Til You Come Back to Me Again - A Love Story

Katia's Book of Memories

Because You Loved Me

Katia's Book of Memories

I wish I could have known when I was younger just how precious every moment of life is. However, I have learned this truth slowly.

I am nineteen now.

So, I will go back to the beginning and record those precious moments–the good, and the bad.

The pain, the sorrow, the suffering, the beauty, the splendor, the joy.

The love.

"I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain." –John Keats

In the Beginning

Orlando, Florida

Most little girls love fairytales and dream of a fairytale life, complete with a loving, doting mother and father, a fairy godmother, and a dashing prince.

My young mind held no such illusions.

My life was what most people would call a broken one. I was raised by a single mother. She was very beautiful, and many people said she looked like an African goddess with her smooth brown skin and short braids framing her face. I never knew my father or anything about him, only that he was Russian, which is where my name, Ekaterina, came from. Mama and her best friend, Suzanne called me Katia. Suzanne and Mama were roommates, and were as close as sisters.

Suzanne was equally beautiful in a different way. With her smooth blond hair and sea green eyes, she looked like my Cinderella doll.

When Aunt Suzanne met Angelo De Luca, I was only four years old, and when she brought him home to meet us, I felt like I suddenly had a best friend. He was the successful owner of a five-star hotel and totally alone in the world, having lost his father the year before.

During the time Angelo and Aunt Suzanne were dating, he would sometimes babysit me while Mama and Suzanne hung out. He usually took me shopping and out for treats and always brought me back home with new clothes or toys. I loved my time with Angelo because he made me feel loved, and he always called to say hello and ask me how I was. He really was my best friend, like the father or older brother I never had. When he and Suzanne married, I was the flower girl at their wedding. Angelo called me his little princess and I was so happy. Their marriage meant he would always be a part of mine and Mama's life.

Drugs and alcohol. Those words were foreign to a four-year-old, but I was aware enough to know they had always been present in my home. Those two things seemed to make Mama and Suzanne happy, which made me happy.

I had no clue, however, just how destructive those things were until two years later. That lesson came the day I found Mama lying on her bedroom floor. I had tried to cook a pack of noodles and burned myself when I spilled boiling water on my arm. It was painful and I cried as I went to find Mama. She was unconscious on the floor next to her bed, her head resting in a puddle of vomit. Despite my cries and attempts to wake her, she never moved. Mama had told me the day before that she was sick, and she was going away for a while to get better. She said I would stay with Angelo and Suzanne.

When Angelo and Suzanne got there, Suzanne screamed and cried over Mama's body. Angelo picked me up and held me while he called for help. But there was nothing the paramedics could do. Mama was gone.

Angelo rode in the ambulance with me and held me in the emergency room while the doctor treated my burn, and I burrowed against his chest, crying. I was afraid, and he and Suzanne were all I had left. Afterward, we went back to get some of my things. Angelo had me wait in the car. He could tell I was afraid, so he kissed my forehead and promised he would be right back. He ran inside and was back a few minutes later.

When we reached his home (and now my home as well) Angelo carried me and my sack of clothing into the big beautiful house. I clung to his neck, never wanting to let him go. Because of bad dreams, he ended up rocking me that night until I cried myself to sleep. There would be many nights like that.

Sadly, through the next few years, Suzanne's drinking worsened. She was never the same after Mama's death, and Angelo and Suzanne's marriage continued to crumble.

Some people would say my life was better, and in many ways, it was. But sadly, I had just been taken from one tragic situation and put into another.

I had heard that time is a healer. I guess only time would tell.