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refuse to accept that you can only be good by being, as they say, “a good Catholic,” because that was the normal way to think of these issues surrounding morality coming from a family like mine, and with Carmen, my older sister, living in a convent.

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      Yes, it was an unexpected decision, being a brilliant lawyer, the top of her class, with a successful practice in La Coruña and as modern as she seemed. That Sunday, after meeting everyone and having made us all sit down, she stood there very serious in front of us, announcing without sidestepping that she had something to tell us.

      “Dad, Mom, I’m going to live in a convent,” she said without blinking.

      “Whaaat?” exclaimed my father, unable to contain himself. “What about your job? And the practice? What are you going to do with all of it? How can you just abandon it?”

      Of course my mother, who at that moment began to weep with joy, getting up and hugging Carmen, said:

      “My darling daughter, I knew it. I’ve sensed it since you were a child, but you persisted in studying law and I didn’t want to discourage you,” she said as she kissed her excitedly.

      “Sorry Carmen! Could you say that again please?” said my father very seriously.

      “Dad, I’ve made up my mind. I’ve been there several times, to the convent, to see how life there was. It’s not just a whim, I know that’s what I want. It’s not a joke, or anything like that, I’ll be shutting down the practice, I’ve already let the owners of the property know that I’m leaving it empty, so there’s no problem there. If you want any of the furniture or books that are there, you can take them, and if not, I’ll see what I can do about them.”

      My father, who hadn’t yet absorbed the news, said:

      “But love, given what it’s cost us to put it all together and now you’re going to throw it all away? What if it turns out that it was just a whim after all, and you decide to go back to your work? What will you do? Will you buy everything again?”

      “Dad,” Carmen said, “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and you know better than anyone else that I don’t take things lightly, that I think about decisions a great deal before making them, and it’s already decided. The last commitments I had have already been concluded and I’ve not picked up any more cases. As for the expense you put into helping me set it all up, don’t worry, I have the money saved. Since I started earning it, I’ve spent almost nothing, so I can return it all to you, and you can invest it in any other need that might come up.”

      “Carmen,” my father said a little more calmly, “it’s not money I want to talk about, we were happy to spend it to set up the practice. We’re not talking about that right now. I’m telling you, if what you want is to leave that job because it’s not what you expected or there’s some other reason, fair enough, close it all and take some time to think about which direction you want your life to take. Go out, meet people, maybe you’ll even find some young man you like and you can start a family, but think about it calmly and don’t rush into anything, because everything in your life has always gone in such a rush.”

      He stopped for a moment to take a breath and continued:

      “Studying and studying, that was always the only thing that interested you. I don’t remember if you’ve ever gone to any parties with your friends, those that I know so well from the endless hours that you’ve all spent studying to complete your course, but I also remember how on vacation, they would call you up to go out and you would make excuses, ‘I have to revise’. ‘But we’re done and you’ve got great grades,’ they told you, and you wouldn’t be persuaded. You’d spend the afternoon here at home, locked in your room among those huge legal tomes, saying you still had a little bit to get through.”

      “Well, that’s in the past now,” said Mom interrupting at that point, “and thanks to them she managed to finish at the top of her class, which helped her greatly when it came to setting up the practice and finding her first clients, but now we’re talking about something else, her life, not her career and I think that’s more important.”

      “Darling, I think it’s a good idea for you to spend a week at that convent you’re talking about, that you live with them and that you know there are other things in the world, but I think the decision to stay there permanently is something you have to sleep on.”

      “Mom, I’ve already done that, do you think I haven‘t spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about how to tell you? About what I can add when you try to dissuade me? I told the superior once that maybe I wasn’t strong enough to act against your wishes and she replied that…”

      “Wait, what are you saying? Who did you talk to about this before us?” my father asked interrupting what she was telling us.

      “Dad, I just told the superior, I needed to talk to her and clarify things, and she said:

      ‘Don’t worry, you know you’re not alone, follow the call, and from there you’ll find the strength.’”

      “What are you talking about?” asked my father. “What call? I don’t understand anything today, and who is that woman?”

      “Well, she’s the superior of the place where I want to go,” said my sister smiling and approaching him. She wanted to give him a kiss.

      “No, don’t try to flatter me, you’re not going to convince me,” he said, pulling his face back. “You, the best lawyer in La Coruña, the one that everyone wants to work with, you’re going to throw everything away, I could never agree with that. In my opinion, it’s a very unfortunate decision.”

      Turning his back, he left the room and locked himself in the bathroom for the rest of the afternoon, and even though we asked him to come out, he refused and said:

      “Nope, I’ve had enough upsets for today.”

      It was only when Carmen had left, saying that it was getting late and that she couldn’t stay any longer, that he came out and went to his bedroom.

      I ran into him in the hallway when he left, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He had been crying, so he hadn’t wanted to come out and his face was gloomy. I didn’t say anything to him and I let him go into his bedroom, where he apparently went to bed and did not want to come out for dinner.

      Our mother told us that when she went in to tell him that dinner was on the table, he had answered:

      “I’m for dinner!”

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      I haven’t told you yet. My name is Manuel, I’m from Santiago de Compostela. My father is a civil servant in the Treasury Department, his father was a lawyer, I’m named after him.

      I have four siblings; two brothers and two sisters. The oldest is Carmen, who’s named after my maternal grandmother, and the youngest is Sagrario, after my paternal grandmother, but we all call her Chelito. My two brothers are twins, which always surprised family and friends, because there had never been any twins among anyone we knew. One is called Antonio, we affectionately call him “Tono,” after one of my grandfathers, my mother’s father, who passed away some time ago and we never met him. The other is Carlos, or “Carlitos” to the family, after my uncle, the only one we have, my mother’s brother.

      As a child I had always said I wanted to be a doctor, to heal the wounds of other kids, even though my family, and above all my grandfather, wanted me to be a lawyer like him.

      “You’ll help me when you’re older and you finish your studies. I’m getting older and I need you to give me a hand in the office,” he would say whenever he had the chance.

      That couldn’t be and he was disappointed, although never for long, because when he said that to me, Carmen would always respond:

      “I’ll help you Grandpa and you’ll see, you just

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