Child

Yolie:

—Come on, push.

I breathed raggedly, trying not to shed the tears caused by the all the pain and effort.
—That’s it, you’re doing great. Now, push again. – The obs-gy in charge encouraged me.
The moment I had waited for so long had finally come, eight months had passed in which I cared for and ensured the proper growth of the baby I had inside me, it was time for me to finally receive him in my arms.
I had been at home, and while I was sleeping I broke waters. I woke up scared on the wet sheets and mattress, I got a little hysterical to be honest… but I managed to focus and called Laisa, my neighbor and best friend, who helped me get to the hospital. All of that happened at three in the morning.
The gynecologist on duty greeted me with a crooked smile. I have known Osvy since our first year of medical school, he was one of my class mates at mates.
From very early on he was clear about what specialty he would do, and he always threatened to be present at my delivery. Ironically, seeing his own prophecy fulfilled…it put him in a slightly bad mood.
—Couldn’t you come earlier?-he demanded.
—I’m sorry, the loss of amniotic fluid woke me up and…
— It doesn’t matter anymore.
The examination that followed was more than awkward.
—Well, this child is about to come out. You’re four centimeters dilated, so… to the delivery room , let’s go!
And there I was, spread-eagled on the gynecology table, suffering the unspeakable to bring my son into the world. Each contraction felt like I was being ripped in half.
—That’s it, that’s it…let’s go,push just one more time!- he yelled at me.
*Damn Alex! Look where I’m because of you!* I cursed internally. *I hope you are burning in the fifth cauldron of hell!*
With that thought, and a mighty push, my son was born.

000
—He’s so beautiful. -murmured the nurse, handing him to me after bathing him. -Have you thought about the name you will give him?

I smiled. Kissing the rosy cheek of the cutest little thing in the world.

—Alejandro. His name will be Alejandro.
000

—Do you need anything else?- Laisa asked me. – Are you sure that with last night’s rush we didn’t forget something?
—Yes. I need some sanitary pads.- I replied.
—Are you still bleeding?
—Yes, but it’s normal, don’t worry.
I handed her my baby, I had fed him and he was asleep. Laisa walked over to the small hospital cot, gently laying the newborn down on it and looking at it earnestly.
—He’s got much hair.- she commented.- He is not even a day old but his little head is covered by a curly black bush.
— Yes..
—Does he look like his father?- she asked, then made a face.- Sorry, I know you don’t like to talk about him, but…
—Yes. He does look like Alex.- I answered.- He has his nose and his mouth.
And everything seems to indicate that he will have his unruly curls, too. I thought.
— Seems like he got from me the shape of the eyes, and the color of his hair.

—He’s so beautiful.

— That, he is.

In the months that followed…I suspected that while my son was human he wasn’t completely ordinary. Wherever we went, people came, as if drawn to him, they contemplate him and comment on how beautiful he was. I couldn’t help but smile proudly, from a shitty situation and a relationship that led nowhere, I got the greatest of treasures.
Over time, I realized that I had been wrong in one small detail… my little boy’s eyes were very similar to mine in terms of their shape, but otherwise, they were exactly the same as his father’s.
Their color changed, not depending on his mood, but depending on the weather. Sometimes they seemed a lighter or darker green and sometimes I found them gray or more like gold.
Besides, my boy was a bit cocky…he didn’t ask for attention, he demanded it. Not even a fly could touch him because he immediately would begin snorting until his discomfort unleashed a tantrum that wasn’t easily calmed and afterwards, when he learned to walk, he would touch everything, grabbing all the object which called his attention in his little hand and each new one he studied carefully turning it in this or that direction, like attempting to comprehend all their hidden uses.
— Could it be, he wants to be come an inventor? – Laisa asked me on one occasion, I had gone back to work, she offered to take care of him until he started school, for a reasonable salary, obviously. I came back from the clinic to find that the tiny rascal had opened apart an old radio she kept.

—Maybe…but for now, I think he’s just curious about how things work. Was he good?- I asked.
—Yes, he was wonderful. – she answered quickly and my suspicions were immediately raised.
— You gave him ice cream, didn’t you?- I asked.
— I had no choice. He asked for it putting that little angel face of his… and you know how he is…

That’s another thing, Ale had his own form of compulsion, his little smile and that “ it wasn’t me “ face of his convinced others to give him whatever he asked for… But sometimes…

— You know, if I hadn’t…
— You would have had to deal with a miniature version of a Tasmanian demon.
I sighed sadly. While taking my one year old son in my arms.
— He’s not bad Yolie, he’s just a child.
— I know. His vanilla ice cream addiction isn’t new, it was the only craving I had during pregnancy. It can be said that he liked having it even before he was born…it’s the other thing that worries me. I don’t want him to grow up believing he deserves it all, I don’t want him to learn that throwing tantrums is always rewarded with what he wants. I’m a lousy mother.- I whimpered.
— You are not, you are raising him all by yourself, in an unbeatable wayi might add. It’s logical that you want to give your child what you couldn’t have…
It was very difficult. Being a single and first time mother. I was so afraid of messing everything up. Extremes are always bad, if I was too accommodating, Ale would end up being selfish and self-centered (like his father), but if on the other hand, I was too strict, he could come to hate me, like my great-grandfather did his own mother, they broke their relationship by their inability of understanding each other.
I was afraid, very afraid of making the same mistakes as in the past.

*****
Abu Gurayab Prison, Iraq
The prisoner looked at the wall of his cell. According to his calculations, it had been a full year since he had been first deprived of his liberty.
The lines drawn on the wall resembled wounds, he caressed the line he had just drawn, every day he stayed away from the woman he loved increased the danger that she would forget him.
He was scared.
A terrible fear had taken possession of his soul, he lived in constant agony at the thought that he would die here, locked up, incommunicado and being treated like an animal. The tortures did not hurt him, the blows did not cause him pain. His suffering was internal. His agony would only find relief when he saw himself in the arms of his much yearned woman.
He had been a fool. He had been a fool to let her slip through his fingers so easily. Now he knew exactly what his arrogance and blindness had cost him. He had given her up for the stupidest reasons in the world. He had believed that he did not deserve her, had convinced himself that it was best to let her go, that he had hurt her too much, that he had broken her heart and that the girl would not really forgive him. Not to the point of giving him a second chance.
— Sé agapó, mikrí mou mágissa.
Were the last words he said to his beloved, before disappearing from Villa Philipides. When he suddenly found himself inside that cave he thought thousands of things, hours later the soldiers found him wandering aimlessly through the mountain and took him prisoner.
A year had passed, three hundred and sixty-five days of pure and constant agony. What if she doesn’t love me anymore? What if she has already forgotten me? What if she has found in another man what I refused to give her? The prisoner martyres himself with his thoughts.
In his dark and damp cell he has understood that his true enemy are not the soldiers who hold him against his will, but the inexorable passage of time.