Getting What You Wanted
You can’t understand it, but this is it. After fifteen years with Terri, you don’t miss her now she isn’t there anymore. You did miss that little girl you’d never got to know. Your daughter. That fake belly hidden inside a drawer. Your life was broken into pieces. You weren’t able to erase her from you mind. You had tried to forget, to pretend you didn’t care. After all, she had never existed. But you couldn’t help loving her so badly... You didn’t know the reasons why Terri did that to you. Love, she had said. How long was love about lying to the other person? It was right she was losing you, so she had done that crazy thing to keep you by her side. It wasn’t love, it was selfishness. Furthermore, you weren’t going anyway... were you? After all, the first thing you did when you left your wife was to kiss other woman. To kiss Emma. Because you were losing her too and you couldn’t. You needed her. You liked her.
You liked she had agreed come back just for a wink of you. You liked when she sat on your couch with the glass of wine you had just given her, and she smiled shyly. You liked when she looked at you thinking you didn’t notice.
You didn’t ignore the fact she had been in love with you more time than she should. That’s why she had always been there when you had needed her. That’s why she had always done things before you had asked her to. That’s why you liked when she lay among the cushions and your arms while you were kissing. A prize for her hard work. She had never complained or set limits on your relationship, but she hadn’t made a step forward either. You knew she was afraid of spoiling your relation. She had a lot to lose, because you had been her everything since that day that she was just the new girl, too shy to start a conversation until you came to say hello. She had fallen in love with you in that moment, even though it took you a year to become aware of it.
For then, all you needed was her love to replace the love you had just lost. That’s why you started to go out together. That’s why you made her yours every time you could. She had let you steal her innocence.
Still, the memory of your unborn baby didn’t abandon you. You had never told her how much the loss hurt you because you thought the time would make you forget. But, that night, when you drank more than you used to, you cried everything out with your head between her breasts. And she knew the way of comforting you with her tender words and her body.
What you didn’t know was that that relationship wasn’t as happy for Emma as you thought. She was a very special person, with a lot of insecurities and problems. You were never interested enough and she wasn’t able to go on any longer without help. But you were too hurt to notice. And, though she wasn’t getting what she needed, she was willing to give you everything. This way, you saw her leave to spend time with her family after she had promised you to come back about mid October. Six months without her would be a long time.
But you always had the phone, the daily call when it got dark. You liked telling her how things kept going on in Lima
One afternoon, she asked you if you’d rather have boys or girls. You didn’t understand yet what she meant. It’d take you four months to figure out.
Occasionally, when you hung up the phone after your goodnights, she kept awake for hours, crying her sorrow all over her pillow. The pregnancy was being hard for her with the hormones getting her upset, and she never felt physically well. The loneliness and the upcoming things scared her. Sometimes, she’d like to see your peaceful smile, telling her everything was going to be ok, or to feel your touch. Yes, she missed your skin against hers more than she was able to stand, and much more than her fingers could satisfy her. That’s why she cried in the darkness of her childhood room.
You were too far to figure out. Far away, missing everything. You never saw her fan herself at her parents’ porch while she was drawing imaginaries lines over the cloth of her tiny dress that covered her seven-month swollen belly in a hot August. You neither saw her walk around the kitchen in an early morning, looking for something sweet to satisfy her pregnant cravings while she was trying not to drop anything on her way. She was going to give birth in a few weeks. You didn’t see her naked in front of the mirror of her room, watching the gift she was preparing for you grow, and make her grow too.
Meanwhile, you ignorant fool; you were amusing yourself searching for songs and choreographies for kids that weren’t yours.
That evening, she didn’t answer the phone. You called her twice, and you then thought she would call you back later. But she didn’t. That day, you didn’t talk because she was too busy giving birth, alone and scared in a cold hospital. There was nobody by her side, because her family had gone to that lake she always told you about and she had been left home to rest. Unexpectedly, the contractions started and she didn’t have the nerve to call them. She didn’t want their indifferences though that meant not to have a hand to hold while she was crying out. Yes, she cried out your name with her broken lips. Wet sweat drops fell over her face. Every single thing which scared her was inside that room. Dirtiness, mess, love, compromise, family. All for you, because she loved you. That was what she cried with a last moan. Afterward, she fell on the pillow as her son wept for the first time. It was the baby she had been making for you for the last nine months.
When you spoke the following day, she didn’t say a word and you had no idea of what was going on. How would you know, or even imagine so?
It was October 23rd when she returned to Lima
You had heard the bell, so you left your unmarked Spanish test over the cafe table and went to open the front door. Your happy smile turned into an incomprehension face. You had never seen her as tired as she looked right then.
Before you were aware, the baby was on your arms. He was a beautiful boy who looked at you with curiosity with huge brown eyes and a petite yawning mouth. You guessed he was not more than two weeks. As well, he was the prettiest little human you had ever known in your entire life. He was all yours though you didn’t understand. So she explained it to you. She explained you that that was the child you had ever wanted, that you finally had him. All for you. You were going to be a great dad. It was the most wonderful gift anyone could make you.
You did nothing but smile when the little creature weakly hit your chest with his tiny fist. He looked so vulnerable and defenseless there on your arms... You felt more responsible than never before in your adult life. It was your duty to protect him now. Your son... Yours and hers... That was all you were thinking about. All because of her. Emma. You were going to kiss her when she moved away before you didn’t even touch her lips. Instead, she gave you a bag for you and the baby. Inside were her savings, hiding. Maybe you would need the money. Babies are expensive, and you were just a teacher.
Yes, she was giving you a son, but she wasn’t sharing him. She couldn’t. It overcame her so far. She was a very limited person and motherhood wasn’t in her security zone. She barely could take care of herself, how would she look after him, just a baby?
You didn’t want her to go. You didn’t want her to go at all, but she had taken her decision.
So, she stood on tiptoe and kissed you in the corner of your mouth as she was caressing your cheek with her thumb. “I love you” she whispered against your ear. You could tell the sorrow in her words but you didn’t know she felt pain for you, or for him, or maybe for herself.
You stood in the threshold of your apartment while you were seeing her walk away though the corridor, without a last look at your son. Even through she had her back to you, you could tell she was crying holding tears. You could have run after her, reached her and told her that she had to stay, that your kid needed her, that you loved her too. You could have promised her that everything would be fine because you’d be together, that you’d do it together that you’d be there for her. You could have whispered her that she was the mother you wanted to raise your children, and then, kissed like you did a year ago. Instead, you just saw her go away in silence, letting her disappear for good. With just a blink from you she would have been out the door. You were all she needed to do the next crazy thing. You were her world and, maybe, you didn’t deserve it but that was what she had chosen. Her life was broken; she wasn’t able to fight anymore. And, meanwhile, you were getting what you always wanted.
THE END
Cristina Galisteo Gómez
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