CHAPTER306
“Like this, Tesoro.” Sylvana’s soothing voice is close to my ear as she molds my hands in the bowl of dough. “Gentle and delicate so the Gnocchi stays fluffy.” She smiles and pulls away as I continue the motion she’s shown me. I have a strange surge of emotion at her tender touch and the way she brushed my hair from my face with a smile. My affection for Sylvana is unlike the affection I have for Margo or even Wilma, there is something more, something deeper. I feel like I can come to her with anything, even cry over Jake, and she would embrace me with those loving, deep green, eyes with maternal security and just love me no matter what. I know she would never pick sides between us in our silly arguments and when he hurt me, she had been just so angry with him on my behalf.
Sophie is making a mess on the large table with a lot of flour and a lot of hand flapping and energetic slapping sounds but smiling widely as Sylvana moves to calm the frantic pounding of her small delicate hands in her own heavy bowl. Sylvana’s guiding touch is not rejected by the young girl either and I smile to myself.
It’s incredible knowing that her touch, so effortlessly, seems to be able to break through the force-fields that Sophie and I have; two kindred souls who used to recoil at human contact in any form and yet here we both were.
Leila is leaning over watching Sylvana, working through a bowl of shelled nuts, with a magazine in one hand lazing in the kitchen after showing up for lunch. It’s obvious she’s bored, mulling over something, and she hasn’t been her chatting sparkling self but neither does she seem upset. Leila is one of those people who lets you know when she wants to talk and is very good at saying nothing at all if she doesn’t. She just seems happy to watch us learn to cook Italian food and revel in the atmosphere.
It’s all so very relaxed and I cast my mind to where I would be right now if Jake and I had never embraced what we were to each other … probably decked out in tight tailored clothing and a set of stilettos on the sixty-fifth no doubt; stressed over contract briefs or mundane issues with financing and listening to Jake going off like a boar on the phone to some incompetent person. The thought doesn’t bring me any sense of regret or loss at all. I don’t even feel a spark of missing the offices, just the people, which is odd. For the first five years, I worked there I made no long-term bonds with anyone in that building, until Jake. He somehow infected me from the word go and changed my entire outlook on the people I worked beside.
“I think you’re maybe killing it, Sophie, dear.” Sylvana chides gently, bringing my thoughts back to the present, and I can’t help but watch with adoration as the two of them stand side by side bringing the bowl of mess to order. There’s something so complete about the whole scene at this very moment, watching someone who is truly maternal, working with a child she treats as her own, giving healing to a girl who needs it with such a simple domestic task. Simply giving her time and patient attention in safety, trusting that no one will hurt her here or would let anyone else for that matter and as I watch the same love in Leila’s eyes. I see now that maybe Sylvana did that for Leila too.
I know Leila came through the same channels as Sophie did as a child. Sylvana’s charity is completely embroiled in taking children in from abusive pasts and I realize, in this kitchen I am among kindred spirits and I never really thought about it before. I’m not the only one with scars and memories that haunt my dreams sometimes. I’m in the fold of two other beautiful young women who have their own demons and came out the other side happier and hopeful because they let people in again and learned to trust. They both sit here now, mere reflections of who they once were, smiles and genuine laughter in the knowledge they found a better, safer loving place. I’m the outcast I used to be, I’m one of them.
The warmth of the kitchen and the peaceful serene atmosphere. This is what I need. This is what I’ve missed out on my entire life; a mother, a real loving maternal mother who cared enough to show her children how to heal, cook, how to improve themselves and it doesn’t matter that she isn’t related by blood. She changed the lives of at least two of us in some way and her son has done the same for me.
I’m happy here with her and with him because I needed this somehow, in my life. I needed that kind of nurturing love and guidance, to show me how to be nurturing and kind to myself, so I could become whole again. Learning how to let others have a little piece of my heart. Jake found that little scared Emma, locked down tight in the corner of that terrifying dark room, and he slid his arms around her softly, told her it was okay to trust him, to let him save her from the dark recesses of her life and lead her out to the light. To let him protect her and he did, still does and always will; in a way that I know he learned from her … Sylvana, the woman who without realizing it, nurtured the man of my dreams into a replica of herself.
I watch, with a tear in my eye, the smiling happy faces in front of me, absorbed in such a simple task, aglow with life and genuine contentment. Emotion coursing through me for this family, even if we’re not all related by blood, that’s what we are. Jake isn’t just giving me a family by loving me and having a child. He’s sharing his entire family with me, showing me I’m so effortlessly accepted. They are all my family too.
My heart expands achingly at the thought. This kind of unconditional love that so many take for granted, and here it is, a gift being given to me so selflessly. They have no idea what it means.
I want this kind of purpose. This kind of touch on the world. I want to find others like me instead of hiding from life and locking myself away, take them by the hand and draw them to the light, show them their world doesn’t need to be so cold and alone. I want to make Jake proud and do to others what he’s done for me. He gave me courage and hope. He taught me to look at the person I have become and not the person I was cowering behind in the darkness. He taught me to let people in.
I want to be like her, Sylvana Carrero, a genuine heart who reaches in and pulls out the parts of children they’ve hidden away for fear of being hurt again. Smothering them with a mother’s love and gentle touch. I want to be like Jake, refusing to see only the walls we put up, looking beyond, at someone worth coaxing out. Being strong enough to bypass all the walls and the shields and anger to find that soul inside.
I saved Sophie from a life of pain. In that moment in Chicago it was the first time of my own existence I felt worthwhile, in some small way, being her protector and drawing her away to a better life was my one defining moment, and I want it again. I want to see more Sophies and more Leilas shining in the world, pushing through from the darkness, finding their way into kitchens like Sylvana’s and the lives of parents like the Huntsbergers.
For too long I’ve denied my past and let it consume me, ashamed and blaming myself for what was done to me. But I’ve realized that true release from the memories came when I let them out and shared them with Jake; shared them with someone capable of loving me without seeing any blame or disgust in what I had to tell him, and now, I want to do that for others too. I want to be a better person than the empty shell who existed for so long, I want to be the person who saves myself and continues to do so, now they have shown me the way.
I gaze down at my stomach and run a protective hand across it softly. I want to be someone nurturing and warm, whose children will be proud of them, someone children will run to and embrace in the knowledge that I’ll always keep them safe and always, always, put them first no matter what. I’ll never let anyone, not even Jake, come between me and my children or inflict any kind of pain on them in any way."
