The menstrual cycle arrived inexorably at the end of each month to destroy my dreams, fostered in those three, four days it was late.
Two, three, four times.
It was too much.
Too many hopes shattered...
We each thought that there was probably something wrong with the other, a mechanism that did not work properly, a spark that did not fire at the right time.
Then once I was ten days late: I did not talk about it, as if this could make my dream
unbreakable, but it was nothing more than a soap bubble, beautiful, iridescent, carried on the wings of the wind, but destined to vanish in a plof.
Silently I let the minutes flow by, and the days and weeks became months.
For almost two months I cradled the idea of a baby in my thoughts, a grain of life that could give meaning to mine, that illuminated the darkness of my existence.
For quite some time, after that night, I had no more tears to cry.
I was awakened from sleep by pangs in my lower abdomen that seemed to want to tear my bowels apart.
In silence, dragging myself, I managed to reach the bathroom where a horrendous discovery awaited me when I turned on the light.
My nightgown was soaked in blood at the level of the groin.
I remember screaming just once.
Then nothing.
Then only the vague memory of my husband trying to bring me back to my senses, taking me in the car wrapped in a blanket, then the doctors, the nurses like working bees around me, the bright lights on the bed illuminating my nudity.
My baby.
My baby.
Give me back my baby.
Give him back to me.
Where did you put him?
Where?
Where?
Where did you hide him?
Where did you take him?
It was too beautiful.
I know it was too good.
I felt as if I had gone crazy.
Nothing made sense anymore, nothing seemed important enough to me to live.
Filippo was almost always sitting by the side of my bed, but he didn't look at me, he didn't talk to me.
In those days of pain, his presence was of no comfort to me, partly because I believed that he was there only because the situation forced him to be, partly because I felt I was obliged to endure his presence.
It seemed to me that the few times he turned his gaze to me, pointing his black eyes at me, he blamed me without the possibility of appeal for not having been able to guard the life of our son.
One morning I woke up and Filippo was already there.
"So do you realize that you weren't even able to keep my son. What kind of woman are you, but what kind of filth are you, that you can’t even bring a child into the world!"
His eyes flashed at me, and I could not hold his gaze and lowered mine.
"You don't even have the courage to look at me, do you?"
He walked out, slamming the door, making such a loud noise that it made me jump.
Silent tears began to slide down my cheeks, and I missed my grandmother in a painful way.
I closed my eyes, wet with the tears and imagined her ancient hands caressing my neck and cheeks. It was as if I could smell her perfume and the feel softness of her breast where I wished I could lay my head even for an instant.
At that moment my mother came in.
I hadn't thought of calling her, but maybe Filippo had.
"You must have overdone it with that work you have and here you are!"
My grandmother's sweetness had not passed to her daughter, my mother, even the slightest bit.
Inexplicable how such a kind person could bring a woman so different from her into the world.
Who knows what my son would have been like?
"Do you have everything you need? Are they treating you well in here?"
My mother was practical and reliable, a perfect life planner, impeccable, but in terms of feelings she was completely arid.
I answered her with a tired smile, without a word.
"But, my star, you are neither the first nor the last to have had a miscarriage, cheer up, sulking won’t help!"
I opened my eyes again and looked at her, to see if maybe I was dreaming everything, instead she was there in front of me, with her hands on her hips.
