A love reborn from the ashes.

29 - Just us

Can

Alone at last.
I had to make every moment she spent with me a moment to remember, I wanted her to fall in love again and start trusting me again.

Seeing her in that restaurant with another man, after an initial moment of discouragement, my determination to win her back had become even stronger. I had stopped to buy everything I needed and had spent the entire afternoon working hard to create a dream corner.
I wanted to make her happy, to make her feel loved and desired as it was right that a beautiful creature like her should be loved.

We looked together for a moment at Mihriban who was returning home with little Nihat, I gently took her hand to accompany her to the table romantically set with crystals, candles and flowers. I made her take a seat by gallantly arranging her chair and poured her a glass of champagne, just a glass because we both knew well that the combination of Sanem/alcohol could be extremely dangerous.

Once seated I raised the glass to toast, she looked at me questioningly.

-Let's toast to us, to our wonderful child, to the life he has brought back to us.

She nodded, raising her glass but still maintaining a detached attitude that was not typical of my Sanem, the cheerful and carefree young woman I had fallen in love with.
How much damage I had done, I had made her serious and cautious, I hoped to soften her with the passing of time.

We began to eat the dinner I had so carefully prepared, I knew she liked to eat and had always loved my way of cooking, I wanted to spoil and pamper her.

At first there was a drawn out silence, broken only by the clattering of cutlery on the plates, then at the same moment:

- Can -

- Sanem-

A nervous laugh helped to lighten the atmosphere, out of nowhere I told her that I had learned to cook this dish during my stay in Greece and from there it was all downhill. I began to tell her about my travels and she, curious, asked me questions about the places I had visited and the people I had met around the world.

She told me about her childhood in the neighborhood as she had never done before, about the strange characters who lived there, Muzo was obviously not the only one, about the old wise men from whom she had learned so much, about the true friendships that could only be born between those who grew up together as happened to her and Ayan.
It was all new to me who had grown up in a luxurious villa, in a luxurious neighborhood but in extreme solitude, I envied the simplicity of the neighborhood life in which she had grown up made of confusion and sharing.

It didn't seem real to me to see her relaxed and interested in what I was telling her, maybe we were discovering a new way of being together. The months of our relationship had been characterized by falling in love, by passion but also by many contrasts, misunderstandings, jealousies and somehow we had not been able to really know each other.

Now it seemed that we could talk freely, without forcing, without judgments.
Could this be a new beginning for us now that we had matured and were more aware? I hoped so much.

Sanem

How had he managed to make me relax? I would never have thought it possible, after what we had experienced, to be able to enjoy each other's company.

We laughed about funny anecdotes of my childhood in the neighborhood, he enchanted me with the description of the views he had admired during his travels around the world, he had really toured it all from the Himalayas to the Andes, from the Sahara to the Grand Canyon, from Fiji to Peru passing through Japan, China, Russia, Madagascar, Cuba, Alaska........

For a moment a lump closed in my throat. I couldn't help myself, the old Sanem who was ashamed even of her thoughts was gone.

- What does a simple neighborhood girl, who left Istanbul at most to get to Bodrum and Izmir, have to do with a man like you who has seen the aurora borealis and penguins at the South Pole? How could it work between us? It was a foregone conclusion that at some point you were going to leave.

I obviously took him off guard, he remained silent for an interminable time probably to choose his words carefully.

- It was wonderful to discover the world Sanem, I can't deny it, I saw wonderful places. The world is a mysterious place waiting to be discovered, my work has allowed me to visit it far and wide. I won't say I've seen it all, I'm satisfied and I won't travel anymore. I still have the desire to travel and discover new paradises.

I bowed my head thinking that it was as I thought, the albatross would soon fly away to discover the world. Then I heard him continue.

- But now I have one more reason to do it, I want to do it with you Sanem.
I want to discover and rediscover the world through your eyes, I want to feed on your boundless love for everything and everyone, to visit new corners of the world with you to see them, thanks to you, with a pure and curious gaze.
I want to take you to the Galapagos to discover the nests of albatrosses, I want to see with you the most impressive waterfalls in the world or cross the greenest rainforests.
Or simply I want to be on a rocking chair with an arm on your shoulder and Nihat on your knee watching this glimpse of the sea on the Bosphorus. I want to spend evenings in front of the TV with the fireplace on and our son playing on the carpet. I want to have picnics in the park and bike rides. I want to take you boating on the shores of the Greek islands or to Italy to see the Colosseum. I want all this Sanem, but I want it with you and our son -

I was speechless, I felt like I was with him and Nihat in each of the places he had mentioned. A beautiful dream.

Just a dream.

I got up whispering - I better go, it's getting late, I have to take Nihat to bed. Iyi geceler, good night -
I hurried away in the grip of a kaleindoscope of emotions, I couldn't trust myself, I couldn't afford the luxury of dreaming again.
The dreamy, clueless Sanem was gone, she had died one evening over a year ago as she watched the back of her albatross fly away.