Ester Escamilla: "I've always put a lot of emphasis on how my sons relate to girls."

BarcelonaMy middle son, Jadiel, told me a few days ago that I was very intense. And yes, I am. And with this intensity, I try to guide my three sons toward a more egalitarian world. I've always placed a lot of emphasis on respect for women. In how my sons relate to girls, in how they listen, in how they look. I want them to be part of the change, to understand that the world can no longer function as it used to and that as men, they have a responsibility to bring about transformation.

What is it like living with three boys?

— I either take it with humor or despair. I must say that when they were little, I never missed the feminine side of the house. But now that they're older and team up with their father, I often need it. Sometimes I feel trapped in a male fraternity, with their testosterone-fueled way of understanding the world and navigating it. I only have Pepa, the cat, as a female presence, and I often think she's a bit overwhelmed too.

Your novel begins as a letter to your father, an absent father guilty of something I don't want to reveal.

— I wrote it with the calmness of feeling I had resolved all the vital issues that could have disturbed me. This allowed me to look at myself from the final stage of the stage, at everything that at other times in my life would have pierced my insides. Everything I needed to understand, I'd already understood years ago, and other things that have no explanation, I forced myself to stop trying to understand.

We all, at one time or another, need to settle accounts with our father.

— I'd like to think that our generation will be one of the last to have more unfinished business with fathers than with mothers. We come from a place where the male figure has eclipsed and shaped the world in its own way, often through fear, imposed power, and emotional silence. Meanwhile, women were relegated to the background, limited to service, care, and shadows. Therefore, there was little to reproach their mothers for. She tried to maintain balance while everything around her was in turmoil. That's why, despite the mistakes mothers could also make, we don't tend to have the same kind of unfinished business. Often, rather than reproaches, there is recognition, or even sorrow, for all that they kept quiet or endured in silence.

It's hard for fiction not to look too much like reality.

— My middle son started reading the book. He would have liked to read only the beautiful part and skip the rest, but he senses shadows of his mother lurking there that he doesn't want or can't yet confront.

And the oldest?

— Olau and I haven't had a deep conversation yet, but the tears he shed when he read the first manuscript and the countless times he's told me, "Mom, I'm so proud of you," replace all the words he couldn't find. He's fully aware that I didn't have an easy childhood, that I'm a defender of injustice and a warrior by nature, but also that I laid down my weapons years ago and would only pick them up again for them. This "I'm proud of you" is an affirmation of everything I am, of everything he now knows about me.

What thoughts help you when you can't take it anymore?

— I've always trusted my instincts and applied common sense. I've never been guided by trends, or grandmothers, or books. I've listened to everyone and stuck with what I believed to be valuable. When problems arise, solutions arise. And until I find them, I do what I saw my mother do: keep going, going, going.

And what do you do about the feeling of guilt?

— There have been times in life when the guilt has tried to fall on my shoulders, but before proceeding with the decision I was about to make, I've always asked myself the same question: "When my children grow up to be forty or fifty-year-old men and ask me for explanations, will I have an answer? Yes? Well?"

When you are forty, you will understand many things without asking.

— I often tell my children that I'm teaching them things I haven't yet learned to do. This doesn't excuse me from anything, but perhaps it will help them understand me.