Chains Of Feelings

I was playing with Maria who has grown so much. Soon she will be having her third birthday. I caught her, and her squeals filled the air as she was caught by me and thrown up in the air for me to catch her again. I took us to the living room for us to have a break from play time, as soon it will be lunch, and I do not want an upset stomach from eating. That mistake I will not go through again. Poor Maria had been born with stomach issues, she had struggled to keep the milk down when she went on to bottle milk, poor Natalie run out of milk and had to do bottle feed. Maria couldn’t keep it down. She had to have special milk from the doctors. Now she needs to be settled before eating as her stomach has not fully sorted itself out. As I was about to leave the room, as Maria is settled in, tv on, my eye caught the vase. My mums’ vase. Ruslan got it out and displayed it in the hallway so when you opened the front door it would be the first thing to see. It had been in its box put away in the wardrobe, and it had finally come out to be displayed, beautiful, pristine, whole. Now it is beautiful, pristine, seemingly whole. The day Maria decided to have a tantrum and pushed the table with the vase on, I had no words, I couldn’t do or say anything seeing it smash. I had just walked down the stairs and saw the table being pushed. My ears had a hollow ring, hearing the smash sound on loop no other noises. I could see Stepan talking, but none of his words came through my ears. I just walked back up the stairs. My brain trying to process it. Maria wasn’t a threat, if she was a stranger or an enemy I would have given them a slow death, if it was a friend I don’t know what I would have done. But Maria, she was a child. She had no intent of harm; it was just childish behaviour. Yet the logic feels empty. Walking away was the only way; the right thing to do. One of the flowers is wrong. The part was put on wrong. The paint was perfect to everyone else, but to me, the mismatched flower screamed. It was a jagged reminder that once you are broken, you never truly fit back together the same way. I felt I was that flower. My life was a place I never belonged; I had to live in the shadows. The only time in the light was when I went to Lucio’s house believing he was my dad. His wife and daughter Caterina and Sophia made sure I never fit in with the family. They never wanted me to belong, to fit into their world. I hadn’t been feeling like myself for months, and seeing the shattered porcelain felt like looking into a mirror of my own self. It was a blessing in disguise; it forced me to remember I had never grieved for my mum. I made sure Ruslan didn’t kick Stepan out or beat him. The vase was then moved to the living room in a case protected and out of the way of hands. It was funny how when it happened, it broke my heart seeing it shatter, yet I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t upset, I felt nothing. Of course I wouldn’t get upset with Maria, one she was a child and two, it was everyone’s fault she was spoilt. That day kind of opened all our eyes and solved problems we all had hidden inside us. God has funny ways of helping us. Coming out of my thoughts, I see the clock and only a minute had passed. It’s funny how a thought or memory could be so quick yet feel as if you are re-living the full day. Making my way to the kitchen I got Maria’s lunch going. My mind wondering as I am keeping an eye on Maria. The past two years, I thought I was ok, I was normal, but I was going through a lot inside my mind. My emotions not knowing what to do, not knowing who I was. Turned out I was going through identity crisis; I felt like an imposter. Making Maria’s lunch, a chicken sandwich, I felt my mind trying to scream at me. I looked at my hands as I pulled out the bread and holding the knife. My hands were still, no shaking, steady. I was trained to hold a knife, to hold a sniper rifle for hours waiting for my target with out a flicker of movement. Yet as I spread the butter, the knife felt heavier than any blade I had ever used. My hands I have never paid attention to. Now I feel as if they belong to someone else. Today they are the wife’s hands, the aunty making sandwiches. Ono one can see, only me, the blood that stains these hands. The lives I took, the killings I have done. Seeing them as the assassin’s hands they felt normal. Looking at them as a wife, or aunty hands, they felt alien. The front door made a noise when it opened. I must have gave in to my thoughts about the knife as I never heard the key in the lock. Slipping my ‘I’m ok’ mask back on, I carried on making Maria’s sandwich. It was Natalie walking through the door. She looked tired, dropping her keys on the side, the sound sounding louder than normal. She kicked off her shoes with a sigh. Maria came running out of the living room screaming ‘MUMMY’. I was used to this as I always help with the babysitting, yet just now it felt louder. The scream hitting my brain like nails on a chalk board. I had never got a mother daughter bond as my mum died before I was one. Yet watching Natalie, it was something I couldn’t explain on how I felt. Watching Natalie scoop up Maria, that air of tiredness gone from her, felt like I was watching a movie I didn’t understand. I stayed standing at the counter making lunch in autopilot getting annoyed with myself as I never heard the click in the door. My old life the knife would have been flying, hitting the target as soon as they walked in, making sure they were injured so I could see if they were friend or foe. Just now, I never heard the click of the door, the keys rattling, nothing, just the squeak of the front door opening. I made Natalie some food as she had to eat. Natalie has recently gone back to work opening her business up again. She should have been part time, but lately she is going back to her old ways of working too much. I filed it away in my mind to let Stepan know. Natalie walked Maria into the living room, giving me a wave as she looked down the hallway to where I was. I released a breath I never knew I was holding. I got a few moments to myself, to get back to being the happy aunty, the good friend. Walking into the room, Natalie’s laughter at what Maria was saying felt alien to me. I took another deep silent breath when I sat down after giving Natalie and Maria their lunch. I tried to force the smile onto my lips, trying to make it look natural as Natalie added to the conversation. She was telling me about her day, her voice a hum of normalcy that felt like it was miles away. I pushed the darkness down, the feeling of being an imposter down. Right now, I need to be the woman they needed-the ‘aunty,’ the ‘friend,’ the ‘human.’ The misplaced part of me was screaming to come out, but I mentally stamped it down into the shadows inside me. I took a slow, hidden breath. Being this person was more exhausting than any stakeout or hike to find my target. Having a mask is exhausting, and mine was beginning to feel like lead.