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“I don’t have identification because the reception desk was empty!”
“And how do you know that this is where the patient is looking if no one has talked to you?” she asks, andEllalooks at me, thinking if she should tell the truth or not.
“For God’s sake, I just need to know if she’s okay, I swear I’ll do whatever you want, but just let me come in and see her, see if my...”
“Mommy!” a childish voice screams in the back of the infirmary, with six beds lined up, all occupied.I look back to see if anyone else has entered the room after me and frown at the fact that no one did. The door is still closed.
However, catching my eye and surprising me, Antonella gasps and has her eyes immediately drawn to the voice that screamed, which I soon identify as being that of a little blonde girl.Ella exchanges a look that I don’t understand with the nurse who barred her passage, and the woman lets her pass.This time, my ex-baby fiancée doesn’t hold back and literally runs, only stopping when the child is in her arms.I don’t know who cries the most, whether the little blonde or the woman I’d discussed my marriage with minutes earlier.
And then, it happens again, the voice of João Pedro shouting a sonorousI told you soechoes in my head and, this time, I can’t even hate the son of a bitch!Because, damn it!Antonella has a daughter!
My heart bursts in my chest in relief and pain.God, there’s nothing worse in this world than watching my daughter cry and not being able to do anything to make it better.No pain I have felt in my whole short life has been greater than this, and if there is one, please, I prefer death, because it probably is kinder.
I hug the small body, which hugs to me with arms and legs, and I squeeze Bella in my chest.I gently run my fingers through her fine hair, and my fingers touch a strip of fabric.Amid our crying, yes, because I cry as much as she does, I open my eyes, analyzing her head.I’ve never been more scared than this morning, when the day-care secretary told me that Bella had fallen on the playground, hit her head and been taken to the hospital unconscious.
I felt many things, but without a doubt, the greatest of them was fear.I didn’t care about anything, I just wanted to get to her, to my daughter, and I was so, so far away.And as the deafening silence around me choked me, my mind was bombarded with a million questions about how it could have happened, questions to which I had no answers.
God, may she be okay, may she be okay. Please, please!
I begged so many times, I wouldn’t have been able to count, even if I wanted to.Now, with my nose buried in her neck and my chest brimming with relief, I feel able to reason again beyond the divine plea I repeated over and over again over the last hour.
“Shhh, my love. It’s ok! Mommy is here! Mommy is here. It’s over, my love... It’s over!”I whisper, trying to calm Bella with words, in addition to the caresses and squeezing her in my arms, but, for long minutes, her crying fills the infirmary, even causing other children to cry too. “Shhh, it’s ok, my love. It’s ok my baby. It’s ok! It’s ok!” The tears in my eyes testify against the truth of my words, but there is nothing I can do to stop them from rolling down my cheeks.
I take a deep breath, calming myself but failing miserably in the mission to stop crying, and resign myself.I don’t know how much time I spend just hugging my daughter, until her crying becomes more spaced out, turns into sobs and eventually dies.I don’t have to look to know that Bella fell asleep.Her calm, rhythmic breathing is all the clue I need, but not even now, her arms and legs let me go.She sleeps completely clutched to me, and I’m grateful for that, because I’m just not able to let her go, not yet.
I squeeze her in my arms until my heart feels safe enough to beat at a normal pace.And, as if measuring my heart rate until it normalizes to only then get closer, the day-care employee approaches me, drawing my eyes to herself.
“Antonella... “
“No!” I answer serious and immediately. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you while my daughter is in my arms, asleep, exhausted from crying because of your incompetence!And you know why, Marta?Because I want to scream, and I can’t do it here” I feel my nostrils widen with my restrained speech with clenched teeth.
Suddenly, all the anger that was once buried in worry, rises to the surface, begging to be released somehow, but I can’t. Not yet.
“I... I,” she tries to start talking again, but I look at her, and she finally shuts up.
I keep rocking Bella in my arms and a second person approaches, this time a nurse, the same one who had barred me from the infirmary before.Now her expression and postures are completely different, she sounds supportive, understanding.
“Hello, Mommy.I need your information to fill out the health insurance form.It doesn’t have to be now, but I’m going to leave it up there, okay?” she asks, pointing to the bedside table next to the bed Bella was sitting on when I arrived.
I just nod, in agreement, and turn my attention to the sleeping little body in my arms.I kiss her hair and spend the next few minutes, I don’t even know how many, to be honest.
I have no pain in my legs or arms, despite Isabella’s forty-five pounds.I just feel peace, she’s fine.Everything is alright.I don’t know how long later, her arms and legs fall loose around me, telling me she already feels safe enough and I can let her go.I still don’t feel safe enough to let her go, but I know I have to.I can’t let her sleep in my arms all night when I know the bed will be so much more comfortable.
Then I do what I need instead of what I want.I lay my girl on the gurney, cover her little body with the comforter and pull her doll, which was loose on the bed, to her side.Immediately, Bella grabs it, making me smile.I caress her face, her cheek, I smell her skin, letting her presence comfort me, even though I no longer have her in my arms.
Needing more information, needing to know how she is, what happened, I give Isabella one last kiss on her bandaged forehead and get up, ready to look for the nurse.However, as soon as I turn around, it is not the professional I come across, but rather a very serious Marcos, with his body leaning against the wall and his arms crossed in front of his chest, still outside the infirmary, barred by the counter. I swallow dry.God!In my desperation, I completely forgot his presence, the character, everything. I just wanted my daughter.
I take a deep breath, knowing that any chance of marriage has fallen apart.Telling Marcos that a child was part of the sweet and submissive Antonella package required tact, lots of low looks, red cheeks and feelings of inferiority.It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Thank you, universe, thank you very much!
I look away from the blue eyes staring at me, only to take one more look at Bella.She is still sleeping, peaceful, not resembling even for an instant the screaming child that was when I got here.
With no options, I walk away from my little girl, approaching my ex-soon-to-be-fiancé.
“Marcos...” the first word that leaves my mouth is his name, “I...” I expel the air from my lungs, blowing it through my mouth, and below my head.This time, in a totally authentic reflection of who is looking for what to say, but I don’t have the chance to find the right words, he speaks before me.
“I talked to the doctor.Apparently, Isabella only had a shallow cut caused by her fall.The fainting was caused more by the fright than by anything else.She’s fine, she’ll just need rest and observation because she’s been medicated for pain and the medicine should make her sleepy by tomorrow.If everything continues as it is, she should be discharged by the end of the day.But I said you’d want to talk to him, so he should be back soon. His name is Marcel.” I am stunned by the series of information he dumps on me.
