Not just me & you anymore (G!P)

C. 33

Hi everybody! Thank you so much for reading and always supporting my story. 

I am simply sitting at a coffee shop table, drinking tea, with one of my best friends, and yet I feel as if I have been missing from home for months, as if I have gone on a lunar expedition and it feels as if the ground beneath my feet is beginning to be missing. I alternate my gaze between the outside context, as if I have to identify who knows what danger, the phone, waiting for who knows what disastrous news, and my cup of tea. When my eyes fall on the screen, now lit for a message, of my phone, I grunt and Amelia kicks me from under the coffee table.

A < can you please stop looking at your phone? It looks like I've kidnapped you to be here with me for a friend chat!> I roll my eyes. It's actually been over an hour since we've been here anyway, Amelia has already supplied me with all the hospital gossip and we've already spent time chatting about the girls.

C < in fact it's a bit like this..> I joke, but not too much either: even if done for good, the joint decision to let me out today, made in two minds by Amelia and Maya, made me feel a bit cornered. Especially when I think that this torture does not end here in this bar, but also involves a drink or something.

A < you can't reduce yourself to being a desperate housewife and an equally desperate mom..> I smile, raising an eyebrow.

C < it's only been a month, it's not like I've been locked in the house for three years!> I retort.

A < 41 days since giving birth to be exact, and then you've already been through it..> I shrug.

C < it's different..>

A < how is it different? It should be better, now you have a shoulder to lean on!> I shake my head.

C < it's different because with Viviana in fact I was the first to realize I was going off the rails and I took action...with you two today I really felt like I was being kidnapped..> she snorts.

A < how you make it long! Maya did it for your own good..you need to lean on her more, trust her more..> out of my mouth comes a moan, mixed with a grimace, which Amelia doesn't miss a chance to notice.

A < did I say something wrong?>

C < right now Maya is not much help..> and as soon as I say the sentence I realize it sounds more serious than what I meant.

A < in what way? >

C < Viviana turns her inside out...she makes her do whatever she wants...it is not Maya who manages Vivi, but the other way around..and she makes my life complicated because when I am alone with the girls, Viviana is a scatter-gun machine...then magically everything goes away when Maya comes along because she wins everything she wants... then for goodness sake, Maya does everything she can to take care of her as much as possible, she has her ready for me every night just to tell her the fairy tale and put her to sleep, but the problem is how she gets there... and she also does everything to help me with Celeste, with the house.. there's never anything out of place, she gets up at night just to keep me company while I breastfeed... she always offers to give me space for a shower, hair or a nap... it's with Viviana the problem..> Amelia nods attentively throughout my long rant.

A < did you talk to her about it? > I shake my head.

C < no, because I am in trouble. How do I tell her that this is not how you raise a child, without somehow emphasizing the fact that on that child I somehow have a bit more rights?>

A < do you really have more? >

C < absolutely not. I really do want Maya to have a say in everything, equally, for both of our daughters...but I can't erase the fact that I raised Viviana for years on my own, that I decided the initial footprint of her education, that I set the ground rules...>