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Hold me one more time, Mum.
My jaw hurt, and my lips trembled from holding back my tears. But I wouldn’t let go.
Silence. I couldn’t bear it anymore, following me around like a shadow I couldn’t catch.
Silence. I gave up on it. Finding my father’s old records, I put them on. Sitting by the window, I watched the cobblestone street. I let the music wash over me, just like the memories and the tears, finally free, flow down my cheeks.
Silence finally broken. There was a strange sound I could hear above the music. Long and loud, a high-pitched cry. I realised it was coming from me.
I was home, finally, but I had never felt so alone.
I called my father’s phone and listened to his warm voice, telling me he would call me right back if I left a message.
I did.
Help me, Dad. I don’t know. How to live.
He never did call me back.
I wandered aimlessly through the house. The comfort I had hoped for was not to be found here. This home, it had been one of laughter, warmth, respect…. The only place I had ever been accepted just as I was. Where I had been loved unconditionally, as only a parent could a child.
Now it was just a house, with a musty smell of desertion. In spite of the weekly cleaning, the soul of the house was disappearing, being sucked out, leaving it cold and damp and empty.
I had to let go. There was an iron fist in my heart that refused to. I had to let go of my parents and move on. Remember them, keep them in my memories, and move on. I knew that.
What a silly idea it had been to come here to look for solutions. How could they, who were gone, help me forget a man they had never met, who I did not understand?
I had to let go of everything and simply start over.
Everything.
I let days pass by. I didn’t know when one ended and the other began.
I dreaded going to bed, but I dreaded waking up as well. So I tried to keep awake till my eyes hurt, my head pounded, and my body collapsed into a sleep full of awful dreams. Till I woke up in a sweat-soaked scream and I walked off to the next day.
I walked back from the beach, my feet swallowing one cobblestone at a time, the chill in the air wrapped around my heart in amity. Even the sun had tired of my depression and left off to another land. Nearing home, I looked up to find an Italian stallion crowding the doorway of my parents’ brightly painted blue door.
Lying, cheating, Italian stallion.
He stood there leaning against the door, his cold grey linen suit in sharp contrast to the door. His white shirt breathed free of a tie. Again.
My breath hitched. Like I’d rushed up a lift to the twenty-fifth floor and left my lungs on the ground floor. My body jerked. My movements became unsteady. He wasn’t even close, yet he was already working me like a puppet. I lurched to a halt in front of him, pulling my lips into a stubborn straight line. I didn’t like that I couldn’t get inside without him moving. He was in the way of everything, but the air sizzled between us like a spark in a thunderstorm.
“Buona sera, mia cara,” he whispered, his face showing something I didn’t understand.
“This’s private property. If you’re looking for a bed and breakfast, there’s one at the end of the street.”
“I am looking for my wife.”
“Was that when you were fucking your other wife?” I barked.
“Ex-wife,” he corrected.
“Whatever.” I rummaged in my bag, like I had a tornado behind me, looking for my stupid keys and dropping things in the process. I was going to cry.
Shit!
I was not going to cry before this lying, cheating bastard.
