata; otherwise, it’s to show her gums because she has a pain and asks if she doesn’t see something.

It’s December, and although it’s not as cold as in other regions, it’s not rare for the thermometer to read three or four degrees.

As soon as the sun peeks out, everything changes; you could believe it’s spring—the spring of Northern France. But before the star deigns to wake up, Juanita steals the show.

Eva, at the dining table with her coffee, tries to ignore all her mother’s solicitations.

She knows that no matter what her answer is, it won’t be good and will be subject to criticism, invectives, screams, or reproaches.

Nothing positive in sum, or very little: for that to happen, she must go along with Juanita, and that path, she doesn’t want to take.

Not out of principle or contrariness, but out of experience and intelligence, she can judge the result of this path that isn’t hers and that she doesn’t wish to tread.

So sometimes, she says « yes, yes » to get it over with, but even that, Juanita isn’t satisfied with.

After all, it’s not in her character to say « yes, yes » to Eva if she thinks « no! ».

When Juanita, after her coffee and quickly swallowed roll, decides to open the sliding glass door wide to hang out the wool sweater she had hand-washed the day before, Eva, in her pajamas, watches the spectacle, stunned and frozen.

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