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I thank God that I decided to wear a dress today.All the juggling to get rid of the pants really would be just another stress.
The handsome face stares at me in expectation, and I drop my hands down Hugo’s neck, bringing my lips closer to his.He grabs the roots of my hair and pulls my mouth toward his.Hugo has a slow, careful, good, not amazing, but good kiss.And it doesn’t even matter, because it’s not because of his kisses that I’m here.
Without any mildness or slowness, I begin to unbutton his shirt, until I’m able to touch his skin, he groans in response, enjoying the touch and slipping his hands underneath my dress.It doesn’t take long for his pants to be unbuttoned, his belt unfastened, my panties pushed to the side and I slide into his lap.
His head is thrown back, resting on the back of the seat and leaving me free to move around, grinding and moaning, desperately seeking relief from my troubled mind from the incredible amount of shit I’ve had to put up with today.It’s not perfect, it’s not fantastic, it doesn’t shake my structures or get me off the ground.But it should be enough, usually, it is.
But today it doesn’t work.Not as it should, while I feel my body increasingly filled and dominated by pleasure, my thoughts don’t stray as far from reality as I would like.Behind my eyes, I see Marcos Valente’s face and body under mine, I imagine it’s him fucking me and I hear his voice telling me all kinds of absurdities, but I like those and I come.
?
“Did everything go well today?” I ask as I pick up the small pink backpack and put it over my shoulders.
“Everything fine, Antonella. But there’s a message on the agenda for you. Father’s Day is coming...” the person responsible for the night shift warns, and the bitter taste in my mouth is inevitable.
I reach out my arms. Carefully, the small, sleeping girl is passed on to them.Instantly, I’m flooded with a sense of peace and completeness that nothing ever gave me, not until I clutched her to my chest for the first time.
I sink my nose into her little neck, smelling the golden skin and hair.I close my eyes, feeling the sensation flow, and tighten my grip around her.God, being a mother is definitely suffering in paradise.At twenty-one, alone, with no support network?Definitely suffer.Sometimes, many times, I cry alone in the bathroom, but nothing has ever brought me as much peace as having Isabella in my arms.
People say a child is born; a mother is born.I don’t know if that’s true, but for me it definitely was.
“I’ll take a look, thanks” I wave goodbye to the woman and turn away from the day-care gate.As usual, Bella is the last child to be picked up.But I have no other option, not if I want to go to graduate school.
It is for us that I do this.It hurts me deeply to think of all that I am missing from her life by leaving her from seven in the morning to ten at night in a day care center.But it’s for her, so that she has a better future.Without studying, I couldn’t offer her anything but the tiny apartment we live in during our entire lives.
Is law school what I imagined it would be like at seventeen, when I got pregnant?No, it’s not. It is at night, private, with objective classes, with no time for parties and the obligation to be self-taught.But nothing is as I imagined it would be until I saw the two lines on those pharmacy tests.
On days like today, when class ends early for whatever reason, I could go ahead and get Isabella first, but that wouldn’t make any difference.Bella sleeps at eight at night, and picking her up half an hour earlier wouldn’t increase our time together, so on those rare occasions, I use the extra time for a beer, literal or figurative, and only God can judge me for that.
Walking slowly, I cross the two dark and neglected streets that separate the day-care from our house.The building without a doorman is small, painted a grimy gray and has no elevator, despite it has four floors. We live in the fourth.
I climb the stairs of uneven steps carefully, unable to lean on the railing and full of unbalanced weights.Bella on my lap, my bag on my back and hers on my shoulders.I gasp as I reach my last obstacle.With the keys already in my hands and the mastery of an expert, I open the lock, and the smell of my little home fills the corner of my soul that was not yet at peace.
Home. Finally. Holy shit.
Despite the relief, after putting Bella in her bed, my second shift begins, that of a single mother.I open her backpack, taking off her clothes, her cookie jars and her dirty juice bottle, check her schedule and start preparing the next day’s backpack.
After all the routine the next morning in advance and the house swept and organized, I’m entitled to a bath.The warm water slides over my skin and all I can think is that, rude or not, Marcos was absolutely right.For someone who has my life, his proposal looks like heaven.I don’t spend as much time in the shower as I’d like because my legs hurt and I can barely keep my body straight.
As I dry myself, the exhaustion shown by the mirror does not surprise me, but frustrates me.The marked dark circles under the eyes, the unkempt hair, the sun spots on the skin.Everything in me screams tiredness.I don’t often think about the years leading up to this time in my life.A long time ago I made peace with myself and my present, but today, after having everything I’ve ever had offered me on a platter, it’s impossible to stop my thoughts from traveling to that past or to the possibility of a similar future.
The expensive clothes, the trips, the companies, the luxurious places, the comfortable house, me.A completely different me than today. The hair was blond and light, the skin was clean and velvety.There were no dark circles, no worries, no bills, no exhaustion, and no Bella either.
There was no Bella.
If I had the opportunity, would I choose differently?
The question that stamps me as a bad mother assaults my mind again, it always comes.No matter how much I repel, no matter how much I answer no, I wouldn’t.The question always comes back.
Would she leave me alone if I could be a better mother?If I could offer my daughter all the comfort I had during my childhood?During my adolescence?If I could be present in her life like my parents never were?
It’s so ironic.I’ve always resented that and now I reproduce exactly the same behavior.They were absent to keep up appearances and further increase the wealth they already had, I am absent so that we do not starve and so that Isabella never goes through what I went through.No matter what choices she makes in life, I’ll always be by her side and maybe that makes me a little better at being a mother.
I sigh, waking myself up from my own thoughts and wrapping the towel around myself.And still wrapped up in it and with my hair caught in a bun wrapped around the top of my head, that I pick up my phone and make my daily video call.
“Hi, my person!” My voice comes out weak, tired, as I rub myself on the sofa that is hard but feels like a true paradise after the day I’ve had.Without my permission, images of the furniture in Marcos’ luxurious apartment invade my head, beating a dead horse, in this case, me.
“Hey darling! How are you?” Dark skin, full lips, long hair and black eyes await my answer, which is but a faint sigh. “Shitty...” She laughs. “What about my goddaughter?”
