RED: A Love Story [Featured List]

Part 1: White 18 - A shadow of doubt

"When are you going to forget the senator once and for all? It's not like that." Marisa stiffened with a sting in the pit of her stomach... nausea, nausea, nausea... "The way you talk, you must really think I'm incapable of winning someone's affection through my own qualities. I'm a lost cause, right? Well, you're wrong, not even close. He loves me. And he doesn't cheat on me like Sergio, whom you thought to be so nice."

The mother vacillated for an instant but wouldn't take defeat.

"Oh really? Who can tell for sure? Then answer this: what does a pipsqueak like you have to offer to an older man besides easy fun? He'll soon leave you for another woman, that is, if he hasn't already found himself a bunch of mistresses. You know nothing, girl. You'll end up in a bad situation. A very bad situation-"

"I bet you're crossing your fingers for that to happen, aren't you? Just to prove yourself right. You're rigid and never look beyond your own navel... You want me to be like you, want to choose my boyfriends. You're trying to live my life instead of taking care of yours. And you always got to have things your way, of course. That's what happened after Dad passed, right? Everything needed to be neat and over as soon as possible, because you hate to wait. How could you exclude me from my own father's funeral?"

Marisa's eyes clouded with tears. The last time she saw her father alive was right before she'd left for camping on Easter: If a mosquito ever bites you, my dear, do not kill it or else ten more will show up for the burial, he had said.

Her father was like that, a born comedian, and his own life ended with the irony of a joke. He was hit by a car on Holy Thursday, in an intersection near home, while returning from the newsstand. The crossword magazine flew from his hands and landed next to a manhole. The ambulance immediately came to his rescue. Pedestrians watched the scene surprised by its readiness, until they realized it was the very ambulance that had hit the victim. Marisa's father, however, did not benefit from such fortunate coincidence and died on his way to the hospital.

During that extended weekend, she had gone camping with Valentina and her friend's uncles who lived in the countryside. There, in the paradise of native forest and waterfalls where they had burrowed, the cell phones were dead and Marisa forgot to turn hers off. She returned one day before her friend, by bus, with the discharged phone in her backpack. Marisa was content when she arrived home. Then the mother told her. In shock, Marisa asked why she hadn't waited for her to bury the father. There was no answer. The mother simply took her to the cemetery...

Now the mother cried and yelled. Her voice changed, as if she had a wounded animal trapped in the throat:

"I called a million times to let you know about your dad's passing and there was no way to reach you. I didn't wait to bury him simply because I couldn't stand to look at him and imagine the accident... How do you think it was for me, waiting for him to come back home for dinner and receiving the news of his death? While you were bathing in waterfalls, I was submerging in the bureaucracy of death. Do you think you were the only one in shock? I wanted to spare you-"

"Spare me? You didn't even allow me to say a proper goodbye to him. How do you think I felt? I go on a trip and when I return Dad's no longer here, just like a ghost, no closure whatsoever. All I wanted was to touch his face for the last time and you've robbed me of that," Marisa retorted, trembling.

"I did my best... Do you think this whole thing is easy for me? You're out of control and I'm unable to deal with the situation... Unable!" She snuffed and went on, in a plaintiff tone: "I know very well you've always loved your father more than me. But if he were still alive, things would be quite different."