Ana Oliveira

Present Day...


A whole month had passed since your call. A month and two weeks since the ultimatum I gave to the man I loved. A month of feeling as though I was reliving the pain of our breakup.
Although it hurt deeply to live in anticipation of what might happen—whether he would be able to commit fully or not—I was resolute in my decision. I no longer wanted crumbs or so much suffering. The game of love and hate was finally over. We would either love each other cleanly or not at all.
I groaned, moving my right hand slightly, opening and closing my fingers. I had to do the damned physical therapy, but it was so frustrating. The professional assisting with my hand’s movements was patient, saying persistence was needed to achieve better results. But the truth was that a peripheral nerve injury left sequelae and loss of movement, which could be mitigated. In my case, the sensitivity of my hand was affected; sometimes I felt tingling in the skin of that limb.
The sudden pain in my hand reminded me of the reasons that led me to the back of the car. Marta was in Europe with her online boyfriend, Luana was in class for her Master’s on the other side of the city and hadn't answered my calls. Nobody was picking up. And since Júlia’s father was throwing a party, I left home, frustrated, wanting to go anywhere far from my house. I ended up with my water breaking right in front of the condominium entrance. It was the doormen who helped me and took me to the hospital.
I felt so scared when I learned I had to have a C-section because there wasn’t enough dilation for a natural birth. I felt abandoned since Lucah had said he was coming but never arrived. And then there was Jow...
Of course, I knew that not having Josiah there was largely my fault, but I was so frightened, having contractions with no way to push the baby out, being prepared for surgery, that I cursed.
I swore at my ex-boyfriend, repeatedly yelling “bastard” and startling the obstetrician.
I opened and closed my right hand, staring at the strange movement of my index finger. I raised my open hand in front of me, observing every piece and thinking about how I felt broken, defective. I took a deep breath, trying to push away the memories but being overwhelmed by them against my will. I kept drifting back to the moment I first saw my baby.
It was supposed to be the most magical moment of my life, and seeing my baby’s swollen little face was truly special. But the fear I felt, sensing something was wrong, ruined it all. There was a pressure in my chest whispering that something bad was about to happen, that it wasn’t normal to be alone at that moment. I spent a lonely day in the hospital, battling fear and pride, but didn’t have the courage to call Josiah or Isabela. The day after giving birth, Jonas showed up in distress and told me about Lucah’s car accident, how he had skidded and was hit head-on by another vehicle. My friend had spent an entire day in the ICU but didn’t survive his injuries. It was so awful to hear that my daughter’s uncle had died while on his way to see her birth... I was in shock. I didn’t even react at first; I just said I wanted to go to the funeral. I needed to say goodbye. It was devastating to leave the hospital the morning after hearing the news, being discharged only to go straight to a wake, leaving my newborn baby with Dona Helena, an elderly woman who could barely stand but still offered to care for my baby so I could attend the wake.
I let a tear slip, struggling against those damn memories. I scratched my arms in a habitual movement I made when feeling restless. It was so painful to recall those moments, but the memories came back like a wrecking ball in my head, forcing me to remove the barriers from my brain and set them free.
I remembered Luana crying uncontrollably over her cousin’s body, but the heavier memory was that Marta couldn’t arrive in time and was devastated... Her son was buried without her presence, but that bastard Cristian was there. He didn’t shed a tear, staring at his son with a clenched jaw. It was too much for me, and, trying to avoid suffering further, I left without waiting for the burial, after saying a final goodbye to Lucah, who looked like he was sleeping. I preferred to remember him that way, without seeing shovels of dirt reminding me that his body was lifeless.

When I got home, supported by Jonas, who seemed to be on medication just to get me there, I went straight to pick up my baby from Dona Helena. My heart had been shattered from losing another loved one. As I walked into my house, trying to ignore the fact that Josiah’s party was still in full swing and that he hadn’t even attended his brother's funeral, I did my best to care for my newborn. I was in pain from breastfeeding, grieving the loss of Lucah, and frustrated with Marta being in Europe with no estimated arrival until the next day. My mind was a mess, and when Josiah cranked up the damn enormous speakers in his car, I lost it. Júlia started crying from the loud, heavy rock music that shook the walls of my house. With the baby wailing, I went back to Dona Helena’s house, leaving her with the baby and asking her to help calm her down.
I saw red behind my eyes, unable to rest due to the noise and his lack of empathy. At least that’s what I thought at the time—believing Jow knew I was home with our daughter and was deliberately keeping the party going to torment me. I remember the sequence of events clearly but also in fragments. I grabbed a crowbar from home, ignoring my post-surgery recovery, rushed to his truck, and tried to smash the enormous speakers. My abdomen hurt, but I was so angry that I channeled all my frustration into destroying the equipment. After a while, I felt Josiah’s hands forcing me to let go of the crowbar, his drunken voice pleading for me to stop while he pulled me into his chest, pressing my back against him. I was groaning in pain and sadness... and then everything fell apart. I felt him letting me go as he shouted for Bernardo, but my feet were too close to the edge of the truck bed, and when he ran, I lost my balance and fell. I instinctively turned, landing sideways on a wooden crate on the street pavement. I tried to brace the fall with my hand, but it only resulted in a complete break, the wood shattering and piercing my forearm, hitting the nerve. The force of the fall fractured the bones, and since the break was so delicate, even holding things became a challenge. Holding a glass of water was an ordeal. I had to undergo surgery to fix the fracture and had my hand immobilized for months. Unfortunately, the deformities in my index, middle, and ring fingers couldn’t be corrected because I had shattered the metacarpal region and the phalanges. The initial surgical error doomed any chance of fixing the index and ring fingers, and the second surgery was only for damage control. Besides the pain and discomfort, I was grieving my friend, and that death brought back reminders of everyone else I had lost. I didn’t fall apart completely because I had a little one who needed me—a baby I loved and would never abandon, no matter what happened.