The end of dreams

7

          
Silvia went back home shortly before Michelle began her supper. She had been asked to dinner by Michelle's family but she had realized Anna and Gaia needed to enjoy Michelle's company by themselves.
«My fridge is filled with food whose expiry date is very close and I would not like to throw it away. I'll call you tomorrow.»
She kissed her Pina on the cheeks then she walked straight to the door without turning round, lest she should change her mind.

Michelle had a fast supper with her mother, her daughter, her aunt and her grandmother, who had just arrived, then she ran to her bedroom even if she was not sleepy at all. She decided that, from that moment onward, she would share her nights with the most important person in her life: her little girl.
She was anxious to start.
That decision came up in her head by itself. Probably her unconscious had suggested that she should do so; it had operated  through the dreams of those restless nights. Actually she refused all she had always deemed right, in other words, that the children must accustom themselves to sleeping in their own beds. Especially a mother who was single ought not to share her bed with a little girl!

That very night something inside her changed; she began to realize what would really have priority in her life.
Therefore that evening, right after supper, she asked Gaia if she felt like sleeping with her mom.
The little girl, who in spite of her eighteen months of age not only was unable to utter any sentences, but was incapable of pronouncing any words too, demonstrated she could understand everything on that occasion as well; the little girl proved above all that she was able to have herself understood. In fact, as soon as her mother put that question to her, she answered by smiling with her little mouth wide open and by running fast toward the big bed. No sooner had she taken possession of it than she, after hesitating for an instant, stopped frisking on it and climbed down cautiously so that she should not fall; then she hurried to her small bedroom and took the Snow White book, which was her best-favourite fairy tale. In a few seconds she was already back, with the huge book in her arms and her eyes so impatient.
Michelle then lay back in her full-sized bed, let her daughter cuddle up to her and opened the book, while she felt a little guilty for never reading a fairy tale to her daughter before.
Anna had always attended to it, to be sure, but that was no consolation to her. Michelle actually cursed herself for depriving her daughter and herself of such very precious moments, just to devote herself to who knows what sort of mischief.
She soon got rid of that guilty feeling that was no use; she opened the first page of the book and began to get lost, together with her little girl, in the meanders of the most fascinating fairy tale.
She started reading in a calm and placid voice, while she concentrated on relishing every single word; unfortunately Gaia fell asleep even as she began reading. She felt a little bit sorry for losing her fairy tale-mate so prematurely, but she went on reading; she had a great deal of time to make up for and she felt a strong need to breathe in that magic. As for Gaia, Michelle was sure the little girl would listen to her mother while dreaming. As a matter of fact the girl spent the whole night laughing sweetly.
«How can I have been so unreflecting... eighteen months, eighteen months have passed...» she started feeling the blues.
«Who knows if I'll have enough time to live beside you...» she was weeping.

From that night on Michelle would share her bed with her little girl just like her mother, who had been a widow since the age of twenty-one, had done with her; she began to spend her nights in total physical communion with her Gaia: she used to stroke her, smell her and she tried to sleep as little as possible, so that she could make up for lost time at least in part.
«The onco-cutie says everything's all right, but honestly I don't know If I should believe him. I don't feel well in the least, my baby, it doesn't seem to me that I am getting better... I have a feeling that things are not going the right way. It's not my time yet, I know, but nobody tells me how long it is going to take for that time to come. I wish so much I could see you grow up and play with the other children; maybe I could give you a little brother, one day. Who knows If I'll ever see you fall in love, be happy, angry, disappointed... who could console you as much as I could? I would give anything to be able to cheer you up, one day! I am afraid that day will never come. I have an idea I won't have the chance to see you become a teen-ager. I don't even know If I'll ever hear you call me mom.»

Michelle began spending her nights beside Gaia, talking to her continuously; that helped her feel better. She would not like to get separated from her for all the money in the world. She dreamt of accompanying her to the kindergarten for her first day there; she imagined she would hide herself outside the classroom with the other moms to see if her little baby would cry. In just one year she would see that day come, after all.
Yet at that moment a year's time seemed like eternity to her.
«I will fight for you, my baby. I'm gonna defeat this bastard» she promised her.
It was her way to summon up courage, still she knew something deep inside was telling her that there was little time left.
Only the thought that her mother was still young and strong brought her some comfort. Anna was not in her fifties yet, she would take care of Gaia if the worst possible thing should ...
They would cheer up one another.

Ludovico, her former husband and father of her daughter, would certainly understand; he would surely grant her wish.
She would soon talk to him about it. He had done her an awful wrong, so he would not dare to say no.
Michelle was partly brightened only by the thought that Gaia would grow up with her grandmother Anna. Michelle was attached to Anna very much; she felt that Anna's each and every cell was part of her own body, that's why as soon as she had fallen ill she had asked her mother to move to her apartment. Her choice was not due to practical reasons but to the fact that she would feel home again.
Her mother was her home.
Actually even when things between her and Ludovico used to be fine and they seemed a happy couple she, however, used to miss her mother; consequently she often stayed at her mother's to sleep. And  during her long hospital stays, when Gaia and Anna were together, she succeeded in not missing her little girl; when her daughter was with Anna, Michelle felt as if she was with her.
For the same reason Gaia reacted well to those long absences too. The child found in her grandmother all she was missing of her mother: the scent, the loving eyes, the same manner of gesticulating. That got Gaia not to feel abandoned every time her mother disappeared, and it also induced Michelle to hold on without giving up in despair.
To the child's mind there were not a grandmother and a mother, since she believed she had two mothers.
Ludovico, for his part, was a fairly intelligent man and he was not beyond average nor below it as for receptivity. Michelle had always trusted him, and she just could not understand  how he had been able to cheat on her two years before, and, what's more, while she was pregnant.
How could she forgive him such an affront?
She was a very pride human being, Ludovico knew about it very well, and although she considered herself quite in love with him she didn't succeed in forgiving such a disrespectful act.
She would have forgiven that escapade, that's what he called it, in any other moment of their lives; when he was still her fiancé, even when they should be a hundred years old!
But not during her pregnancy.
In one fell swoop Ludovico had succeeded in betraying both her and the baby she was carrying in her womb; it had been a sacrilege Michelle really could not stomach.
Poor Ludovico had chosen the worst time to make a mistake. When he was caught red-handed he cursed himself and he was so filled with despair that he even threatened to commit suicide; he actually thought about doing it but as he was such a coward he did not do it.
Therefore he contented himself with loving his Michelle from a distance. At the same time he forced himself to say good-bye forever to relationships with any other women anymore; he aimed at punishing himself for acting so stupidly. In his opinion he had done Michelle wrong because as soon as her pregnancy had begun she had changed to such an extent that she neglected him and she did not even feel like sleeping with him anymore.
That was the excuse he tried to justify his infamous action with ... But who had been the temptress? The least interesting woman on earth, so Michelle felt hurt twice as much.
It had been Jennifer, Ludovico's classmate at the high school, who had always courted him. She was so stupid as to write about it on her Facebook page!
She revealed how her love dream had been fulfilled on an autumn night, just as if it all was something insignificant. Thus not only leaves fell, Ludovico's head fell too; Michelle, like a merciless queen, pronounced her verdict of guilty and deleted that little man from her mind, more than from her heart, as soon as she got to know about his betrayal.
She didn't dismiss him from her life for good only because Gaia had a right to have a father, though she still was in her mother's womb. Michelle did not want her daughter to grow up without a male guiding figure, as it had happened to her.
Her decision was solely pedagogical, but it was misunderstood and interpreted as a love gesture by Ludovico, who remained eternally grateful to her.
Owing to that very reason Michelle was certain her ex-husband would not hinder Gaia from growing up with her grandmother: Michelle would rely on his gratitude.
On that account she managed to fall asleep that night, and she could find a tiny bit of  serenity in the nights to come.