The Premises of an Ideal Life and Additional Poetry

Chapter 7

Claire is in the door of the cubicle room, admiring her daughter and her rapid hands, whose handwriting comes up and down the paper, like a pattern of moves, with curves of the pulse and stamping of fingers on the pen. The mother doesn’t capture on time the rioting smell that encapsulates Aria, grazing the words that were being written on the new diary pages.
The young woman startles right after sensing someone’s presence in the room’s entrance. The first thing Aria does is to look down at the shoes and slowly bring her gaze up, such is the anger that flashes her mind. Up, up, up, Claire begins to gnarl at the hem of her shirt, amusement levitating out of her countenance from the analysis coming from her daughter. Claire instantly knows Aria discovered what has been done to her friends’ phone numbers, it was just a matter of time though.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, I was just wondering… When were you planning on telling me you blocked Quinn from my phone and all of my closest friends?”.
As far as that sentence goes, Claire can’t stop pressing one foot to another in complete desperation and even a fully armored cyber won’t be able to snap Claire’s hands off her mouth, pushing as much skin from her lips as possible. What a peril. A prim figure of  relentless love. A sign that the mother is keen on avoiding any type of acknowledgment in regards to her apparent “stupidity”.
“Why would you do such a thing? There are not enough reasons to mask the fact that I’ve spent 6 years in Quinn’s company, for goodness sake. I had no idea you could chop off every social relation I have, with only the pressing of a button! You knew Quinn was the reason why I had so many friends around me, even so, your ego loomed any sense of mind you might have had, you freaking idiot!”
Aria is in mid tears and Claire’s knees threaten to buckle down, inconsequential sobs come out of her mouth and form the agonizing and disgusting sound of bubbles of spit. The mother’s plans were never intended to cause any dispute between them and had noble intentions. She had thought so at first. However, Claire cannot make herself explain every reason why she mistrusted Quinn along with the rest of Aria’s vandalism group.
Seeing that her mother will not yield, the young woman bangs her head on the window sill, where she is standing, and repeats over and over: Why? But why? How can you hate me this much?
Stop, Aria! What do you think you’re doing? Have you gone crazy?
“How could you be as reckless as to knock down every soul I knew? I’ve tried to reach for them with phone calls, but they completely ignored me.” Wheezing to find the final words, neurons rambling to stop the hitting of the head, the late coma victim proclaims: 
“Damn it. You are a butcher of a mother and an even worse person. All comes down to how you can have more time with me and end with anything that might untie me from you.”
Done. It was finally done.
These words are much more than letters put together to shape a sentence of condemnation. Every syllable is a lifetime of hidden feelings. Insecurities, unfairness, pressure, all and every grudge that has been hidden from Claire.
The mother is barely staying put. She is wholly inside the darkest room she has ever been in. Claire feels as if the floor is not the gathering of tiles glued with mortar any longer, but the vacant black hole from where the voice of Aria clinks and comes toward her like a cold gale. Claire’s surroundings are blurred by an ocean of briny tears- her tears- and she remembers when Aria was five years old, one year after her father left them. Although the day had been braced with gray clouds, the laughter that came from the tiny creature that held her hand, led the path to an imaginary world. A place where there was a rainbow escalating the top of the mountains around the sand and humongous kites gashing the blue sky.
The sound that used to come from Claire’s daughter echoed life. Now, it reverberated death, which she had crossed before millions of times. The difference between all of them was that it was unconditionally worse, for love was dying between them, the bond that used to tie them was witering.
Gone.
Gone was peace, as a matter of fact, the far sight of peace that has not even been conquered yet.
Claire cannot stand Aria’s rejection and decides to give herself entirely to the blackhole evading space and sucking her in. Depression is the word.
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Aria looks at her mother who is crashing to the ground and grows afraid of either being wrong or that, perhaps, she has been too harsh on Claire. The doubt regarding the next steps is a mist in her eyes. The only thing she can humanely put together is that she has made a promise to herself.
That she would be a better person. I’ll try to excel in behavior and be more superior in heart. The young woman revived the memories during that nightmare of ghosts and persecutions. The deep hole that swelled her very beating heart with the ecstasy of losing her mother, never seeing her again.
Aria trudges towards Claire, who is worn out with worries and guilt. Good. She should be as heartbroken as she had been when there were no numbers left to call on her cellphone, Aria surmised.
“I-I am so-sorry Aria. I-I thou-thought I’d do-done a good thing fo-for you. I-I am ve-very protecti-tive of you, I-I confess. Bu-but I wou-would have ne-never bear to not see you aga-again with no fare-farewells like your father did to me. You co-could have been snatched o-out of my-my hands. And-and... I couldn’t let that happen again. I ju-just couldn’t.”
Claire is sprawled over the floor, legs spread and arms tight to her eyes’ bulge. Claire has always been strict since she came out of her mother’s womb, maybe even when she stomped the poor lady from inside to get out did the indiscretion begin. Aria’s mother wanted to take the leash at all times, taking control over her daughter’s clothes, diet, and even relationships, which Claire always thought natural to do.
Aria reaches for her mother’s hands, but the feeling of being nothing- no one- crawls all over Claire’s mind and forces her to stay still, like a wounded animal in a scene of disgrace; execution. Whereas the nineteen-year-old daughter is flooded with mature care and adulthood promises she has made to herself.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Aria sits down on the bed sheets, gracefully caressing her mother’s messed-up hair as if she can wash away all that has been said.
“About what, exactly?”
“Rodrigo. My dad.” It feels weird how the word dad forms itself on her lips as if it is not meant to be used by her, gummed to the saddest misfortunes and angst in her life. For 10 years she hasn’t addressed him as such, always Rodrigo. It was the best way to keep her distance and to become more robotic about the whole subject as years passed.
“We don’t have to do this, you know that, right?”
“But I want to. I’m sorry for what I’ve said, the way I’ve said it. I just had too many things blowing me away. All the cigarettes, beers, vodkas, illegal parties came rushing through my door and I had nothing to do besides grip it. After Rodrigo left, I've never felt truly connected to you and I can’t stop blaming you for his departure. I think: How should someone stand you if you’re always a puppeteer with all and everyone?”
Aria is still sulking when Claire takes one deep breath as to wind down her impatience. 
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale…
“Truth is, Rodrigo and I had agreed on not having children at the very beginning of our relationship. And the...”
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale…
“He didn’t want me. Great. The classic story of the bastard father who had never desired to have a daughter and then the girl becomes a problematic psychopath and commits suicide. Looks like we’re according to plan.”
Claire shoots her cracked up eyes at Aria and comes to a cross-legged position on the floor. The lines on the elder woman’s face become etherised, plain and consistent as though she has welled strength from somewhere deep down, a hole of calmness being discovered.
“Please, Aria, don’t imply such miscalculated opinions about our situation. Ignoring what you’ve just claimed, Rodrigo was a kind person and cared thoroughly about us. He never slapped me at all or caused any types of issues.”
“Are you sure of that?” Aria opens her before crossing arms and beckons for Claire to get closer to her mouth in total exasperation. Disapproval. ”Does it look like we’ve been taken care of?”
Her tenuous mother stares right back at the brown pupils of her daughter, reminding Claire of the black hole she felt under her minutes ago. They both feel as if they are in another dimension entirely, with only their steel discussion going on in the world. As the mellowed trees proclaim their chants, with the rains and shining sun as the choir, the percussion is ricocheted by the two women’s lingering conversation.
“Let me finish for Christ’s sake, you hot-tempered girl. The day after I turned 42, I wasn’t feeling well and suffered from continuous stomach ache and nausea. Then, I got the pregnancy test at the drugstore and my theories proved to be true. I was 2 months pregnant. I’m not sure how it was possible, given that 42 is not the recommended age to have a baby at all… ”
Then, Claire explained how angry Rodrigo was at her and the abruptness that his demeanor changed toward her. In the blink of an eye, the gentle and good-looking husband at her side became a red-hot fire never burning out.
“As soon as we built up money in our bank account and you turned four, Rodrigo left me after he dropped us off at one of your friend's parties. I will never forget the nightmarish sensation I had when 3 days had passed and nothing.”
No wife to a husband anymore, only one more abandoned woman in this unassertive Earth.
Her regretted daughter gets closer to the now weeping mother, in the attempt to veil the visions of her dad driving away from them. Giving up on them.
The young woman leans on the wall and slides down to where her mother is seated as a shell. Raw emotions get her by surprise and when the tears begin to sway, she feels lighter than she has ever been before.
Like she has been a golf ball being rocketed to the other side of a court for nineteen years and has finally gotten to its final stop. She has reunited with her mother and is not alone in the gale anymore. Tranquility. A tranquil mind she has never savored before. Better than the peanut butter cups, even. An unfathomable sensation of liberty. Of the truth about her life that wasn’t uncovered for her as long as she didn’t ask for it. However encouraging it might be, she is ready to hear it now.
Claire takes a sneak peek at the feet of her crying daughter under her eyes. Aria breathes deeply and gives her mother a smile of pure happiness. The mother bends her head to the side, understanding everything like all mothers do before even their kids think of it. Claire rests her left hand on Aria’s shoulders in silent comfort, but the girl denies the gesture, taking down her mother with a hug instead, like a shooting star bomb shelling an unsawed, vigil village.
Still lying on the hospital’s room’s rug, nose-to-nose with Claire, the patient whispers to her mother, and her mother only:
“Since we’re spilling our guts here, I have something to ask for. A request, if you may.”