Imperfect

Chapter 2

Do you understand? Does everyone understand?

I"m not here to ask for permission, I really hope you understand, but that"s what I have to do.

I have been alone all my life, I have taken care of her without ever feeling I was up to it. No aunt, I will not make a sacrifice. I will not sacrifice myself. You don"t negate yourself to save someone else, that"s what I was taught. She taught me that, my mother, and I"m still afraid of disappointing her, but if I wasn"t here, now, to tell you my decision, the person I would disappoint would be me.

So I"m just telling you that I no longer take the responsibility for her health and safety, I’ve always done it alone because in this family you roll up your sleeves and go it alone, but I don"t agree. Today I am aware that I have completely different ideas and that they are not wrong just because they are not shared. I think I should have been supported by a competent and qualified person when I was younger and I still think so. I’m taking back my life and my role. I no longer want to be my mother"s caregiver, worry about what she might need in the middle of the night, take her out with the constant tension of seeing her become ill in an embarrassing way, feel that I am completely alone and burdened with all the responsibilities that were never mine, that were assigned to me, imprisoned in four walls watching my life on hold, for all this, indefinitely

I won"t stand and watch, I can"t anymore.I am fed up with subordinating my needs and my plans. Deep down I can no longer put up with being afraid to move around the house and be told that I have to do something and have to cancel what I had planned for my day. I want to go back to spending time with my mom with the pleasure of doing it, without feeling obliged, I want to go back to having fun with her, to be able to live it with peace and tranquility. Voluntarily.

I am ready to hear anything you say to me, to endure it, but this is the moment when I really love myself and I can no longer allow myself to cross another limit to the point of destruction.

Not even to myself. From today I return to being my mother"s daughter; I might be selfish, insensitive and irresponsible, but perhaps this is really the only way to save myself and the relationship between me and her.

Without perhaps.

I think that"s what it"s all about."

The dog looked at her with his ears raised, his tongue hanging out dripping from the heat.

Zoe sighed devastated, sitting in front of Luna. Luna stood up and walked away wagging her tail.

She wiped her tears, feeling suffocated by pain and the fear of how they would judge her.

She was determined to do it, though.

She had never felt so confident and adamant.

This is how it had to be, it was right, if they needed assistance and support they would find a way to get help from those who were able to provide it.

Not her, not anymore.

The serene face of her therapist flashed before her eyes, with a smile both gentle and firm as he had told her "It"s your right, Zoe."

She had to hold that word tightly in her hands if she wanted to get through this.

"Hey babe, how are you?"

"I feel like someone who"s going to the gallows," she confessed, feeling her heart beating out of control, as it had been doing for days.

Matteo planted a kiss on her bangs and put the car into gear.

He had come to pick her up after work to accompany her to her aunt"s house where she had called a meeting.

Zoe gripped her fingers on her thighs all the way, and totally ignored the landscape flowing by outside the windoow, focused as she was on breathing and swallowing.

In her head she was repeating the speech from memory; she did not want to seem aggressive and selfish, but instead exasperated and determined not to change her mind.

She had only one life.

Sooner or later they would understand, but she was afraid that her mother would never look her in the face again.

She wanted to be strong enough to really let everything they said about her decision slip off her. She shook her head and composed herself. NO, everything would be fine.

Matteo"s hand appeared in her field of vision, he squeezed her knee hard.

"Relax, little one. You’re not saying anything absurd, you are right and you have every right to not let your life, your college career and your needs be the most important thing for you. Time doesn’t wait and everything you want to build for your future can only be done in the present. Now. It"s more than legitimate."

She looked into his eyes and that gentle smile gave her strength. Matteo was like an inexhaustible source of hope and comfort.

The smile soon turned into a grin, and he strangled a laugh.

"If the worse comes to the worst and they raise their pitchforks I can always wait for you in the car with the engine running."

They were all around the table.

Her aunt, a violin string: elegant, very tense, thin; her cousin Giorgia: a wild cat, with large and deep eyes, a thin smile and a series of expressions and gestures of inaccessible origin.

Yes, it wasn"t a crowded meeting, actually. Matteo was next to her, holding her hand.

The yellowish light of the living room hid the low, dark clouds that covered the sky.

"Well," Zoe began and felt she couldn"t remember a word of the carefully prepared speech. The only time she had felt like this was at the high school exam on the biology question.

Her mind was a dark hollow cave, in which there was all the space in the world and not a single word on the subject.

She looked at her cousin who winked at her, complicit.

Matteo imperceptibly tightened his grip around her fingers. She couldn"t wait any longer, her thoughts were champing at the bit to get out, and all she could do was open her heart and pray that no-one would stab her.

The sound of the key in the door echoed in the silence of the apartment building.

Zoe"s hands were sweaty and trembling almost invisibly.

Matteo was behind her. He stopped in the entrance and with a smile encouraged her to go to her mother.

It was simple, she had to go to her and say only three words:

‘Mom, I"m leaving’.

What did it take.