Until Forever
Luisa Cloutier
© Copyright Luisa Cloutier 2018
Black Rose Writing | Texas
© 2018 by Luisa Cloutier
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
First digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-052-2
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
This book is a tribute to my loving husband
Brandon R. Cloutier
You will always be in my heart
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Pat who has been like a mother to me and to my mother-in-law Linda. Thanks to my friends Paula and Joe, to the manager of my fitness my studio Garrett and to all my trainers, to my Fitness Together franchise support team and to my awesome Fitness Together Northborough clients who have supported and believed in me. Thanks to my psychologist Dr. Carolyn Smith who helped me to deal with my loss and depression. And thank you Mimmo Fiorentino.
PRAISE for Until Forever
“Luisa Cloutier’s tribute to her husband Brandon, is a beautifully written and engaging ‘coming of age’ journey, and the author’s distinct personality and perspective are evident throughout, creating a warm and moving memoir.”
–Indie Reader
“The storytelling is raw and honest.”
–Nabila Fairuz, author of The Chronicles of Captain Shelly Manhar
“Until Forever is a story about love, loss and strength. I was drawn into the story from the first page and couldn’t stop reading because I wanted to find out what happened. What struck me most about the book is Louisa’s courage and determination, learning English to better communicate with a man she met and immediately felt a special connection with despite their language barrier and leaving her family in Italy to come to America with him. Life in America was a mix of happy times and struggles. Just when everything was going better than expected, it was all snatched away. Still Luisa perseveres. Her story is one of inspiration and hope.”
–Diane Barnes, author of Waiting for Ethan and Mixed Signals
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Praise
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
PART TWO
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
PART THREE
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
For More Info
BRW Info
WINTER, 2014
Boylston, Massachusetts
I pull into the garage and leave the motor running. Tears blur my surroundings. I taste a salty drop flow over my lip, into my mouth. I wipe my eyes but the blurriness remains. The vibration of the huge engine of my SUV tells me what I should do. I look up at the garage door opener on the visor. So easy. Just press the button, close the door, let the exhaust fill the garage and the Escalade and eventually me. And it’ll all be over.
Through the rearview mirror, I see darkness sinking outside, beginning to conceal the last of the snow in the yard and the trees, dead after the interminable winter. No one would find me for days, I’m sure. Quick, clean, over. No one would miss me. No one would care.
I wipe my eyes again and peer into the garage. In front of me, hanging from the white wall, are the two bikes that haven’t moved in months. A few weeks from now, spring will be here, but I have no intention of ever riding again. Below the bikes is the yellow box of Duraflame logs, also untouched. They are supposed to be for cold March nights like tonight. But I have no interest in such things any longer. No interest in much of anything, really. It takes everything I have just to get through each day. But I am running out of steam for that too.
I look up at the garage door opener again. If only I could. Through so many difficult times in my life, my faith in God has helped me get through. But this time it only interferes. Why does God deny me doing this? Why does he do so much to hurt me, after I have believed for so long? I wish I could just dispense with a lifetime of religion and do what will take away the pain, but the doctrine is ingrained in me.
God took this option away from me too. God takes everything.
Unable to do it, I shut off the engine, silencing the SUV, then close the overhead door, sealing out the world. As I climb down out of the Escalade, I smell exhaust in the garage and hear the engine ticking as it cools. It is teasing me. My sadness becomes anger. I slam the car door shut and drag myself into the house.
The kitchen is silent. I can’t stand it. I leave the lights off and drop my coat onto the counter. I can’t remember the last time I cooked. I haven’t eaten a bite in days and because of that I feel lightheaded, have little energy. I’ve become used to the dizziness when I walk, something to have with me. It is almost comforting. My throat is dry. I used to drink several liters of water a day. This week, not a drop.
As I walk into the living room, my footsteps echo off the tile floors and bare walls, reminding me of how large and empty the house is. Stairs lead to the second floor. I stop and stare through the darkness. My eyes make out the hallway upstairs. It is an open bridge to the bedroom, guarded only by the wood railing. I’m not ready to go up there yet.
I walk to the liquor cabinet and pour myself a glass of Grand Marnier. I take a sip and sink into the sofa, trying to disappear into the mute darkness.
I don’t know how much time has passed. Maybe hours. I can’t remember getting up and opening another bottle of wine. The one glass did plenty. The room turns around me. I close my eyes, but that makes it worse. The cause is more than the few sips of wine. My body is depleted, of food, drink, life, everything. By my intention. That isn’t suicide. God can take you or let you live. That is on him.
I need to get upstairs. I think perhaps it is my time. God is taking me. But I want to go from the bedroom. I push myself up out of the sofa. My legs wobble benea
th me. I am light, very little body fat. And strong. That is my profession. But my legs struggle to support me. I can hardly walk. I stagger to the stairs.
“God, please let me make it to bed,” I say out loud, my voice echoing in the emptiness.
I’m not sure if I hear an answer. Maybe. I hear something. But the room is spinning. My head is in a fog. The stairs move from side to side. I grasp the railing and start to climb.
It takes forever to reach the top. I gasp for breath. I need to hold the wall for a moment not to fall. After a moment, I have the steadiness to move again. I stagger toward the bedroom door. Dizziness overwhelms me and I lose my balance. I bump into the railing and glimpse beyond it the living room floor below. I stumble backward, away from the drop, and slam into the wall behind me. I almost collapse, but somehow I manage to remain on my feet and drag myself along the wall to the bedroom.
This room is darker than the rest of the house. All of the shutters remain closed. I can’t see the bed, but I know where it is. I head in that direction. The dizziness intensifies. I collapse onto the bed. I feel a strange sensation, as though my body is separating from my soul. God is taking me.
“I’m ready,” I say out loud.
I have almost no strength left. The dizziness has become a noise in my head, a deafening cacophony. I squeeze my temples. It is painful.
“Take me, God,” I shout.
Relief. Salvation. I hope in desperation.
“God, is this my time?” I call out.
Through the noise in my head and the darkness surrounding me, I hear his voice. Yes…
I start crying, thankful that it is finally happening.
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
For most of my early life, mornings were always the same. We woke up in the morning to the hiss of the espresso machine as my mom made coffee. The smell welcomed us to the kitchen where we found warm bread and a jar of Nutella waiting at the table. Sometimes my mom had freshly baked cookies. She always made sure we ate well and left happy.
There were four of us. My older brother Paolo, who used to pick on me when he wasn’t chasing the neighborhood girls. The older he got, the more interest he had in them and the less in annoying me. I was the second oldest. I had one sister, Angela, who was three years younger than I, and another brother, Rodolfo, five years younger than I. For my mom, we were her life.
After she made sure we all had breakfast, she would start cooking the ragù, the meat and tomato sauce that we put on pasta for most of our meals. The ragù would cook for hours, filling every room with the smell of garlic and basil and wine. While it simmered on the stove, she cleaned the apartment and then made lunch, usually a salad and a side dish, like melanzane a funghetti, the sautéed eggplant that my father loved. At 1:00pm the whole family would come home and eat a huge meal together, and then we would all go back to school. My mother spoiled us.
For years she begged my father to let her get her driver’s license. In those days in Italy, wives were expected to get their husband’s permission for things like that. He didn’t agree until she was almost thirty. It took another eight years for him to buy her a car, a Fiat 126, a tiny, boxy, very popular car in those days. It looked a bit like the modern Cooper Mini, but even smaller. My mom was thrilled with it.
She got the car around the time I finished high school. I found a job at a construction company in town, but since I was only seventeen, I still didn’t have my driver’s license so my mom offered to drive me to work every morning in her prized car. The road was bad, dotted with pot holes that sent her little Fiat bouncing up and down so much I thought the car and the two of us were going to fall apart.
My job required me to be the first to arrive each morning to open the office. Having my mom drive me meant I didn’t have to leave so early. She seemed to like the extra time with me, too.
“Are things getting better at work?” she asked me this morning.
“The boss is good at getting people to lend him money to build, but he doesn’t seem to know how to pay it back when it’s due. I think a couple of people are chasing him for their money. He hides a lot.”
“Oh, my God. You be careful, Luisa.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. I’m just worried that my paycheck is going to bounce one day.”
“Just don’t get involved in his business problems, you understand?” my mother said.
“I need to find a different job.”
“Why don’t you get married? You and Nino should start a family and then you won’t have to work like this.”
“I’m not going to start a family with a cheater.”
“You haven’t forgiven him?” my mother asked.
“No.”
“He’s a good man,” she told me. “He made a mistake.”
“He knew what he was doing.”
“I’m sure he’s sorry.”
“How’s he going to have sex with his boss’s daughter, and then argue with me when I say he has to leave that job? How can I trust him? He still looks at other girls.”
“Italian men are like that. It doesn’t mean anything. He knows that you’re watching him now. He’ll behave himself. He’s not a bad man, Luisa. He works hard. He goes to church. He’s from a good family. I think he’ll make a good husband. You’ll see. Once you two have your own children, he’ll be different.”
“I’m not interested in having children right now. And definitely not with Nino.”
“What are you talking about? Why not?”
“I’m not you, Mamma. I want to do other things first. I don’t want to stay here in Napoli my whole life. I want to see other places.”
“Have you talked about this with Nino?”
“I don’t have to talk about it with Nino. He doesn’t own me. He acts like he does, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t even asked me to marry him.”
“He will. You don’t date a girl for two years and not get married.”
“You don’t date a girl for two years and go sleep with your boss’s daughter, either.”
We reached the construction company office, and she pulled in front.
“You do what you think is best, Luisa,” she said, “but I think you should give him a chance.”
“How many chances does he get?”
She reached over and put her hand on mine.
“You have to follow your heart,” she said. “Look into your heart and you’ll know what to do.”
. . . . .
One Friday I was preparing the payroll as usual at the construction company. Two carpenters stood by the door, waiting for their checks. Everyone had been worried that this was the week the boss wouldn’t pay them. So far, he had only stiffed the lenders, but we all knew it was just a matter of time.
The phone on my desk rang. “Luisa, is that you?” she asked. I recognized the voice of Roberta Ombre, the neighbor in the apartment below ours. She was breathing heavily, rushing her words.
“What’s wrong, Mrs. Roberta?”
“It’s your mother,” she said.
. . . . .
One of the carpenters drove me to the hospital in Pozzuoli, where my mother had been taken. I ran into the emergency room and saw my sister Angela in the waiting room, crying. She jumped up when she saw me.
“Oh, my God, Luisa.”
“What happened? How is she? Where’s Mamma?”
“She was dead!” Angela said.
“What? No!”
I turned to go find her, but Angela grabbed me by the shoulders.
“They said she was dead and they couldn’t do any
thing but I begged her to wake up and all of a sudden her heart started beating again and she opened her eyes and the doctors said God felt sorry for me and let Mamma live and now…!”
“What are you talking about?” This made no sense to me. “Where’s Mamma?” I started toward the doorway to the treatment area.
Angela hurried behind me. “She’s going to be okay, they said. She’s going to live.”
I just needed to see her. I rushed into the treatment area. A nurse took me to my mother’s bed. The moment I saw her there in the bed, with tubes and IV’s and monitors attached, I nearly cried. But I held it in and barely heard the doctor explain that my mother had a flu, nothing more. They only thing that mattered was that he said she was going to be all right and they were sending her home.
. . . . .
That evening, I sat with my mother in her bedroom. My father was in the kitchen eating with the others. We were taking turns looking after her. My mother asked me to close the door. She wanted to talk to me.
When I sat back down, she said, “Listen to me, Luisa. This is important.”
“What is it, mamma?”
“If anything happens to me…”
I didn’t want to hear that. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I said.
She shushed me and said, “Let me finish. If anything happens to me, you know what you have to do.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant, and I didn’t want to know. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, mamma. The doctor said it’s a flu. You’re going to be all right.”
“This time, I know. But if something ever happens…”
“Mamma, please. The thing is, you do too much. You’re always working around here, doing everything. Cooking. Cleaning. Taking me to work. Washing the clothes. Buying the food. It’s too much. You need to rest. That’s all that’s the matter. You’ve been doing too much.”
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