Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
That’s what my mother was trying to tell me. That’s what she tried to make me see when she challenged me about Sabella’s happiness. Because when a woman is happy, her house is a home. And when a house is a home, the people who live there are a family. They can withstand the most violent storms because they have a solid foundation to keep them strong. Protection. Love. That’s the way of the world. It boils down to one simple truth. A woman is the heart of a home. It took all of this and so many years for me to understand.
The first step I take toward the west wing is painful. The second comes easier. My heart thuds in my chest in tandem with the fall of my shoes on the floor. The closer I get to their side of the house, the more difficult it becomes to breathe. When I finally stop in front of my mother’s work room, it feels as if I’ll suffocate.
Flattening a palm on the door, I push it open. Memories crash over me where I pause on the threshold—my mother sitting behind her sewing machine, smiling up at me when I enter, waving me over, and wrapping her arms around me. When I close my eyes, I smell the odor of the fried zucchini and aubergine from lunch that clings to her hair. I feel the light weight of her soft arms around me and the warm, heavy reassurance of her love.
There’s so much of her I recognize in Sophie. Her petite body and delicate bone structure. Her auburn hair and the muddy brown of her wide, haunting eyes. Her sensitivity and intelligence. Having Sophie is like having a part of my mother that didn’t die. They’re similar yet so different. Sophie doesn’t suffer from my mother’s inferiority complex. She’s a strong little girl, just like Sabella. I suppose that’s what it must be like to have children, to see yourself in them and at the same time a wondrously unique little being. There’s so much to discover. As they grow, every day brings something new. I always wanted to be a father, but I never realized how much I’d love it.
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes. This room is like a child. It bears the genes of a person who’s gone as well as those of a newborn baby. The furniture is the same. The sewing machine stands in its place on the table. Yet the rugs and linen are new. Beiges and browns replace the colorful mishmash of old. The daybed is made with a cream comforter and matching pillows. The wooden surfaces are polished, but the smell is different. It’s something lemony instead of the lavender I remember.
When I take it all in, a sense of peace washes over me. It doesn’t hurt less, but the pain is more bearable. The pain has a different dimension now.
Hope.
Yes. My mother would’ve liked this. She would’ve been pleased. She’d prefer to have her favorite spaces filled with breaths and tears and laughter instead of with dust and flaking memories.
I close the door and walk to Adeline’s room. I only hesitate for a second before I open the door. For a moment, I’m too overcome with shock to process my feelings. All her personal belongings are gone. The jewelry and ornate photo frames and clothes vanished as if they were never there. The bed is made with white linen. My old baby crib stands in the corner. A fluffy panda bear sits on a fleece blanket that’s neatly folded on the foot-end. A mobile with seagulls carved from wood and painted white hangs over the crib.
The pang of loss that tightens my chest isn’t only because Adeline’s existence is all but wiped from the room. The grief that assaults me is knowing that this is what Sabella and I lost. A crib with a teddy and a mobile with birds. A baby. A little girl, perhaps. With Sabella’s expressive brown eyes and her soft pink lips. The beauty spot at the corner of her mouth. Maybe I should’ve given our baby a gravestone. A cross with roses like my mother and Adeline’s. But we never even got the chance to name her. I never got to go down on my knees and kiss Sabella’s belly. To put my hands on her stomach and feel the first kick. And a devious, unfair part of me is jealous of Sabella’s sister and brother for having what we lost.
I take another moment to let the newness sink in. I want to cling to the past, to the explosion of colors and baubles, to the jewelry box I so carefully repaired, and to the string of Venetian glass beads I restrung, but it’s time to move on. It’s time to hold the good memories inside my head and my heart instead of locking them up in a room. It’s time to make new memories.