This text clearly has its roots in the author’s own rather dramatic life, growing up in Spain during and after The Civil War. It concerns the father, who is sentenced to death but instead given lifetime imprisonment, from which he escapes. Meanwhile, the mother surrounds her husband’s circumstances in taboo, making their children believe he is dead.
In this monologue, the mother is a ‘mater dolorosa’ who, while awaiting a letter from her son, contemplates both the loving and the hard times that they have shared.
