Chapter 28 #2
“I knew it! Oh, Dio! I love you, Ella. And I swear you’ll do all that when you’re discharged and come back to the mansion,” she said in her usual excitement, then started talking nonstop, distracting me.
“He sleeps just like you, his little hand against his face and his little mouth half-open. It’s so cute!
So beautiful! I swear that baby is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life, beloved.
There isn’t a single person in the mansion who isn’t fascinated and completely in love with him.
Lucca won everyone over with one look. Not everyone can do that. And he’s so calm, he barely cries.”
Crying and any other bad feelings were forgotten.
“Really, Pietra? He must be beautiful. Is he giving you trouble at night? A lot of women complained about that at the school.”
“Are you kidding? That boy only eats, shits, and sleeps. The life of a king. He’s very spoiled too, just like you.
He only really cries when he’s hungry or has a dirty diaper, which mamma is very happy to clean…
” Very convenient for her, I thought, smiling from ear to ear.
“…Oh, yes! And if he has colic. Which he had for two nights in a row after he went to the mansion.”
My chest tightened with concern.
“And what did you do? Is he okay?”
“I went crazy, but mamma and the nurse…”
“Nurse?”
“She’s a baby nurse Thor hired to take care of Lucca.
She was recommended by Marcela, so mamma doesn’t get overloaded with organizing the house and Lucca.
And, well, I don’t know much about babies, right?
She’s very good, and I liked her. Which means she’s good people.
Lucca is fine. Very well, actually. Just eating and getting fat,” she joked.
“And the pediatrician said colic is normal, that with time it will pass. She also gave him a little medicine. Or was it tea? I don’t remember, but it was to ease future colic, if he has them. ”
“I understand.”
“Lucca looks like a little angel, he’s so calm. Oh, and he loves baths. Even I bathed him these days, can you believe it? Mamma taught me, and I did it right.” She said it proudly.
I forced a smile. I was envious and even a little hurt because she had bathed my baby when I hadn’t even so much as seen his face.
Pietra kept reporting the latest news with my little one.
I listened closely, with each sentence feeling prouder and more dazzled by him and, consequently, more anxious to see it all up close while making plans for when I was face-to-face with him.
It was a useful afternoon, at least for me, who for the first time since being transferred to that room was able to distract myself and didn’t notice time passing.
I felt very well, actually. However, my well-being wavered when Pietra announced she was leaving.
“Pietra, bring him here,” I asked, only a little desperate.
“Beloved, you know this environment isn’t good for him. Lucca practically just left here, and having to come back even for a visit, I don’t…”
“I don’t like him coming back here either when he practically just entered the world.
I wouldn’t ask this of you if I weren’t desperate, almost on the verge of madness to meet him.
I only want to see him for an instant. For one minute…
half a second if that’s all it can be… It doesn’t need to be more than that. Please. Just a moment. I swear.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Please, Pietra. It’s just a quick moment. Please.”
The tears, those unwanted companions of mine, were back.
“I need to go, and you need to rest. I’ll send some books. How about that?”
“That could work,” I answered with a half smile. “When will you come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it be this week? I know it’s Christmas, but could it be?”
She gave me an indecipherable look, but I wasn’t concerned with analyzing it. I was distressed and hopeful, my eyes eager for her answer.
She kissed my forehead.
“Of course. I need to go. Take care of yourself and be well, okay?”
“Okay,” I answered, the smile glued to my face, my mood and strength renewed. “You take care too. Get home safely.”
“Yes, mamma!”
***
The day before Christmas Eve, when I was already losing hope and starting to give in to discouragement, Pietra finally appeared, ending my torment.
My heart beat against my ribs as I stared at the door, my smile growing until it reached my eyes, but it withered a little when I saw that only she entered the room.
No baby in her arms.
She still hadn’t closed the door. Maybe my baby was outside with that nurse or even Martha. Or Thor.
“Where is he, Pietra?”
“I…” she began, but cut herself off.
An irritating alarm sounded in my chest. I ignored it.
I was euphoric, full of expectation and believing that, finally, I would meet him.
“Is he outside? Tell whoever is with him to come in. I want…” I went quiet when I saw her close the door. Lucca wasn’t there. No one was there. The realization I didn’t want to see whipped me with nails and filled my eyes.
“He isn’t…” She paused, looking at me with sorrow. I looked away, unable to bear her gaze. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t bring him.”
“Or you didn’t want to?”
“I really did everything I could to bring him, I swear, but… the nurse didn’t think it was a good idea…
” She continued singing my disgrace into my deaf, outraged ears, that some fifth-rate nurse would decide whether my son could come or not.
She could wait for me, I thought angrily.
“…but think of it this way. I know it isn’t as exciting, but it’s already something, right?
Soon you’ll get out of here and be able to see him. ”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but I decided to stop her explanations.
“It’s all right, Pietra. You don’t need to explain. You did what you could, and I thank you for that.” I said it sincerely, looking at her. “I would have loved for you to be able to bring him, but if it didn’t work out… va bene. This isn’t the best environment for an outing.”
I took my gaze away from her and swallowed hard.
My heart was heavy, wounded. There was this insane desperation wanting to swallow me.
“I couldn’t bring him in person…” I opened my mouth to ask her to stop with the explanations because it only hurt me more. “…But I brought photos.”
I shifted my gaze to her hands, for the first time seeing the simple white envelope that was able to bring my spirits back, timidly but considerably. My pulse suddenly increased.
“If you don’t want to see because you want to wait for the real surprise…”
“No!” I exclaimed, close to panic when she moved to put the envelope back in her bag. “I want to see.”
“That’s what I thought. I took a few pictures of him sleeping, in the bath, and awake. Which is rare, right?” Pietra handed me the envelope. “He’s very photogenic.”
I pursed my lips into a smile, my hands trembling a little as I pulled out the small stack of photos. And when the first photo filled my vision, for a full minute I froze, absorbed, paralyzed by the perfection Thor and I had created.
My eyes shimmered in wonder.
I couldn’t even begin to describe what I felt.
“He’s… h-he’s… Dio, he’s… beautiful, Pietra… He’s…”
“Yes. He is.”
God, he was so beautiful, so perfect…
I sighed at length, emotional, the smile tearing across my face.
He was more than perfect. There weren’t enough words in the world to describe him, such was his perfection.
He was an angel, my little piece of heaven.
And I loved him so much…
My chest was so full of love for that baby in the photo.
My baby.
He was so, so perfect and beautiful that it was hard to believe I had carried him.
The feeling that had been asleep inside me, only lightly, woke in a rush that left me breathless and in a state of grace.
It was indescribable, much greater than what I had already felt when my Lucca was in my belly.
It was the same, but in different proportions.
Surreal. Vivid. Luminous. Warm. Comforting.
Welcoming. Vast. Glorious. All at the same time and a thousand other feelings dominating me from head to toe.
But love prevailed absolutely, majestic and dense.
I felt it in embers, expanding, claiming territory inside me that even I hadn’t known existed while I ran the tip of my index finger along the delicate contours of my son’s little face.
I lifted the photo to my lips—in it, Lucca was sleeping exactly the way Thor and Pietra had told me—and kissed it as if I were kissing my son, putting into that gesture all the love boiling inside me. The first tear trailed down my cheek.
I was hypnotized, lost in enchantment as I looked at the other photos, each one causing me a different sensation of intoxication and fascination. Pure and raw.
My eyes were blurred, but there was no haze in the world that could keep me from absorbing every detail in those photos.
I memorized every little line of him. His little mouth and his skin were like mine, his little ears seemed to be too, though I wasn’t sure because I couldn’t see them properly.
His nose reminded me of Thor’s. Lucca had beautiful hair, as dark as his father’s, and his little fingers were his too, long and thick, his little hands big and chubby.
His little eyes reminded me of Thor’s as well, in shape and color.
Lucca slept like me only in the way he positioned himself, but his expression was all Heithor.
The truth was, he reminded me more of his father than of me.
For a long time, I admired those photos.
I needed to see Lucca. And I needed to know what was happening so he hadn’t been brought to me. Something wasn’t right.
Reluctantly, I lifted my gaze from the photos in my lap and wiped my tears with the back of my right hand. I took a deep breath and faced Pietra with a serious expression.
“What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”