Showing posts with label Silvia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silvia. Show all posts

MARÍA ESPÓSITO

8:00 PM - Posted by Unknown - 1 comments


by Silvia R. Fernandez Caria

 Maria had always known she was abandoned and it was no secret considering her surname: Esposito, like all the other abandoned children in the wheel of the convent of the church Annunziata in Naples. Everyone just called her Maria.
She was left on a beautiful, windless night. Sister Clementina was on call in the parlor to receive the children that were being abandoned at the wheel there. The nun had told her that the little bell had rung that night breaking the silence and awaking her and even the moon. The nun liked to tell her the story, especially when she was ill in bed.
As she grew up, Maria had learnt what the wheel was, she had seen it working many times and every time its bell rung, day or night, she was overcome with curiosity.
The system was simple, designed to allow mothers of undesired children to leave them at the care of the convent nuns whilst maintaining anonymity. This artifact was installed in a room, within one of the thick walls that separated the convent from the exterior world. When someone placed a baby on the plate of the turning wheel and rang the little bell, one of the operators from inside rotated the device and the baby entered the small parlor without any eye contact between the donor and the receiver. Then, whoever was inside would turn the wheel to re-establish the opening with the outside, the wheel ready to receive other babies. It was a way to provide a safe home and care for infants who most probably would have otherwise ended up dead.
Sister Clementina also told her that when she was found she was wrapped in a white cotton bed sheet, to protect her against the cold and that she was really quiet, her big eyes looking around with curiosity. She told her that when they undressed her, they found an amber and silver pendant, the one she carried now, tied to her neck with a simple cotton string. Maria knew that this was a very special sign that would connect her with her Mother or someone from her family.
Some children didn’t have with them anything that would allow them to be recognized by their birth mothers, in that case, the nuns would cut some specials medals in half, giving half to the child and the other half to the mother waiting at the other side of the wheel. It was an ingenious method that still respected the anonymity of the Mother, but could prove a link with their infant in case of future repentance.
Sister Clementina told her again and again that when she was first taken to the wet-nurse for feeding she was not hungry. You could tell this baby had just eaten, a sign that someone who loved her had to give her up. Sometimes, Maria was assigned to work with the new arrivals and watching the wet-nurses breastfeed the babies, she would wonder about her mother, the one who breastfed her before abandoning her.
The nun always told all the children “don’t separate yourself from the sign you carry because one day it might allow you to find your families.” Maria always wore her amber pendant hidden underneath her shirt because she feared that the others, seeing its beauty, would take it away from her, and then her mother would not be able to identify her.
She often asked Sister Clementina, “Do you think I’ll find my mother someday?”
“Don’t lose hope, my child, for the Lord’s paths are infinite,” was always the answer.


When the nun died, Maria was only twelve and cried inconsolably for two days; she wanted to die too. Whenever she thought about her, she would get a knot in her throat. Sister Clementina was the closest thing to a mother she had ever had. She missed her a lot, who else could now relate to her the stories about her past?
The faraway possibility of finding her mother became more difficult when at fourteen she was taken from the convent. Lady Benedetta Olivieri, one of the benefactors of the orphanage -who was marrying Count Renzi- came to look for servants for her new palace in Florence choosing Maria amongst other girls to travel North from Naples. She knew it was 1768, a very important year, because it coincided with King Ferdinand’s wedding. All of Naples was preparing for the celebration. Resigned to her destiny, Maria left before the King’s wedding and arrived at a wonderful palace on top of one of the hills that surround Florence.


Maria slept every night in a corner of the enormous kitchen in the Countess’ house. Every morning she was the first one to wake up in the darkness that precedes dawn, when the nearby church bells rang for the monks to awake for their first prayers. She prepared the fire in the big chimneys in the kitchen and kept them burning all day long so the cookers could do their hard job. After all, she lived in Countess Renzi’s palace and she didn’t complain about that. The work in the kitchen was heavy but she was never cold or lacking of food like other servants she knew, and she considered herself very lucky. Sometimes she would go out into the yard to collect extra firewood and she could see down by the river, the bell towers of Florence covered in fog.


She always wore the pendant and only took it off a few times per year when they forced her to change the simple shirt she used as underwear. Working all day long at the fireplace made both her clothes and her skin dark with ashes and fumes. In those occasions, fearing they would steal it, Maria used to hide her precious jewel in a secret place; a hole between two stones in the internal part of one of the chimneys, a place she had discovered during the Easter cleaning.
Sometimes Maria remembered Sister Clementina and her stories and wondered where the other pendant was, the companion to her sign of recognition, the one her Mother kept with her. She imagined her Mother like her, wearing the jewel on her chest, walking towards the marketplace on the sunny streets of Naples that she missed so much.
At night, before sleeping, when she curled up on the hay against the dog’s body heat, when nobody could see her, the child-woman stroked her pendant.
A ring of amber and a ring of silver linked together.
She could trace every black design within the yellow circle of amber, even with her eyes closed. ‘Amber, what a strange word,’ she thought. Maria repeated this word like a litany, only few minutes until exhaustion carried her to the land of dreams.
Tomorrow awaited another day.


Francesca was looking at the photos in her new cell phone: last summer’s vacations at Grandma’s house, the stables and Leon, the horse she was given for her 15th birthday. She had photos of the vines, the cats. The bus ran through the green undulating scenery which took them from the coast of Rimini to the hills inland but the landscape images slid unnoticed by Francesca’s eyes as she was absorbed in her own thoughts.
She was sad for the death of her Grandma Nene’. She was so distracted that she didn’t even hear the conversations of her school classmates sitting in groups around her. They left Naples two days ago for this school trip and the memory of her Grandma’s recent passing accompanied her throughout the trip. The teenager was convinced that, out of all the grandchildren, she was the one who missed her the most. The big house was empty without her and she didn’t want to go back to it. She went only to ride Leon and train for competitions but she never entered the house. Each time she remembered Nene’, the teenager caressed the pendant she carried on her neck. It was so simple, but so important for her.
A ring of amber and a ring of silver linked together.
She could trace every black design within the yellow circle of amber, even with her eyes closed. ‘Amber, what a strange word,’ she thought.


Francesca remembered when her Grandma Nene’ gave it to her a few months before passing away, when she was still conscious.
Little by little, she distributed her most important belongings to her grandchildren. One day she turned serious and holding something in her closed hand, said to Francesca, “This does not have any great economic value, but its very important because it has been in our family for generations, being passed on from grandmother to granddaughter. My Grandma Giulia received it from her Grandma, I received it from her. You’ll have to give it to your granddaughter. Promise?” she opened her gnarled hand to reveal the strange pendant tied to a string of black silk.
“Of course, Grandma.” Francesca felt special, she was chosen out of the five granddaughters, and with a big hug they sealed the deal. Francesca wore the pendant in her neck and asked with a daring tone, “What if I don’t have any granddaughters?”
“Doesn’t matter, you will give it to a daughter or a daughter-in-law,” was Nene’s answer, and laughing, continued “but always from woman to woman!”
Still with their hands interlaced, they kept looking into each other’s eyes, lost in their own thoughts.
For the first time in her life, Francesca was conscious of the fact that one day she would have children, that this tradition would continue thanks to her, another link in the chain of time, in the chain of the women of her family.


After a series of ascents and reversed curves, the bus stopped beside a large stone arch, the entrance door of this small town founded a thousand years ago. Everyone got off, joking around, happy to have arrived. Francesca put her feelings aside and descended from the bus, joining the noisy group that walked towards the small piazza. Someone was playing violin. It was the only sound in the sleepy village.
They had a guided tour organized by the “Museo Renzi”. The guide was waiting for them in the cold hall. It was difficult to keep silent, the group was too rowdy and the voices echoed on the stonewalls.
Francesca was passionate about science and in the first room she stopped to see the fossils. She observed some pieces of amber, like the material of her pendant, but bigger. She found them beautiful, magical. In the second room there were many objects dated in the Bronze era and also from the Iron age. Everyone was surprised because the museum had a lot of interesting pieces and was so big for such a small town. The group roamed around, pointing at the antique objects that they found so funny within their lit display cabinets. In one of them, Francesca saw something that attracted her, but she couldn’t see very well in between her friends’ heads.
She drew nearer and what she saw made her legs tremble. Displayed inside the cabinet was a pendant identical to the one she was carrying on her neck! How could this be? Francesca stroked her own, to reassure herself that it was still there, to be sure that this was not hers. The sign said, ‘A woman’s pendant made out of amber and silver - Found at Renzi Palace (Florence) during restoration works in the kitchen (1898)’
The more she observed it, the more she was convinced: the jewels were exactly the same! A ring of amber and a ring of silver linked together.
Her Grandma Nene’ had told her the story of her pendant: always in the neapolitan family, from Grandma to granddaughter. Who knows for how many generations? But what about this one in the display? Surely it was its companion. Francesca wondered how this other one, exactly like hers, could be in a museum, in this museum.
‘Renzi Palace? Florence? But my family comes from Naples! How did it get to Florence?’ Francesca couldn’t answer all her questions with the brief information on the sign. ‘When were they separated? Who separated them? Why are they not together? Did someone lose it?’ She knew that her Grandma didn't know about this other pendant, she would have told her.
By a chance of destiny the two beautiful pendants were now reunited, but Francesca would never know the story that had brought them apart.
Touching the small bronze knob, she checked if the crystal door of the cabinet was open, but no, it was closed.
No one would believe this, even she could hardly believe it!
‘If only I could tell my Grandma Nene!,’ thought Francesca while caressing her necklace with her left hand. Smiling, she approached the museum guide to share her incredible discovery.


AS IN THE WOODS
11:18 PM - Posted by Unknown - 0 comments



by Silvia R. Fernandez Caria

“Trash is collected once a month,” said the man while stomping his boots before entering and leaving water on the ceramic floor anyway.
“What?! Sorry?! Could you repeat please?” Felicity didn’t believe her ears. The landlord didn’t speak English fluently. ‘Oh, he is confusing the noun, he means a week.’
“Once a month!” Insisted the man raising his voice as if she had hearing problems, opening the door of the storage room in a corner of the cold garage that would suit three cars.
“You have to separate it, we have recycling here,” he said with pride. Then he began a detailed explanation about it, waving in front of her some colored plastic bags with his big hands. She was lost with his strong accented English and only understood, “Careful how you separate rubbish. You have to pay fine if you put wrong rubbish in the wrong bag!”
His loud bass voice echoing in the empty garage made Felicity feel small. ‘Ah, I need to write down all these explanations. I will ask someone else, though.’ She was wondering how on earth her family would deal with the trash. ‘A whole month!’
He covered with long strides the snowed path that separated the garage from the house. Before following him inside the house, Felicity stood at the steps in the main door and looked at the woods in white on both sides of the windless valley; smoke was coming out of the chimney of the house besides her. ‘Wonderful landscape,’ she thought, ‘like a postcard.’
A new country with a new language; she had worked it out before. Felicity would love to feel welcomed to the winter in Bystra, South of Poland, but she was not. Not this time.
As the landlord showed her everything, Felicity loved how the stairs connected the rooms of the split-level house in a very clever way, accompanying the natural slopes of the big plot of land. Felicity had never lived in the mountains before but imagined there was grass under the snow that covered every inch of soil of their yard. She could only guess where the bushes were because the level there was higher than the rest. In the back garden there were three cherry trees. Felicity didn’t know it then, but in summer they would produce so much fruit that she and her children would have stomachaches, as it was impossible to stop eating the delicious cherries.


The sun was setting behind the mountain and the landlord waved goodbye from his car parked on the other side of the road, near the small stream running along it.  Felicity smelt the scent of burnt firewood. All sounds were muffled by the snow, she loved this sensation and stayed at her gate looking at the car going away as the last rays of sun gave colors to the other side of the small valley.


Felicity went back to the house and looked around again at her own pace, planning where she could put their furniture. At the first floor were the bedrooms. She decided to give Sam the room with the balcony, because being the eldest of the two boys, she trusted him more. She would tell Thomas that the other room, the one with the higher ceiling, would be better for hanging the big plane he was so fond of, the new one he had received just one month ago for his sixth birthday.
As it was getting dark inside the house and she turned on the lights. ‘It’s so early but it feels like night’. Felicity was not used to these cold, dark winters, but the landscape was enchanting: ‘What a contrast.’
She really liked the house, but not the kitchen. She would have preferred a door instead of a window connecting the kitchen with the garden. On the good side, the window was useful: putting the beers on the sill while you were setting the table would give you time enough to get a cold beer at a perfect temperature for dinner. In February the temperature stayed below zero all day with the mornings at minus 14 °C or so. The living room had wonderful double doors looking towards the front garden and a chimney big enough to cook in it.

Closing the gate of the house behind her, Felicity recalled Jim’s voice on his last phone call that early afternoon.
“Hi, sorry, I cannot come to receive the keys of the house with you. They have scheduled a meeting for me at that time and I cannot change it.”
“That's ok.” What else could she answer? ‘Again?’ she thought disappointed.
“You don't need me anyway. The owner speaks English, besides, you know, I already saw the house.” 
“Yeah.” He had made his decision. She would have preferred him being there with her but she didn’t want to start a fight; he was stressed with his job and the difficulties there, and she tried to understand. 
The truck with the container would be arriving in two days. Before that they needed to clean the house and shovel the snow away from the gate to the main door. She asked Jim to send someone to help, but he forgot to arrange it. ‘He has people who work for him, that should be an easy way of supporting me! Why do I always have to do things all on my own,’ she thought.


After some weeks the routine had settled in: school in the morning for the children, work for Jim the whole day, children coming back from school early afternoon, dinner at 7:30 just in time for Jim to arrive. Each sunset stretched now into longer days, the spring was getting nearer. ‘Finally,’ thought Felicity, longing for the energy the sun could give her.
She didn’t see much of Jim, at home he was always busy, ‘but not with the things I asked him to do around the house.’ After dinner he worked a couple of hours on his laptop until bedtime. She felt lonely at times. The kids also missed their father, he was missing things that in her opinion a father should not miss, like soccer games and concerts.


They didn't talk about their future and she really didn't know if he was happy. She wasn't, but she supposed this phase would simply go away, like the previous times. On the weekends the brought the children to have fun in parks or trails but Jim took every chance to work on his computer while they were 'having fun'.

After the first days of spring all boxes were unpacked and the white blanket that covered everything was melting. Bushes could be identified and yes, they were bigger than what she thought, as they were crushed by the weight of the snow! Felicity and her curious children started to make discoveries in the woods behind the property following the many trails that went uphill from the main road.


The stream in front of the house grew each day with the rising temperatures. Now it was a shallow and turbulent river, noisy because of the water hitting the big stones on its bottom and Felicity loved it.
Her boys wanted to reach it but the banks of the creek were very deep. After thinking about it, one sunny afternoon Felicity decided that action was needed. In the storage room she found the pick and the shovel and carried them across the street. Stones were everywhere, of all sizes and shapes brought down with the water from the mountains. While her children played around she dug some steps on the hard soil.
Felicity was focused on digging and didn’t see a man coming near her until he said, “Dzień dobry.”
She stood up discovering a big fat belly on top of the boots she had in view. Still surprised Felicity repeated the greeting she had learned with her Polish teacher and this was the signal he had been waiting for.
He aimed at the yellow house beside hers, then, pointed at himself and said, “Jarek.” Jarek was her neighbor and he waited for her name back.
She had seen him going out in his small red car and taking care of his chickens in his back garden, but never this close. His big round face almost hid the green eyes that became narrower every time he smiled, which was often. His eyebrows were blond but his hair was more silver than blond. The shape of his smiley face, his red nose and puffy red cheek gave him a Santa Claus resemblance. 'At Christmas he would only need a fake beard,' Felicity thought.  
Jarek started to carry the stones and put them in place, making steps. Felicity was happy to have such a helper. While working he talked, waiting for Felicity to repeat the words he said as he pointed out: stone, water, good, bad. Jarek smiled every time his new student repeated a word properly. Despite the language barrier, the man was eager to communicate. He was a patient and encouraging teacher with her.
Taking some water from the stream in his hand he said, “woda,” and waited for her to repeat.
“Boda,” said Felicity hearing the similarity with the word “body.”
“Woda!” insisted him smiling and showing her how his lips were showing his teeth to make the correct sound.
‘Ah, that is a trick,’ Felicity thought and tried it once more. This time Jarek approved with a whole-faced smile. She kept repeating the word many times trying to achieve the same sound as his. This provoked Jarek’s contagious laughter and made Felicity to laugh with him.


After they finished their job, Felicity, Jarek and the children walked up and down the steps to flatten them. They all laughed and enjoyed the moment. Felicity felt light and happy. This way of getting down to the stream was much safer than before and her children could now go looking for frogs and get their feet wet in the freezing cold water as much as they wanted.
Jarek helped her to bring the tools back to the storage room in her back garden and Felicity took the chance to show him a small opening in the metal net that divided his garden from hers. Jarek, speaking and indicating with his hands told her that he would fix it, an easy job.
He said goodbye, as it was time for him to have dinner: his wife had already called and was waiting for him in the balcony.
Felicity went back to her boys at the stream. Sitting on the new steps, she breathed in and wanting to record the beauty of the moment: the trees were getting greener and greener by the day. She was happy with the unexpected help from Jarek and now her boys were laughing down in the water. She looked at her house and for a second she felt that she was home. She wanted to forget her other concerns.


Later Felicity saw Jim’s car approaching on the road. ‘Oh, no, he is early!’ Now she should go to the house and prepare dinner, but she didn’t want to, she was having a great time.
“Boys, let’s go, dad is home.”
“Oh, no, Mom, we are building a dam for the frogs to swim in, see? Just a little more and we’ll finish it,” the children looked at her with pleading eyes.
Felicity tried to make a gesture to call Jim to come to the stream with them, but he was looking straight ahead as he entered the house.
She faced the boys, “Ok, I’ll call you when dinner is ready,” and crossed the street towards the house.


Felicity was dragging along through life, especially after the conversation with Jim, just a month before, when they took long weekend all together at the Baltic Sea.
That afternoon the children were playing near the water unable to bathe because the water was cold even though but although it was summer, while Jim and Felicity sat inside the forest, looking at them. They had not spoken like this in months.
They talked about their situation, they had agreed on many things: the marriage was not what they wanted, they felt trapped, they were unhappy. Both of them wanted to find a way out of this bad situation tainted with absences, routine and negativity.
Felicity wanted to improve their future. For the sake of their children, their relationship couldn’t go on as it was; something had to change. But Felicity froze when Jim told her that he wasn’t in love anymore.
Jim speaking about separating surprised her. He firmly denied having another woman or another story.
She wished she could bury her head in the sand and hide right there. It hurt too much.
She needed to pull through her pain to have the strength not show to Sam and Thomas what was going on, they thought it was the wind that had hurt her eyes.
Felicity, in the back of her mind preferred to think that they still had some chances to improve their situation. After all, they had two young boys that needed both of them. But still, Jim’s words were clear in her mind, “I don’t love you anymore. I want to separate. I cannot keep on going living like this. This is not the life I want.”
He didn’t want her.


One morning, when her children were at school and Felicity was in her back garden piling wood for the fireplace, she heard a voice coming from the other side of the fence.
“Dzień dobry!”
Felicity turned around and saw Jarek smiling. “Dzień dobry,” she answered back while getting closer to the fence, but he said something, and without waiting for her to answer, walked outside of his property towards her gate on the road. ‘Oh, he is going to help me with the firewood,’ thought Felicity opening the gate. They started their usual chat about the weather, her children, the garden, and his chickens. Meanwhile he put the wood in the wheelbarrow and took it around to the other side of the house where he unloaded it.
Each time he helped her she was amazed at how the language was not a barrier between them: they laughed, they communicated in such an easy way. He was warm and nice to her. Felicity realized that he also had fun with her, she could tell it was mutual. He used to smile at her looking for new words in the Polish dictionary but waited until she would find them.

Afterwards, Jarek suggested that she needed also some small pieces of wood to start the fire and he started to chop some. Felicity observed him, working in his worn plaid shirt, the muscles in his arms, his round belly. For a moment, she wondered how it might feel to be embraced by those arms, to feel protected, safe.
As if sensing something he interrupted the work and straightening, watched her staring at him. He left the ax on one side, wiped the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and made a very deep breath. Usually he spoke non-stop but now he was silent, looking at the woods behind the house. Felicity’s senses were alert, the birds were chatting in the trees, the air smelled of fresh herbs and fireplace, all wild and natural. They became motionless.
In silence he began to work again. The moment was gone.
Felicity collected the board chips for the fireplace in a bucket faking a calmness she didn’t have.
“Jarek! Jarek?” A female voice pierced the air. His wife Ania was standing on the balcony of their yellow house watching them. “Obiad jest gotowy!”
“Jeden minuta,” answered back Jarek. He gestured as if to bring food to his mouth explaining to Felicity that he had to go.


‘Ania is not like Jarek, what am I doing here? This is not fun!’ reflected Felicity, almost regretting the decision of coming to the woods with Ania.
It all had started at the fence two days before, when Jarek understood that Felicity loved mushrooms and offered her the guide of his wife Ania to go into the woods. She was an expert and knew where to collect them.
At first Felicity thanked but rejected the offer. Later, on second thought, she agreed. She speculated about having a three-hour distraction collecting mushrooms in the morning while the children were at school, enjoying a great time in a new situation and taking some wonderful pictures too while being guided in the woods she liked.
Ania walked steadily, not following any path but knowing where to go, as if something or someone was guiding her. The woman had stopped and stood looking at Felicity who was walking with difficulty some meters behind her. The sun filtered through the motionless leaves. Felicity reached the clearing where Ania was waiting for her and tried a smile, but Ania had an inexpressive face. Felicity didn’t know what Ania was thinking, and not knowing how to react, took the opportunity to regain breath and swallowed her smile back while Ania started walking again.
Actually, Felicity agreed to go for mushrooms also thinking that her refusal to Jarek’s offer might seem suspicious to him. After all Felicity and her neighbor passed much time together, most of it with him helping her with her chores in the garden. Felicity didn’t want Ania or Jarek to think that there was a special relationship between them. It was just a good neighbor relationship and she wanted to make Ania feel part of it.
On the other hand, Felicity was feeling uncomfortable after the ‘chopping wood episode’ for her own reasons. She was sure Ania had seen nothing from her balcony because nothing had happened. But Felicity was too aware of the turmoil this episode had left in her.
She didn’t know that she could be able to feel an attraction or even an impulse towards another man as she had felt that day.
Was that real attraction or was it because she was feeling lonely, sad and defeated and therefore vulnerable? Felicity had always thought that when you are in love you have no space for others. Jarek wasn’t even her type. But he was so protective, so helpful, and more important, he was there with her. Still her impulse, those sensations, which had never happened before, remained inexplicable and a total surprise for her.
She had never met Ania at close but naïvely imagined that she would be as he was: talkative, happy and eager to communicate, but she was not. Felicity took the opportunity of the silence of Ania to get immersed in her own thoughts. She had nothing else to do but follow her guide through this maze of trunks that looked so confusing to Felicity.
What was worst, the lack of light in the woods and the sky completely covered by the trees reminded her very much of the pine forest where Jim has told her about his feelings.
All this time Felicity had been trying to come to terms with the arrangement of separating at the end of their Polish period. This would be the starting point of their new life. ‘Yes, maybe we have to separate. I need to accept the reality. After all now we are separated living in the same house, I feel abandoned,’ she thought.
Felicity was walking in the woods and a big confusion remained in her mind. The ‘chopping wood episode’ had made to her the same effect as a cold-water shower. If she was able to feel that way towards another man, maybe that meant that she was not as in love as she thought. Then, why was she feeling hurt? Maybe because in her marriage with Jim she didn’t feel important or needed him except for practical reasons. He wasn’t available for his family, the house, or emotional needs. He wasn’t there for her, he didn’t want to! Felicity was alone coping with everything, trapped, insecure. She was in need of human contact.
Divorce is the word that usually follows separation and this word had hit Felicity when Jim said it. Now, remembering the scene, she felt sorry for herself. A sense of failure overwhelmed her and tears came softly to her eyes, like in other moments of reflection she had recently. Felicity became aware of Ania walking ahead of her with relief ‘luckily she cannot see me.’
Felicity had a lot to worry about but just recently had decided that she would take life day by day. She reminded herself again and tried to enjoy the most she could out of this walk. Sometimes her feelings changed in a flash in nuances she couldn’t manage, but still, life was going on and she had to go on also because of Sam and Thomas.
“Nic!” exclaimed Ania, stopping at the border of another clearing, where the sun brightened the autumn leaves. Felicity, all of a sudden awakened from her meditating state, inhaled to relieve her tension and felt the smell of the leaves. She realized that she had been walking behind Ania like on automatic pilot without perceiving a thing. There was so much beauty to look at. Even with her eyes still moist with tears: mosses and lichens put notes of color in the almost “all-yellow” tonality of the forest floor.
Felicity stood besides Ania and looked for mushrooms. She saw nothing and this was a revelation, “nic” meant “nothing.”
‘How come? No mushrooms? What a guide I have!’ Disappointment was all over Ania’s face, who started nimbly going downhill, back to home. Felicity had no option but to follow her. There was “nothing” to be collected on that day. What bad luck! Three hours for one word of Polish, but one Felicity would never ever forget.
The women, still in silence, came out of the trees walking side by side and headed towards their houses. Felicity looked back at the woods enjoying now the free space above her head.
She could fight for her marriage if they were two there, but she had to accept that she was on her own, there was no marriage to save.
She made a firm resolution: ‘no more negative feelings, take life day by day.’ Peace could be retrieved after all.
Resigned, she knew she would need time.


One morning Felicity was shoveling the snow from the pedestrian entrance on the road when Jarek was arriving home on his red car. He parked and came near. She couldn’t escape now.
The short days of winter and the bad weather had proved a big help to avoid meeting him. But now she needed to tell him about them moving away before he would find the packing people and the truck with the container, only two weeks from now.
After the usual interchange of “dzień dobry”, Felicity, uncertain of her pronunciation, tackled the matter.
“Jarek, będziemy”
He had understood and was totally surprised. He opened his mouth and came out a cloud of steam in the sunless cold, “Gdzie idziesz?”
“Dublin, do domu”.
Felicity didn’t give him any other explanation about her life or where Jim would be going. What was important was that they were leaving.
With his gloved hands he took her gloved right hand and started saying a lot of things that she didn’t understand but, for her own reasons, tears were gathering in her eyes. Despite all she would miss him, the neighbors, the house, her life there. Felicity felt the cold tears descending on her cheeks while her lifeless hand was trapped between Jarek big gloves.

The children were at school. The truck with the container, fighting with the ice on the road, had left earlier and the cleaning of the house was done. The whole circle of the removal activities was almost closed, the time had come.
Jim’s personal belongings had left off to London one day before the rest of the house, and he had already travelled to his new location. They had told the children that this was a temporary solution but Felicity sensed that they understood something different was going on.
For the next two days, until their flight back to Dublin, the three of them would be staying at a hotel nearby, visiting people and places during the day. Last coffees, last dinners and toasts, last kisses, last goodbyes with their friends. Promises of keeping in contact, interchange of gifts, last pictures to be taken.
Nobody knew about the changes in the family: moving and separation coinciding. Felicity felt awkward about the situation. She was either lying or not telling the whole truth to all the people they had met during this time, having like a double-sided behavior. But she couldn’t come to terms about telling them what was going on. After all, their relationship was of acquaintances, not friendship.
Felicity walked through the empty rooms, the sound of her shoes hit on the wooden floors and echoed back from the house. It was so strange to see it bare, a whole year had gone by, and it was winter again. Felicity took those last minutes to absorb the snowy landscape through the naked windows.
In the silence she heard light noises. There was nobody in the house, who could there be? ‘Ah, the central heating,’ she thought while going down the steps to the basement. Finally she saw the animal. ‘What is this chicken doing in my basement?’ It looked lost, afraid, desperate, and was making a mess.
“Go away, go, go,” shouted Felicity as if the Polish chicken could understand her. She ran after it but couldn’t catch it! She tried to push it outside but it didn’t want to leave. This was one of Jarek’s, he would have to come and collect it. It was his fault, he never repaired the net as he promised to do and the movers had had the doors open all day long.
She looked around and gave up, sitting on the last steps of the staircase recovering herself, feeling exhausted, frustrated, as always, on her own. Many things didn’t go as she would have liked them to go. Things that she couldn’t change, broken promises. She wanted to cry but she would use that frustration in a productive way, to try to build her own happiness step by step. She recalled her resolutions.
The heating was still working in the house and as soon as she opened the door to go outside the cold air hit her.
The day was not over.
Felicity still had the problem of the trash to be resolved. The collection of it was indeed once a month and she smiled now thinking that how she had been worried at first. Everything turned out okay, it wasn’t a big deal, they had enough storage space and with the location being so cold ‘like a giant refrigerator’ recalled Felicity, the organics didn’t smell. She was loading the assortment of colored bags in the trunk of her car. ‘I cannot leave my waste for the next tenants,’ she thought.
After much asking around, she found out that there was a place where she could take the bags with their trash. Felicity drove towards the countryside but still asked twice for more information, showing a paper with the name of the place to the farmers. Her Polish was now good enough to understand their directions. The road, although paved, was very narrow and went amongst a beautiful landscape of fields and aligned trees. The mid morning sun, timid and pale gave only a hint of yellow to the snowy scene where the engine of her car was the only sound source. For a moment she forgot why she was there.
When she arrived finally at the rubbish yard, Felicity saw piles of metals, trucks, and machinery. Near a building Felicity approached a lady in her sixties, who was easier to imagine behind a soup pot than working in a recycling company, and pointing at the trunk of her car said, “Mam śmieci.”
The lady directed her to a space nearby. Felicity parked in the spot, unloaded the bags, said goodbye and made to return to her car. But the lady called her, “Pani, proszę czekać.” She didn’t know why she had to wait. The lady and a man checked her trash carefully, opening each bag. Felicity was worried. ‘Oh no, maybe with all the confusion of the last week I put something wrong: a beer bottle in the transparent glass bag: who knows.’
She tried to stay calm. She didn’t want to leave this country on a bitter note with the locals. After they were done, they weighed each one of the bags writing on a paper. ‘Ah, the receipt,’ thought Felicity, very aware of the local bureaucracy.
The lady opened a box and started counting some bills and coins. Felicity tried not to show on her face the smile of relief that came from this surprise. She couldn’t believe it! As simple as that, she was going to be paid for bringing the trash to the waste dump!
This was her last Polish adventure.