mia

she arrived just in time to pick up elena that night. you opened the door and there she was, hat turned backward, her usual hoodie and a cross necklace, no makeup, just her awkward smile.

“lena is ready?”

“she’s finishing packing up,” you answered quicker than you intended to, avoiding her eyes.

“okay.” daniela breathed, looking down at her sides as she waited.

it was awkward. the wound from the session earlier still burned heavily between you. elena would be downstairs in a minute and you didn’t want to start a fight by asking anything. yet it slipped out of your lips.

“you wanna come in?” you quickly added. “to wait for lena.”

daniela stepped into your house, her movements a little stiff as she looked around. the walls used to have pictures of both of you. now they were only of lena, some containing you too, laughing, holding your daughter in your arms, but not daniela anywhere in sight.

daniela wondered if one day there would be another person’s pictures all over your walls with her daughter. the mere thought of it stung more than she would ever acknowledge.

she went to the living room and sat down on the couch. she touched the necklace, something that often seemed to give her comfort for some reason. you followed after her in quiet steps.

“lena! sweetheart, mami is here!” you yelled for elena upstairs, hearing her little steps on the upper floor going faster as she ran around packing up. probably just choosing the stuffed animal she wanted.

daniela bounced her feet on the floor, the memories of the session just hours ago still too fresh for her to dare look at you. you knew she felt shame for what she did. you felt it too.

“want some coffee?” you heard yourself saying. there was such casualness in your words, definitely not what you felt at the moment.

daniela looked up at you. after today, she wasn’t sure you were trustworthy enough not to poison her coffee.

“coffee?” she echoed.

“yes.”

she sighed, then swallowed way too harshly. she opened her mouth and closed it a few times, not knowing exactly what to say.

“it’s just coffee. yes or no?” you rolled your eyes. there it was, the annoying, expectant voice of her ex-wife. daniela almost sighed with relief at your now normal behavior. she was way too used to you being irritated and upset with her. after today especially, it would be way too weird for you to be nice.

“no, i’m good,” she said.

“okay,” you answered.

the silence was too loud, nothing but elena’s soft steps upstairs. daniela kept her leg bouncing on the floor, anxious, nervous perhaps. she couldn’t look at your face, so she focused on the picture above the coffee table. you and elena in a zoo. you were holding her in your arms and behind you there was an elephant, unaware of the picture, of course. daniela had taken that picture. she was there that day. it had been such a happy, amazing day.

elena had lost her favorite stuffed animal, a bunny gifted by daniela’s mother years ago. elena carried the toy everywhere and couldn’t sleep without it. it was a nightmare. she was so stressed, couldn’t sleep. you and daniela tried to be patient, then tried to be serious and then harsh, but days passed and elena still couldn’t sleep through the whole night.

on saturday, dani woke up in a good mood for no specific reason. she woke you up with kisses on your face and told you to get ready to take elena for a little walk. she went to elena’s room and found the little girl awake, eyes puffy and slightly red. she sat by the edge of the bed and to this day she couldn’t forget what lena told her.

“please don’t be mad i’m awake,” she mumbled, her voice sleepy, a little grumpy.

“i’m not mad,” dani said softly. her fingers found one of the messy curly strands of lena’s mane and put it behind her ear. “it’s just… you have so many other toys to hug at night, sweetie. don’t you think you should try one of them out? just for a night?”

“you have mama to hug at night. would you try another out?” she had a little mischievous smile and daniela’s eyes widened as she gave a nervous laugh.

“you got me, you little brat.”

she remembered well the way lena really laughed for the first time in days at her own joke. she was her mother’s daughter, after all.

after breakfast, daniela drove all of you to the zoo. elena was happy, yes, but dani remembered more of your happiness, the way you looked at her, far more than love in your sparkling eyes. admiration, perhaps, even pride. she had solved the problem, she had been a good, great parent and had both you and your little girl smiling to the wind, with something so simple and special as family bonding time.

she bought ice cream for all of you. lena had chocolate, you had strawberry and daniela had vanilla. she passed an arm around your shoulders as you walked to the next exhibition.

“it’s good?” she asked, signaling to the ice cream in your hand.

“perfect.” you nodded. she gave you a kiss on the cheek, so casual, so intimate, so natural for her.

you looked at her.

your expression… the very same expression she had seen the day elena was brought into this world, just a little softer, without your hair damp and the exhaustion on your face. the very same expression she saw the other day as you read lena a bedtime story, the same one you had when she bought you flowers on your first real date. the look of love, they said. it had the corners of your lips turned upwards, the fondness and warmth in your gaze making her feel that familiar pride in her chest, the pride of deserving it, deserving your dilated pupils, your gaze, to have your heart beating faster and your soft smile, to have your love, your rage, and every emotion, just because you cared enough.

“you’re making that face again,” daniela observed, an almost shy smile touching her glossed lips.

“am i?” you teased, then chuckled, giving your ice cream another lick. the sweet flavor would be tasted by daniela in minutes, from your own lips. at the moment, though, elena called, amazed by the elephants drinking water a few meters away. daniela took a few pictures of you and lena, then asked an old lady to take a picture of the three of you.

the last picture, however, wasn’t there.

she wasn’t there, not a single picture of her on the walls. she had been washed away from your house, and she knew you wished she had been washed away from your life. she wished the same for you. she would like to feel that way, at least, but the roots of her hate lay in the fact that you hated her.

elena went downstairs seconds later, her pigtails wagging as she jumped into daniela’s arms with her pink and yellow backpack. her smile, with missing teeth, was what eased the tension in the room. soon enough, you found yourself alone in the house again, watching as daniela’s car drove away from your street, elena – who you had kissed on the cheeks enough times for her to be annoyed – safely sitting in the backseat.

you poured yourself some wine and sat down on the white couch, the same place daniela had taken minutes ago. you missed the sound of little steps patting the floor, her careless laughter, and for a second you missed daniela too, her hummed spanish songs as she showered or brushed lena’s hair, her enthusiastic yapping whenever she was feeling more talkative, her gentle voice calling you “mi cielo”, urging you to hurry to bed.

in daniela’s new apartment, however, silence wasn’t an option. megan, her best friend, who happened to be her new neighbor since daniela had moved in, had decided to come for a quick visit, just to check on elena after the week without her. it resulted in an entire hour of video game sessions while daniela made elena dinner — now for megan too.

“it’s getting late… lena needs to sleep.”

“just one more round, mami,” lena begged. megan, by her side, only nodded.

“yeah, mami, one more round.”

daniela rolled her eyes, but had a fond smile on her face.

when she finally managed to get elena into bed and megan out of her apartment, it was 11 pm. elena was still full of energy, so dani decided to read her a book: candy, the cat.

elena’s room was still a work in progress. she had her bed, a few clothes, her pink lampshade, her decorating stars shining on the ceiling. something still felt off to daniela, like something was missing. perhaps something that only you could notice and change. she would never know. she would never ask.

however, it was pleasant enough, like the scent of elena’s apple shampoo as the girl played with her doll’s hair by dani’s side. she was at that age when her body didn’t stay still, and dani found it so adorable how her bare feet kept swinging in the air.

“mami.”

“yes?”

she was in the middle of the book, right before candy the cat leaves the forest. elena’s eyes were on the beautiful, caricature drawings all over the pages. her body felt tired, and she hoped that elena wouldn’t still be fully awake and energetic by the time the drawings lost their captivity and the story reached its happy ending.

“what size is a kitten when it’s born?”

“mmh… pretty small, it fits in a hand.”

“my hand or your hand?”

“my hand.”

elena caught one of daniela’s hands. it looked bigger compared to her own, chubby and small. she examined it for a minute.

“hmm… what size was i when i was born?”

daniela smiled at the very memory. she let the book rest on her lap and put both her hands side by side.

“hmm. about this size. pretty small too.”

elena chuckled softly. she rested her head on dani’s shoulder and looked at her mother’s hands together.

“cats are born bald?”

“yes. so were you.”

daniela’s smile was devoted as she heard her daughter laugh again, the soft sound a balm to any stress she had felt the entire day.

“mama said i was born like you.”

“yeah? i bet that makes her crazy, hm?”

“mmh… no.” the little girl’s tone was naive, innocent, unaware of the nature of her mami’s question. “she likes it, she said.”

and then something changed. dani’s smile dropped, her heart beat faster. she blinked a few times, trying to process the simple words in her mind.

you liked it. you liked that elena was just like her other mother. you didn’t hate daniela.

“really?”

“uhum.” lena’s feet kept bouncing in the air, her little hands still fumbling with her doll’s hair, her eyes on the engravings of the book, so full of color and humanlike animals. “she said she likes it when i remind her of you…”

her heart stopped for a moment. a sense of realization came into her eyes. elena didn’t seem to notice, thankfully, how her mami’s demeanor had changed. the memories of you saying you hated daniela, the memories of screams and shouts, old familiar fights, some that happened over and over again like an old script you both kept repeating for the sake of your own pride… it added new light to that same old feeling. you didn’t hate her. how could you, when you had birthed a smaller and softer version of her? dani couldn’t hide the smile on her face.

elena took a little longer to fall asleep. daniela felt like she would take forever to fall asleep herself as she lay on her own bed. above the bedside table rested a lampshade, a few sleeping pills, her watch and her phone, which seemed to call for her.

moved by whatever impulse, she picked it up quickly, without thinking much. she searched your contact name. she hit the call button and regretted it the very second it started ringing. she would have hung up, if you hadn’t picked up so fast.

“hello?” your voice was still raspy, as if you had been quiet for a long time. yet you didn’t sound sleepy. you had been wide awake.

“hello,” daniela answered.

“what happened? is elena okay?”

“yeah, she’s okay, she’s asleep,” she quickly reassured you. “i just thought that we could talk about today’s session.”

she heard your sigh through the phone.

“we shouldn’t talk about this outside therapy.”

“why not? it’s our relationship.”

“daniela—”

“c’mon.” she caught herself frowning again, but breathed out, closing her eyes for a second, reminding herself of the words elena had said earlier, naively. “just… i don’t think it’s fair. the question was for both of us. only i answered. when did you notice our marriage ended?”

“that was not the question.”

“whatever, same thing.”

daniela noticed herself losing patience as the seconds ticked by. you had the same effect on her as you did before, making her eyes roll and the immature side of her surface like nothing else could.

“you’re gonna think it’s stupid.” your voice sounded… suddenly small. sweet, even, if daniela listened closely enough. this caught her off guard. the same old feeling she had of wanting to comfort your broken heart and make you cry at the same time welcomed her like an old friend, never really gone. she had to take a second to answer.

“i won’t. just tell me.” it sounded real enough.

she listened to the sound of your breathing for another minute. she didn’t press harder. daniela didn’t dare breathe too loudly. she stayed still, practically listening to the sound of the engines running in your head.

“lena’s sixth birthday.” your voice was a whisper, but it was there. “she wanted a big party with princess sofia’s theme.” a pause. “and she had it, remember? there were so many kids in our courtyard i thought it would never end.”

a fond, even soft smile reached daniela’s lips. she remembered it like yesterday: elena running to her with her pretty, glittery lilac dress, all of her little classmates getting their clothes dirty and their mothers mad as they ran all over the grass. you, in all the glory that an exhausted, overwhelmed and yet gentle host could have. even then, pretty in daniela’s eyes.

“i remember.”

“yeah… well… it was a good day.” another pause. “do you remember the guy from your job that you invited at the last minute because his car broke or something?”

“yeah… mark.” daniela answered slowly. “what about him?”

another silence. longer this time.

“you introduced me to him.”

daniela frowned, trying to remember. there had been so many people that day. kids running everywhere, parents talking, balloons, cake, music. she remembered you moving around the courtyard like a storm, making sure everyone had food, drinks, plates.

“i mean… yeah, probably.” she said carefully. “why?”

you let out a quiet breath.

“you said: ‘this is elena’s other mom.’”

daniela blinked.

“that’s it?” she asked, not accusatory, just confused. “i mean… you are elena’s other mom.”

“yeah.” you agreed softly. “i am.” another pause. “but that was it.”

daniela stayed quiet now.

“you didn’t say my name.” you continued. “you didn’t say i was your wife. you didn’t even look at me when you said it. you just… pointed at me like i was part of the decoration.”

daniela felt something tighten in her chest.

“i didn’t mean—”

“i know.” you cut in gently. “that’s the thing.”

your voice sounded tired now, but calm. too calm.

“you didn’t mean anything by it. that’s when i realized.”

daniela swallowed.

“realized what?”

another small breath on the other side of the line.

“that somewhere along the way… i stopped being your partner.”

the words landed slowly between you.

“i was just… elena’s other parent.”

daniela didn’t answer.

she remembered the moment now. the sun that day. the smell of grass. the sound of kids screaming while running through the yard. you standing next to her with frosting on your fingers from cutting the cake.

she had been distracted. she didn't notice your sad eyes, your tight smile, your body language pushing her away, how you went quiet after, scrolling through your phone, she thought it was about last night's fight, she thought you were being annoying, resentful, as you usually were, she never noticed, she never thought about it again.

daniela’s voice came out lower than before.

“is that when you knew?”

“yeah, not that day exactly.” you admitted. “i just... i don't know, i just never forgot that.”

daniela rubbed her hand over her face, she didn’t know what to say, she felt sorry, annoyed, but mostly, she felt sorry, before she could even process it, it slipped through her lips.

“i didn’t mean to hurt you.” it was a whisper, a secret she couldn’t say it out loud, a sound that, over the phone, you barely could tell if it was real or not. 

“i know.” you said again.

it was a start, perhaps.