One of the three
Page 1
One of the three
Lucy Morton
Translated by Marcos David Castillo Ojeda
“One of the three”
Written By Lucy Morton
Copyright © 2017 Lucy Morton
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Marcos David Castillo Ojeda
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
One of the three
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHATPER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
More Lucy Morton’s book titles
ONE OF THE THREE
A memory
Lucy Morton
Edition in digital format: February 2017
Book title: One of the three –A memory–.
All rights reserved.
©2017 Lucy Morton
All rights reserved. Under the sanctions established in the legal system, the total or partial reproduction of this short novel by any means or procedure, including reproduction and computer processing, as well as the distribution of copies, is strictly restricted without the written authorization of the copyright owners, including rent or public loans.
CHAPTER 1
—
If they tell you that he is gone, do not believe it.
THEY LIE.
If they tell you that he did not think about you when he closes his eyes every night, do not believe it.
THEY LIE.
If they tell you that he thought in himself rather than in you, do not believe it.
THEY LIE.
But if they tell you that for him you were the most beautiful person of his life and that he promised taking care of you and protecting you from the first second he met you. Then yes. Believe them.
.
NOW
An eight-year-old girl should not attend her father’s funeral. Not yet. She should be ready for that when she is more than twenty years old at least or, hopefully, forty years old. An eight-year-old girl still needs her father and her father needs and deserves to see her growing up and enjoying each and every stage of her life. Sharing moments with her. Keeping those memories until getting old. That would be justice. This it is not the case, endeed.
Parents are essential during the first love of their daughters. Who else, is going to assure them that there are good guys when they are teenagers? And then, would they end up screaming and crying just saying they all are bad guys? Who else is not going to frown when a teenager gets home with her droopy drawers and dirty hair? Who is going to protect her now from all the monsters that are under the bed?
I put my hand in my daughter’s blond hair. Feeling sad and with misty-eyed, she is touching the petal of the poppy that she carries between her little hands. She did not want to put on her dark dress. She said that Dad’s favorite is the flowered pink dress and that’s the one she is going to wear at the funeral. How can I deny her something like that? Anyway, he would not have liked the dark blue dress. He would have told me:
“Jean that does not match with her beautiful face. Give her another one.”
He would have winked at his little girl, and he had immediately got her on a piggyback ride. I always have a backache and I cannot do it. April already weighs too much for me.
I am not listening the parish priest’s words. I refuse to be aware of the moans and tears of those attending the funeral of my daughter’s father. I refuse to believe that he is the one who is inside of that birch wood coffin, when he was so alive. I prefer to think while I am concentrating on the winds murmur, that there is a stranger inside of the coffin. Or I’m here for mere commitment. An old friend of my father’s or something like that. But then, I look at my side and I cannot believe not seeing him by putting his arm over my shoulder, smiling and telling me that everything will be fine.
“Do ghosts are real, mom?” April asked me last night, just a few hours before we were told about Dad’s death.
I did not know what to tell her. Instead, I was forced to tell my mother to stay with April for a while and I locked myself in the bathroom crying for two hours. I did not enjoy it at all. Then my mother came with a cup of tea and she told me that April had fallen asleep.
“Calm down, honey. Children of this age are very strong. They get over it.”
“You do not know how close April was to her father, mom”, I said, accepting the handkerchief she offered to me.
“You will forget about it, Jean. Eventually.”
When someone tells you something like that, it’s because they do not know what to tell you. Because they understand all the pain you are suffering at those times and they stupidly believe they can comfort you by telling you that you will forget about it and that, thanks to that, wounds can be healed. They are getting smaller. They heal. But they only believe that and they want to make you believe it when you really know that, in fact, they lie. That everything is not really real, that it is a plot raging around you for your own good. For your mental health. Because there comes a time when your eyes are scared from crying and you have some wounds in your nose from rubbing so much by using your handkerchief in the nostrils. Because there comes a time when you have a weight in your soul and you feel that you heartbeats have slowed to such an extent that you are hesitating even if they will continue beating the next morning. And yet, no matter how much they tell you that time flies, nothing happens. Nothing happens. Time flies, but the pain does not. The pain continues consuming you, especially when you see your daughter, so innocent and pure, asking what happened to Dad and if he is a ghost now.
My mother elbows me. The parish priest has stopped talking and he is looking at me. It may take several minutes and I have not noticed. I am looking around a little lost and I take April’s hand to bring her closer to the coffin where she leaves the flower. It is then that the silence is hindered for the hysterical and inconsolable cries of a girl who, like me, cannot believe that Dad is inside that coffin. Dead. Still. Lifeless. Soulless. Without being able to see her. Without being able to touch her. Without being able to make her laugh. Without nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. We have nothing left.
“My daughter…”
It breaks my heart. I try to catch her, but the girl refuses to move away from the coffin. Everyone present are exclaiming: “Oh,” “Jesus Christ,” “Poor girl,” “My God,” and in the meantime, I want to shout at them to fuck off; just let me be alone with my daughter and we both, in a certain way, in sharing the pain, may be able to comfort each other and pull ourselves together. Eventually. The fucking time comes again.
CHAPTER 2
—
They used to say that sadness disappears when you stop thinking about it.
That is a lie.
When you smile, your eyes see everything from a different perspective.
That is a lie.
When you show positive thoughts, the universe conspires to grant them to you.
Bullshit. That is a lie.
What will they know?
They are really optimistic fools with a silly smile on
their faces. Everything is black today. Today the sun has not risen. Today, the “princess” who refuses to be like the other girls and she prefers to be a gentleman, a fireman or whatever ending up in –man instead of –cess. That’s just the shadow of what she was. Because her father is no longer with her. Because I do not know what to do anymore.
TWO MONTHS LATER
NOW
April’s gaze tells me that she is not feeling good today, either. She is still confused. She wants to know what happened to her father and, darned if, I still do not know how to tell her that his death was totally unfair. That everything was the fault of a destiny or a fucking universe. No, I should not talk like that. I should not pass on all my frustration and anger to my daughter. For her and only for her, she should smile and she needs to work on being okay. Being kinder, watching my mouth and not making decisions based on impulses that are nothing more than a huge and a really angry traitor enemy that I am experiencing right now. In each and every day of these long and painful two months since my daughter’s father passed away.
“I’ve made you orange juice and pancakes. Do you want some?”
April slowly shakes his head without looking at me.
“You have to eat something.”
She has lost some weight. I’m really starting to worry about her. Maybe it would be a good idea to see a counsellor as recommended by her tutor.
“Chocolate?”
She does not even want to eat that.
“What are you looking at so carefully? Am I getting up so ugly that you cannot look at me?” I asked laughing.
That still does not work.
“Has the cat got your tongue?”
She is really grown up for that bullshit.
“Well, get your backpack. We will head for the school.”
I am looking at her while she is picking her stuff to get us going. We are late, but it is okay. April has not put on a dress for a while. Now she prefers to wear jeans and cotton T-shirts like all girls her age. She really loved wearing those dresses! Now they are nothing more than a cluster of dust and an irresistible attraction to the moths living secretly in the closet. The last time I saw her wearing a dress was at her father’s funeral. She used to love it.
“She is not a girl anymore” I think, “at least not the same one that got up that day thinking that Dad was still alive in this world.”
By showing a frustration look on my face, I throw the orange juice that I had prepared for her down the drain and the pancakes go straight into the trash. April keeps ignoring me. She is ready and she is waiting for me to leave.
The November wind hits our faces when we step outside on the street. April puts her cap in place and she is ignoring my hand. She does not want to give me her hand anymore. We walked five blocks at a fast pace until getting to school and, once there, she did not give me a kiss on the cheek. She just said goodbye with her hand and she met Sam and Lucy to go into school together. I am looking at how a child her age looks at her and they both smile at each other. I think, I think, I think. I think of how I met her father.
When April is out my sight, I enter the school just when the bell rings. I go upstairs to the tutor’s office and I knock on twice at the door of April’s tutor, just in case I’m lucky and I still catch her inside.
“Jean” she says hello to me quickly. “Is there a problem?”
“Not at all. Well, the usual, Ingrid. You know. I came to ask you the number of the school counsellor.”
“I do not think it is necessary, Jean.”
“You thought about it until two days ago.”
“April needs her mother” she says, smiling.
“Her mother is always there”, I say a little upset.
“I know, I know… It has been a shock for you, too. I’m sure that as soon as you get over it, April will.”
“It’s been two months.”
“Why do not you tell her the story?”
“Tell her what?”
“About how did you meet her father? Have you ever told her your story?”
“I have never done that.”
“Sure, a thousand times.”
“So, come up with something. Something that encourages her to hang around and to talk to you. Something that makes her curious. You are a very creative person, Jean. You will figure it out. Make up a story and surprise her. It will be a way to be closer and get through this together.
She patted me on my arm, like apologizing because she has to go to class quickly with her hands full of folders, notebooks and folios, and she disappears down the hall. I stay quiet for a while, thinking. My head is going crazy while I am walking slowly and tiresomely down the school hallway. I stop in front of a showcase with cups, medals and photographs from other times. I am in one of them, twenty-one years younger alongside the “team”. With a bright blond hair that is no longer there. With cheeks rosy and hot for having finished and won a basketball game and a few smiles, like the rest of them, illuminating the court and telling the world:
“Hey! We are here! We are the winners of this and of all the games that come along to us in life!”
I did not realize that my right eye had begun to tear. Neither do my hands are shaking nor the games that come along to us in life do not prove to be as easy to win as a simple youth basketball game.
CHAPTER 3
—
Just because we have been repeated the same thing over and over again, it does not make it a real thing.
NOW
With my hands in my coat pockets, I am waiting for April outside the school. We are not going to go home. The cold will not stop us today. I’m going to take her to a place that it is very special for me and I hope the owner remember me as the “little girl”. That’s what he used to call me. I was the one who was painting pictures and serving coffees.
“Jean, how’s it going?” Behind me there is a female voice that I can tell like Kate Sullivan’s.
“I am okay, Kate.”
“I’m not going to give you the pleasure of telling me that I look like shit and that my daughter does not look at me and she barely talks to me.”
“Little by little, Jean. Little by little.”
She is looking at me pitifully. I hate those faces, those pouting, those gestures, that comfort. I hate everything about Kate Sullivan.
“Of course, Kate. Sure”, I say imitating her same tone of voice.
Fortunately, Jennifer, her smartass daughter, leaves before April and they leave, holding hands, heading for their Upper East Side apartment, while I keep waiting for my daughter.
I am looking at my watch. I’m starting to lose my patience. I might come in and see what happens. When I take a step, I see April accompanied by Ingrid, her tutor, with a grim look. Ingrid is smiling with a game face on and I look at the torn pocket of April’s jacket and her messy long blond hair.
“What happened?”
“Calm down, Jean.”
“Calm down? Calm down? My daughter’s lip is starting to swell and I must be calm down?”
“She has fought with Sarah, but nothing happens. It has not gone beyond a punch”, the tutor tries to calm me down while April is looking down so embarrassed.
“Why?” I want to know, staring at the torn pocket of her jacket and her lip. A punch? Just a punch?
“Well…” Ingrid begins to speaking by whispering. “Sarah has told her that…”
“That dad did not love me!” Suddenly April exclaims, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes filled with tears. I know she wants to give me a hug in order to feel protected in my arms, but she is not doing that. I do not know why the hell she is not doing that. I am the one who approaches her and I give her a hug, but she pushes me aside ruthlessly.
“Give her some time, Jean” Ingrid advises me, putting her hand on my shoulder.
I nod without knowing what else to say and I decide that it would be better to go home today. There will be no surprise. Today, the little girl will not return to the bar where
she used to serve coffee and she used to dream of being a great artist exposing her paintings all over the world.
CHAPTER 4
—
“You have broken my heart!” She shouted tearfully.
“You broke it yourself” He said with his typical indifference, “For expecting something you knew I could not give it to you.”
BEFORE
Who has not had one of those wild, strong and unforgettable loves nailing you in the depths of your heart? Who has not thought that you can die of a broken heart when it comes the time to say goodbye? Who has not heard love songs and thought very seriously about cutting their veins because that summer love has not come back to send any news?
When I finished college, my Jean from the past, with only twenty-three years and a huge desire to eat the world, went to Ireland with her best friends: Kim and Barbara. Kim was the typical “bookworm”, spending the day reading Danielle Steel’s novels. While Barbara was the typical man-eater who with only one glance lit the most hidden desires of the opposite sex. The poor girl never did anything, but there she was, wearing her tight-fitting dresses of indescribable colors and well-developed boobs that Kim and I were secretly jealous of them, by the way.
We knew that it was always raining in Ireland. Always? But was it in August, too?
“We should have gone to Cuba, goddammit”, Barbara grumbled, carrying her fuchsia suitcase on her back on the dirt and pebble trails of rural Ireland. “We are going to get whiter than we are ever in New York. What a shame!”
Kim, indifferent to Barbara’s curses, had her eyes hooked on the map of Inistioge, the Irish town we had chosen because it was cheap for us and because the tourist office in New York promised us that it was an idyllic and very romantic place. It was located in a river between hills in the south of Ireland. That there were woods, that the grounds of the old Woodstock Estate were a wonder, as well as the ruins of the ancient castles trying to survive the passage of time in their hills. We were also promised that the food was excellent and that there were even local pubs. I think Barbara just heard this last part: local pubs. She did not give a fuck the rest of it.