Forty Forty.
A bouquet of red roses on the table, with a note.
Forty years.
A number. Nothing more.
But Anna felt that it was only one figure is enough, that was not enough to feel young at heart, that the evolution and changes in her body also affect his soul and his mind, his way of living and seeing things. Forty
.
the day of his birthday.
Until the day before had almost no thought had been busy, work, the usual. This year
strangely did not even want to throw a party. He had always done in the last ten years.
But this time he felt tired. For the first time.
Why was not feeling well this morning? Outside was a beautiful day, it was raining and windy, and she was still sleeping when they played over the intercom, it was the florist. He had handed the bouquet of roses. Who sent it was a good man, also nice and friendly, but was beginning to believe that now no longer worth the trouble to be with a man if he did not feel something strong for him, really special, something beyond the attraction physics, the affinity and the simple desire.
was time for serious things, just links light, without too many commitments.
Then the phone call from the mother. Mothers are always mothers. Happy birthday, my daughter, I recommend you come for one, do not be late, we are all brothers and sisters. I made you your favorite dish.
Oh no, he had not forgiven him she left the house, just three years earlier. She liked to have her daughter with her. This daughter who had never times, it was always out, work, second jobs, hobbies, friends, men. That could give her daughter but moments of absolute dedication and love. The one daughter who could not cook much, just a bit 'of dough, and only occasionally made cakes and biscuits together, in the rare winter afternoons when he had nothing to do.
What's it like in forty years to find their parents' house to extinguish the candles in front of brothers, sisters and uncles cousins \u200b\u200band closer, and no one else, as when they were five or ten?
Anna was wondering if now, even she did not understand well what he felt.
Only when he opened his eyes closed in blowing out the candles, she understood. He understood that something was missing. It was like a bottle of wine, half empty, left on the table in a restaurant customers already full and tipsy. That bottle was still much to give, to delight many palates, so many ways to become intoxicated, so much joy to raise, who had wanted and managed to draw from her. Because it was also this, to know to communicate with her, you know how to love. You can not always just swallow. It takes a calm, and elegance. And attention.
A woman at forty you can not handle more like a girl, you can not ask her to do crazy things for you, follow you anywhere and everywhere. A woman at forty wants something intimate and deep, her emotions just are not enough. No longer wants to be hurt or disappointed, no longer wants to be the girl of someone's aunt or someone else. He wants to be someone's wife and a mother.
A mother of those afternoons in the winter and preparing cups of hot chocolate with her children sitting on his knees in front of the fireplace, telling stories. This
Anna thought, while eating the milfoil watched his brother and kissing his wife, gently and quietly, without attracting attention, as they do married couples when they are not alone when they are in the midst of other people, all this thought as he watched her grandchildren play with the buildings on the floor, he watched his cousin twenty talk to the phone with his girlfriend and he watched his father in the rocking chair with the blanket on her knees, enjoying the sight of his family.
He knew there was a crisis of transition, had always wanted to one day marry and have children, and had nothing to do that maybe in a few years would not have been able to do more, it was just that now he felt the need to climb from deep within herself, as something inside you, and suddenly must leave by force, you can not help it.
At seven he was at home, was preparing to leave, her friends had warned her that they wanted to take her out to dinner, and then who knows where. She was on her makeup, smeared mascara on top lashes, careful not to put too much, when suddenly she saw a little crease on his forehead, the first wrinkle. The eye instinctively rebelled against that vision, he moved down, and now noted that its not completely black blouse buttoned left a small portion of the chest, just below the neck, face up. The eye settled on a strip of meat, only now she noticed that her skin had aged, worn, and was changing color. They were useless body creams which applied every time after a shower or bath.
He stopped, put his hands on the sink, and felt the sadness melt in her, from the throat and down to the stomach, and then under. She put her hands over her stomach and began to descend down to the legs, slowly, by a slight pressure to the knees. He looked in the mirror, straight into his eyes, then looked away from there, by itself, quickly. Now look at the bidet, bidet on which she sat in the last three years, and welcomed what many men wanted from her, but many just wanted to stop. How difficult
understand men thought.
How difficult it is to live with them, for them.
The evening was fun, went to the restaurant, then a tour of the historic center, and drinking something in a place that she liked a lot where they had good live music. That evening there was a singer who had already heard, and singing and always strictly sitting with eyes closed, singing with heart and spirit. She listened and dreamed. He was moved that night, and almost cried, it was not for all his friends there with her. That music and that song made the hit and go on all the sadness and turn it into something else, a presence, solid and tangible, hidden and repressed in her deep.
way home, walking on wet cobblestones, it had rained a bit ', with its purple bag in his hand, wrapped in her long black coat, arms folded, looking straight ahead, she thought that she was happy, though incomplete, and he thought he wanted someone who loved her, the understand, that when pulling up the morale was not well, that would take care of her, and already you could see, prepare large cups of hot chocolate, and tell their children stories of gnomes and to do, sitting in front of the fireplace in winter.
