Ana Oliveira

**Present day...**


I don’t know how many days I spent like this, crying, while the memory of him kicking me out right after our intimate moment replayed in my mind.
I took care of my daughter, but could barely leave the house. I didn’t take her to daycare, I didn’t clean the house, I barely bathed. My hair was like a tangled bird’s nest on my head, with days and days without a brush. Having Josiah so close had hurt so much more than the distance. I felt so foolish, so stupid. How could I have trusted him, only for him to break me again?
Again.
And again!
Josiah was finally managing to mess with my head, weaving his web of revenge, planting a terrible guilt inside me. Was that the plan after all? To destroy whatever sanity I had left? He could have left me imprisoned; it would have been less painful than this perpetual fire he was throwing me into.
I spent the days looking at that baby, with her dark blonde hair slowly showing signs of turning brown, big, perfect eyes, and thinking about what a shitty mother I was.
Julia wandered around the living room carpet, running with a pink pacifier in her mouth, laughing to herself.
Was I taking something precious away from her?
Would my daughter hate me in the future for keeping her from being with her father?
What would she choose if she were grown?
Was it fair to make her choose?
That last question made me realize what a failure I was. Not with him; I wanted Josiah to burn in the deepest hell, along with that bitch Isabela, his friends, and that shitty studio he had been working on full throttle these past few days. I was being unfair to what I had most precious: my little girl.
It was a cloudy Thursday, but as hot as the embers of a fire. During the day, I had an online session with Rita, my therapist. It was heavy to have to name the things I felt, to throw out the truths I didn’t even want to accept. Much worse was hearing the advice that usually came from the thick lips of the middle-aged woman with braided hair and thin, arched eyebrows, that everything would only get better inside me when I left that house, when I escaped his presence, and when I gave Josiah what was his right: to be a father. "Has your ex done anything to show he would be a danger to your daughter?" Rita kept insisting on that question. The answer would depend on who you asked. If you asked Mrs. Helena, she would certainly say he was dangerous, frightening... But deep in my heart, I knew Josiah didn’t pose a danger to Julia.
My problem was that I couldn’t separate the harm I suffered, the harm he caused, from the daughter we had together. The wounds pierced me so deeply, they were so profound, that I felt it wasn’t fair to let that man still be her father. To be so close...
In the end, it was all for nothing.
He forced the coexistence.
He came back.
He left the damn army and came to live next door.
Rita reminded me that the decision for Josiah to be involved with Julia or not was not mine. She reinforced that it was me and only me who needed less contact with my ex. Not my daughter.
The therapist used to say to get away from the house I lived in, from those memories, to reach a healing of all those wounds. Ha! That would never happen because I was incapable of forgetting, or of leaving the only living, solid memory I had of the people I loved so much.

My mind drifted back to the bar day, to the memories of that night. It took forever for the stains from our kitchen encounter to fade from my skin. My body ached, covered in bruises from hickeys and squeezes, as if I had been beaten. It was even Luana who picked up my baby from her grandmother and brought her to my house because I didn’t want Marta to see my disgrace, my face marked by his fingers, or the bruises on my neck revealing that I had given in, that I was weak...
Luana was supposed to come today. She had just defended her thesis and was back at her aunt's house for an indefinite time. It reminded me of our teenage years, when my friend lived in the pink house, hung out with her cousin, Bernardo, and we formed that unshakable group with Isabela, solid as a rock. Who would have thought that the sneaky cracks silently appearing would completely break our bond, devastating all the feelings that existed, breaking each of us a little?
There were two losses... But five completely broken young people. I think the only one who was somewhat better off was Luana. Isabela, poor thing, had been a mess since we met. I smiled bitterly, staring at the damn tiny tattoo on my left wrist. An emoji that was ours, that described us, a little “poo” with two eyes popping out of it. I needed to cover that crap!
I remembered what Luana said about my embarrassment at the bar. It was supposed to be a happy night, but I ended up beating up that bitch, having to leave Josiah’s house in a towel, with the neighbors watching, increasing my reputation around the condo, which wasn’t great to begin with...
I looked again at the mark of our extinct friendship, the tattoo we got secretly when we were sixteen.
Isabela would never forgive me.
Josiah would never forgive me.
I wouldn’t forgive them!
The truth is he broke me, he broke everything he touched... I was so blinded that I messed up everything, and that would never be fixed.
I would live with that shadow, and it was fine.
It wasn’t fine at all!
“Mama!” Julia shouted, pulling me out of that vicious cycle of thoughts. When I looked at her, she was shaking and her face was completely flushed. “Poop!”
I ran to clean her up. Oh, I loved being a mother so much, but that week with my baby out of daycare was killing me. I was exhausted, drained, tired...
I didn’t notice the day passing, barely seeing the houses’ lights turning on outside, the moon already waging a war with the clouds, longing to dominate the sky alone.
I sat on the living room couch, staring at the TV showing the six o'clock soap opera, with my mind wandering while Julia lay clinging to one of my breasts, deeply asleep.
“Oh, friend... What a mess!” Luana said, pointing out my shabby appearance, lowering her tone at the end of the sentence when she noticed the baby was asleep.
I had left the door open for her to come in without knocking. It was a relief to feel that I would finally have a friend again, someone who understood me.
I noticed her healthy appearance, sun-tanned and showing the marks where the bikini had rested on her skin.
“Did you go to the beach?” I asked, going to the playpen and placing the sleeping baby inside it. “Do you want some juice?”
“Yes, for both of us!” she said, following me into the kitchen. “You’re less bruised, congratulations!”
“Oh, don’t remind me of that mess, please! I’m trying to clear my mind of it...” I said, grabbing a bottle of orange juice.
“Juice from a bottle? Friend, you’re really down... What a destructive dick Josiah has!”
“Oh, just stop!” I snapped, also grabbing a bunch of grapes from the fridge and sitting down.
“Seriously, you’re super upset just over a quickie in the kitchen... Imagine if he had really fucked you? Ana, you’d be buried,” she mocked, making me laugh for the first time in days.
I felt my cheeks burning.
“It was all downhill from there... I’m even scared of nights out now.”
“Oh, just don’t drink hard liquor. Have beer when we go out again,” she whispered. “I won’t say it loudly, or I’ll be the next one to be strangled. Because you know Josiah told me not to give you any drinks, right?”