AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The boy looked up at his mother, who was still busy tending the baby, before he looked back at her, blinking.
She smiled thinly, trying to will away the churning feeling in her gut, trying not to hurt herself more by thinking about their son growing up. But it was impossible.
She’d read the books, even before he was born. He would be two now. Full of life. Inquisitive. Driven to explore his new world. Sometimes challenging.
This child was no doubt all of those things and more. He was beautiful as he looked at her, his expression filled with question marks, and so distracted that the toy bear in his hands slipped from his grasp to the floor.
Without thinking, she reached down and scooped it up and for a moment, when he realised, he was all at war, mouth open with brimming outrage, little arms pumping fisted hands.
Until she handed back the toy and he looked almost shocked, before his face lit up with a smile as he clutched the teddy to his chest and squeezed it for all it was worth.
And that smile almost broke her heart.
Somehow she managed a tentative smile back, before she had to wrench her eyes away from the child who reminded her of too much, from the child who was not hers.
From the ache in her womb that would never let her forget.
Tears pricked her eyes as she looked plaintively up at the high ceiling, to where the gaudily coloured chandeliers hung bold and totally shameless, mocking her, and she wished to hell she’d never come.
A collective gasp from the crowd and she turned to see one of the workmen wielding a rod tipped with molten glass dancing at its end. White-hot and fringed with red it glowed, fresh from the fire, stretching down long in its melted state before the artisan used a blunt implement and smacked it short.
The blob seemingly complied, buckling under the commands of a stronger force, melting back into itself.
From then on it was a dance of heat and fire and air, the sand turned molten glass, the rod spun and spun again over rails of steel, cooling the liquid magma until it was cool enough to be tweaked, a tweezer here and there to tug upon the glass and pull a piece outwards, a prod there to push it in, seemingly random.
She watched, but only half-heartedly, determined not to be impressed, finding a welcome distraction when she noticed the craftsman was wearing nothing on his feet. Molten glass and bare feet, she thought with horror, but happy to think of anything that would provide a distraction from the child alongside her, watching now from his father’s knees in open-mouthed fascination.
She clasped her hands together tightly on her empty knees.
And then, as she watched, the bare-footed artisan’s purpose became clear. A leg, she realised. Two legs, fine and slender. A roundness and then two more legs, with a twist to make a neck before the tweaking continued, the artist’s movements now almost frenetic, working the glass before it cooled too much and set before he was finished.
She gasped when she realised. A prancing horse had emerged from the glass, with flowing mane and tail, and mouth open to the air, alive.
With a snap it was free, set down on a table where it stood balanced on its back legs and tail, front hooves proudly held high in the air.
She applauded louder than anyone and, when the glass had cooled, the artisan presented it to her.
‘For the beautiful signorina,’ he said with a bow, and she held the creation still warm in her hands, blinking away tears she hadn’t realised she’d shed.
‘It’s magical,’ she said, turning it in her hands, marvelling at the detail—the tiny eyes, the shaped hooves—the glass glinting in the light. ‘You are a true artist.’
He bowed and moved away, back to the kiln for his next work of art.
She turned to the family alongside, who were all watching with admiration and held it out to the mother. ‘You take it, please,’ she said to the startled woman, pressing it into her hand. ‘For your son, as a memento of this day.’ For the tiny child who could never receive her gift.
The woman smiled and thanked her, the husband beamed and the little boy just blinked up at her with those beautiful dark eyes.
She couldn’t stay. She fled. She strode away, feigning interest in a cabinet filled with numbered jars of coloured sand, with curled samples of glass hanging from a board, her back to the family, arms wound tight around her belly, trying to quell the pain. Trying not to cry.
‘Did you enjoy the demonstration?’ she heard Matteo ask. ‘Did you like your souvenir?’
She had to take a deep breath before she could turn and face anyone, let alone them. She plastered a smile on her face that she hoped looked halfway to convincing.
