Plácido

Plácido dresses in red from head to toe because he works inside houses, and in houses red is the color of warmth, of embers, of the pot on the fire. He arrives after the arguments, when the slammed doors are over but the air stayed thick — that heavy silence you breathe in the kitchen and no one names. He comes in unseen, with his gentle smile and his cap drooping from so much use, and stirs the air slowly with his staff. The amethyst at the tip gathers up what was left floating: the word too many, the tone that hurt, what was said without meaning to. He fixes nothing — that part is up to them. He only clears the way, so that when someone finally says 'sorry,' the word reaches the other side of the table clean. Making peace also needs someone to prepare the ground.