Welcome, my daughter (Vecchio challenge on ds-flashfiction)
Pairing: none
Rating: PG
Size: about 850 words
Summary: Ma Vecchio muses
***
I was a good wife and a good mother. I was a good wife until Vittorio left me, and I am a good mother still, even though my children are all adults now. I have three. On some days the number doesn’t ache, it’s just a fact. On others I have to put tremendous effort in hiding the pain this lie causes me. I do not have three children.
I never got to know her. Vittorio wouldn’t have it.
I thought I was safe. I was still breastfeeding Franscesca, and I thought that it would prevent me from becoming pregnant again. Well, actually I didn’t think at all of course. I just spread my legs, and my arms, overcome by an unknown and uncontrollable passion for this man - this boy - whom I met only thirty minutes before.
He was new in the neighborhood, he was twenty, he was of German origin, his name was Gunter. He helped me carry the groceries inside while I struggled with the pram. Francesca was unusually quiet.
It was summer, almost - June. Raimundo was at school, Maria at Kindergarten. Gunter and I were alone in the kitchen. His look made me feel attractive. I knew I was sweating, my hair was damp. I knew I wasn’t slim - I couldn’t have been merely two months after Frannie’s birth, no matter how hard Vittorio complained. The look in Gunter’s eyes said that I was beautiful.
I instantly fell in love with that look, with that shy smile. Taking his hand and leading him upstairs was solely my idea. We made love - and it was love. It was passion of a kind I had never felt for Vittorio. I will always remember the feeling of Gunter’s lips on mine, on my body.
Afterwards I told him that we could never see each other again. He nodded, kissed my temple - sweet, sincere - and left the house.
When we met on the street, we avoided to make eye contact. I never knew how he took my being pregnant so quickly again; if he noticed. After a couple of years he moved.
I wasn’t shocked by the new pregnancy - surprised certainly, I hadn’t expected that it could happen so soon, but not shocked. The notion of having something that was Gunter’s made me happy.
Vittorio was suspicious - I didn't let him near me very often at that time.
He was angry. Abortion was not an option, but he insisted that I gave up the baby for adoption. I cried, I pleaded, but it was no use. I think this was his way to punish me for not loving him enough.
I gave birth to my daughter alone - after having been separated from the rest of my children for two months. "I'm ill, but I will be better," Vittorio forced me to tell them.
I was only allowed one look at her. Then they took her away, telling me that she would be adopted by a couple in California.
Vittorio didn’t leave me - until shortly after Ray’s seventeen’s birthday. Giving up my daughter had hurt me for over a decade - the divorce was nothing compared to it.
The Vecchio family survived nicely without Vittorio. Tony was added to it and then Angie. Having her was like having my daughter back, and when she left I ached as much as Raimundo.
He was taken from me too - for nearly two years. His job required him to go undercover in Las Vegas. In Chicago his name and position were taken by someone who didn’t look anything like him. He was a nice boy, though, and I could see that Benito - Ray’s partner and friend, and the man whom Francesca had set her mind on, much to the embarrassment of everybody except herself - was very fond of him. I didn’t like that at first - a mother tends to be very protective of her children, doesn’t she? Benito was supposed to be Ray’s best friend - but I came to love him as well. And I sympathized with the pain he felt because of the divorce from his wife Stella, an attorney.
Stanley spoke a lot of her - his Golden Coast girl - and I came to dislike her. Heartless she seemed to me, for hurting him so much.
When Ray came back to Chicago and started to talk about her that changed. He was so much in love that it seemed contiguous.
The day he first brought her home was the best day of my life. And the worst. She looked so much like her father; the color of her hair, her eyes, her smile were all the same. I suppressed my tears and kept my voice steady as I wished her welcome in my house.
***
Standing before the altar they both look beautiful, my son and his Stella.
I hear the Reverend ask the question that nobody expects anyone to answer - in the past it served a purpose maybe, now it’s just a formality.
I won’t open my mouth. I kept it shut for twenty-nine years, and I will continue to do so. I made up my mind and I don’t feel guilty. I know that she doesn’t want to bear children, and that Ray has no wish to become a father. They seem to be very much in love, and I want my daughter. She is my daughter - my daughter in law.
END
Rating: PG
Size: about 850 words
Summary: Ma Vecchio muses
***
I was a good wife and a good mother. I was a good wife until Vittorio left me, and I am a good mother still, even though my children are all adults now. I have three. On some days the number doesn’t ache, it’s just a fact. On others I have to put tremendous effort in hiding the pain this lie causes me. I do not have three children.
I never got to know her. Vittorio wouldn’t have it.
I thought I was safe. I was still breastfeeding Franscesca, and I thought that it would prevent me from becoming pregnant again. Well, actually I didn’t think at all of course. I just spread my legs, and my arms, overcome by an unknown and uncontrollable passion for this man - this boy - whom I met only thirty minutes before.
He was new in the neighborhood, he was twenty, he was of German origin, his name was Gunter. He helped me carry the groceries inside while I struggled with the pram. Francesca was unusually quiet.
It was summer, almost - June. Raimundo was at school, Maria at Kindergarten. Gunter and I were alone in the kitchen. His look made me feel attractive. I knew I was sweating, my hair was damp. I knew I wasn’t slim - I couldn’t have been merely two months after Frannie’s birth, no matter how hard Vittorio complained. The look in Gunter’s eyes said that I was beautiful.
I instantly fell in love with that look, with that shy smile. Taking his hand and leading him upstairs was solely my idea. We made love - and it was love. It was passion of a kind I had never felt for Vittorio. I will always remember the feeling of Gunter’s lips on mine, on my body.
Afterwards I told him that we could never see each other again. He nodded, kissed my temple - sweet, sincere - and left the house.
When we met on the street, we avoided to make eye contact. I never knew how he took my being pregnant so quickly again; if he noticed. After a couple of years he moved.
I wasn’t shocked by the new pregnancy - surprised certainly, I hadn’t expected that it could happen so soon, but not shocked. The notion of having something that was Gunter’s made me happy.
Vittorio was suspicious - I didn't let him near me very often at that time.
He was angry. Abortion was not an option, but he insisted that I gave up the baby for adoption. I cried, I pleaded, but it was no use. I think this was his way to punish me for not loving him enough.
I gave birth to my daughter alone - after having been separated from the rest of my children for two months. "I'm ill, but I will be better," Vittorio forced me to tell them.
I was only allowed one look at her. Then they took her away, telling me that she would be adopted by a couple in California.
Vittorio didn’t leave me - until shortly after Ray’s seventeen’s birthday. Giving up my daughter had hurt me for over a decade - the divorce was nothing compared to it.
The Vecchio family survived nicely without Vittorio. Tony was added to it and then Angie. Having her was like having my daughter back, and when she left I ached as much as Raimundo.
He was taken from me too - for nearly two years. His job required him to go undercover in Las Vegas. In Chicago his name and position were taken by someone who didn’t look anything like him. He was a nice boy, though, and I could see that Benito - Ray’s partner and friend, and the man whom Francesca had set her mind on, much to the embarrassment of everybody except herself - was very fond of him. I didn’t like that at first - a mother tends to be very protective of her children, doesn’t she? Benito was supposed to be Ray’s best friend - but I came to love him as well. And I sympathized with the pain he felt because of the divorce from his wife Stella, an attorney.
Stanley spoke a lot of her - his Golden Coast girl - and I came to dislike her. Heartless she seemed to me, for hurting him so much.
When Ray came back to Chicago and started to talk about her that changed. He was so much in love that it seemed contiguous.
The day he first brought her home was the best day of my life. And the worst. She looked so much like her father; the color of her hair, her eyes, her smile were all the same. I suppressed my tears and kept my voice steady as I wished her welcome in my house.
***
Standing before the altar they both look beautiful, my son and his Stella.
I hear the Reverend ask the question that nobody expects anyone to answer - in the past it served a purpose maybe, now it’s just a formality.
I won’t open my mouth. I kept it shut for twenty-nine years, and I will continue to do so. I made up my mind and I don’t feel guilty. I know that she doesn’t want to bear children, and that Ray has no wish to become a father. They seem to be very much in love, and I want my daughter. She is my daughter - my daughter in law.
END