The Carlidia Renaissance- Cable Girls Reimagined (LCDC)

Chapter 3

Lidia's POV

Just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse.

Unwelcome thoughts flooded my brain as I sat there staring at the empty seat in front of me, dumbfounded at what Francisco just told me. Carlos...and suicide? It neither sounded nor felt right. My mind raced back to the past few days that we spent together, hunting in the wild for Sofia, to try and remember if he ever did or said anything that could guide me closer to the truth but in this moment, everything sped up in my mind as a blur.

"Hey!" the police guard who escorted me shouted "Are you done warming that seat?" she complained as she grabbed me by the forearm to take me back to that dreaded cell. I was faintly aware of the sound of a receiver clatter on the ground. But, as if in a trance, I let her drag me back, having other more important concerns on my mind.

Once I was back in the confines of my cell, the realization suddenly hit me like whiplash.

Our late night conversation in the motel. That scar on his back, how he had gotten it. His reply when I asked him how could someone ever want to die, after admitting that for a brief moment, he wished he would die.

It was right after me and Eva had left him for America.

I wept violently as my mind wandered through all these places, unexplored until recently.

Words from one of our final conversation rang in my ears "Will we ever see our daughter again?" I had asked him.

My heart ached with the knowledge that he never got the chance to know his daughter growing up, and that I was to blame for it.

We had gone through so much together, getting past my initial deception, finding out I was pregnant with Eva, his public acknowledgment of my credit for my work on the telephone booths, almost getting married and raising a daughter together for a brief period of time even.

"No, no, I can't!" I cried "Why does it have to be this way?" I thought out loud, desperately.

He transformed my world, from a cheat whose main goal was self-preservation, to a mother who helped revolutionise telephone communication. That will never go away. Much like the times where I owed him my life, along with our daughter's as well, as I recalled Doña Carmen's failed attempt at rigorously forcing an abortion over me.

Despite this, I still believe that it didn't make any sense. Our final conversation resolved all that was between us, and I had hoped that it would signify a new beginning for us. A small flicker of hope remained, despite the circumstances, that a better explanation for this was out there, somewhere, waiting to be unveiled.

But until then, I had to make peace with the concept of the father of my daughter being...dead.

I collapsed on my bed in a fit of uncontrollable sobs, and cursed. His mother. Cruel fate. And most of all, myself.

And mourned, for what could have been had he still been alive, mourned for Eva as she'll have to grow up without her biological father.

Mourned our relationship, and the place he'll always hold in my heart, much as I had wanted to deny it.

I cried, harder when I recalled what he proclaimed in that cell before we tried to escape.

"You will always be the woman of my life."

*** Thanks for reading! A little update, I'm going to try my best to update this book once a week, normally on Mondays, I thought I'd let you guys know so you know when to look out for new chapters. As always, feel free to vote and comment on what you think of this book so far- B***