Aurora

 It’s a rainy afternoon, when the neighbor next door knocks on the gate, letting me know that there was someone on the phone wanting to talk to me urgently. I hurry and run out into the rain, imagining the worst. When I answer, I hear that familiar voice on the other end of the line: it’s my father. I roll my eyes inevitably. A long sigh before saying anything.

“Hi, dad”

“Your mother is in the hospital”

He says this without me feeling any emotion in his voice.

“I need you to come over here, Aurora, to help me take care of her”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t know, maybe”

“Don’t know?”

My voice comes out angrier than it should.

“Are you coming or not?”

“And how do I do with my work? Or do you think only you work here?”

“Put him down”

I’m amazed at my father’s arrogance, in not caring one bit about my life.

“He left home because he wanted to, so don’t blame me for your failures.”

He could only be kidding, I think.

“If you are willing to support me while I am taking care of my mother, I will go without any problem.”

There’s a silence on the other end of the line that I thought would never end.

“Come as fast as you can.”

He hangs up the phone without waiting for any response from me.

I wonder if he really cares about my mother to the point of calling me six months after I left home, asking me to come back. No questions about how I’m doing, if I need anything, or say I miss you. None of this was said or mentioned. I’m still standing in the middle of my neighbor’s living room, phone in hand, wondering at what point I lost control of my own life. Visibly worried about my mother, I go back to my rented room in the suburbs of Brasília and start packing my things to go home.

I was a good girl, and bad things didn’t happen to good people. That’s what my mother told me, that’s what I believed for a long time. But then, high school graduation came, and I was at a loss for what to do with my own destiny. I watched my old classmates go to college, get a good job, take courses, and I, well, I wanted to be just like them, but all I had in my luggage was talent and a lot of uncertainties. Things were tough. My mom didn’t have the money to pay for college or anything like that, and all I had left was to study on my own. I didn’t complain. Good girls understood when life needed to be tough. I didn’t have any friends anymore, and my fear of being judged drove everyone away. It was  books that I found in my refuge. I remember my writing teacher saying how good I was at writing, that I still needed to be polished, but that I was certainly on the right path to be an important writer. I believed that and started writing my first book. Furthermore, I spent hours in my room, polishing myself, writing, creating my own world and when I was asked what I did so much in front of that laptop, my answer was always the same: I’m studying. Likewise, I kept that secret for a long time, until I shared it with my mother. I might not have the permanent resources every budding writer needs to get their first work published, but I had my mother’s unconditional love.

“I should get a job” every time my father saw me studying, he always said the same thing “until you manage to pass a civil service exam, I’m already retired”.

“Don’t be exaggerated, Claudio” my mother was the only one who always defended me “she needs incentives”.

“And isn’t getting a job a good incentive?” he said. "You need to stop putting your hand on that girl’s head, Desiree. She’s not a kid anymore, and I’m not going to spend the rest of my life supporting her”.

Good things don’t always happen to good girls, and my dad was proof of that. Sometimes I got the feeling he hated me, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to leave the house so early. The pressure to find a job was constant and unbearable, and they forced me to give up my dream and obey my father. The fights were intense and painful. That was another reason. I would have to fend for myself. Despite not knowing how to start, taking care of my own existence from that moment on, it would undoubtedly be the best decision I would make in my entire life. It would be, if I really followed the plan I’ve laid out my whole life for a bright future.

I should have been happy, though, when I got a job. Twenty-five kilometers away from home, in a town where I didn’t know anyone, on a salary just above the minimum wage. I could call it freedom, but there was something dull about getting something I really needed but didn’t want to have. Being honest with myself, working in a cafeteria, serving people just to satisfy my father’s wishes, was far from my plans and I would pay a high price for it. Living in a room measuring thirty square meters, with only an old mattress donated by the neighbor and with an uncertain future, certainly did not bring me the freedom that I wanted so much, on the contrary, I was living in one of the most dangerous cities in Brasília; the setbacks were constant. Sometimes I regretted leaving home, but the pressure was too great. I was immature and deep down, I just wanted to prove to my father that I could manage without him. It was a sweet illusion. I remember my mother crying to see me go. I remember her calling me whenever she could to see if I was okay or still alive. Now she was in a hospital with God knows what illness, needing me. I would drop whatever it took to take care of her. In any situation, she would have me by her side until the end.

I called my boss, letting him know that I’m returning to my city for an indefinite period. That was an unintentional resignation, but he is understandable and in the end he wishes me luck. Not only that, but I return home without guilt, with my head held high. After all, that house only belongs to my mother, who had inherited it when her mother died. Even though my father was the man who supported the house, everything in there was hers. I take the bus that takes me to the Plano Pilot bus station and from there I take another bus that takes me to my hometown. Stepping onto that street again fills me with nostalgia. From childhood, I spent running around there, having fun with the few friends I had. It’s only been six months, I tell myself as I fight back the tears. It hasn’t been that long. There is a gate in front of my old house. I know that my father is not at home, because he would not stop a day of work to take care of my mother, let alone receive me. I remember that I still have the spare keys in my purse. Likewise, I take them, open the door and go inside. The smell is still the same, things are still in the same place, my room is still the same as the last time I was here. A tear runs down my face when I see a picture of me and my mother on the nightstand by my old bed. Oh mother, I pray that this illness is not so serious and that soon you will be with me again. 

 I wipe away the tears, take out my cell phone, and call my dad again.

“I’m already home.”

A long sigh on the other end of the line, as if he didn’t like hearing my voice.

“I admit your mother to the hospital in the city, medical clinic, room 08.”

“What’s so important about your job that you can’t leave it for a day to be with your wife?”

“I support this house, Aurora.”

It’s as if he didn’t need to say anything else, as if that explanation was enough. Maybe my dad thinks I’m foolish enough to believe that if I miss a day of work, we’ll all starve to death.

“Or maybe because you don’t care about her.”

“Stop talking nonsense, girl, and go to the hospital and stay with your mother. I am waiting for the news.”

Then he hangs up, with no worries or remorse. Sometimes I wonder why I expect so much from my father, knowing who he is.

I don’t even change clothes. I drop the few things I brought and leave the house in a hurry straight to the hospital. On the way, I can’t focus on anything other than my mother and the illness she probably has. She crossed the road without looking both ways, and I almost got run over. The driver says something very offensive to me, but I don’t pay much attention to what he says, because my heart is pounding so hard in my chest that I’m gasping for air. I shake my head, closing my eyes in an attempt to dispel whatever it was that was clouding my ability to think. I enter the hospital apprehensively; I am released, and I go straight to the room where my mother is. When I get to the door, there she is, standing happily chatting with another patient. My heart calms down. She’s fine. When she sees me, her eyes light up, and she smiles.

“Aurora” she walks towards me with open arms, still smiling.  “I miss you so much”.

“Hi mom,” I feel like crying, “how are you? Why are you here?”

There’s a serum injected into one of her hands, but apparently she’s fine.

“I started to feel almost unbearable pain in my arm,” she said, showing the region, “which soon went to my back and I came to see what it was”.

“Which is?” I run over the words, apprehensive.

“Gallstones” she laments. “I’m going to be hospitalized until the surgery”.

“But you look so well”.

“Why do you say that?” She questions me with a smile, as if she found my concern amusing. "Did your father say something that made you worried?”

 “My father didn’t even say what you had” my words came out harsh “did he at least accompany you to the hospital?”

“Your father is very busy, Aurora”.

“I don’t believe that, Mother.” the feeling of revolt takes over me. "He wasn’t even able to bring you here?”

“It doesn’t matter” I wondered how far this submission in accepting everything my father did would take my mother. "The important thing is that you’re back”.

I hug her again, happy to see her well, despite the reports.

 “No one could stay with you during those days?”

 “I’m not that bad” really not “there’s no need for me to worry the rest of the family about it”.

I agree with her and shut up.

“I’m sorry you quit your job, so you could be with me”.

“Don’t be sorry,” I offer a smile. “I hated that job”.

“And how are the books?” her eyes sparkled. "Have you finished writing the one you told me?”

 “I’m running out of time” I’m sorry “but after you get out of here and recover, I’ll think about it”.

“Negative,” she tells me. “You’re going to take my notebook, and you’re going to bring it to the hospital, and you’re going to write right here. I want this book done before I die”.

“Don’t even say that as a joke, mother” a chill runs through my entire body “besides, I’m here to take care of you, not to be distracted”.

“Don’t be silly, Aurora”, she continued, “write to me”. I don’t want you to abandon your dream.

I look at her thoughtfully and end up nodding my head.

The only people who knew what I wrote were my mother, and a friend called Geane. I met Geane precisely because of literature. She was participating in the Baikal de Brasília when we bumped into each other in the corridors full of books. She was a cheerful girl, with a contagious smile and an incredible nose for good books. When he found out that I was also a writer, he almost drove me crazy with the idea of ​​us being literary partners. Geane had a blog, where she wrote about books and promoted other authors. Even though I haven’t published any books yet, I accepted the partnership and gained a friend as a gift. My mother, on the other hand, was born with a love for books. Because of her I learned to like reading, when I saw her reading around the house, sighing, smiling, crying. I asked myself many times what I wrote there that made my mother enjoy reading so much. And little by little, she showed it to me, reading to me and offering me books for me to read. And without a doubt, in every phase of the earth, there was no one more of a fan of mine than my mother. The nurses entered the room, and she proudly said that she had a daughter who was a writer. She was the one who pushed me forward with that dream. Even if no one ever read my writing, even if I never received recognition, if my mom was there holding my hand and supporting me, it would all be worth it.

The day passes quickly, when I realize it’s already night. I watch my mother sleeping, when the cell phone rings.

“Hi dad”

“How is your mom?”

“Why don’t you call her and ask her yourself?”

“Just answer the question, Aurora.”

I want to curse him, but I know God would send me to hell.

“She is going to have surgery. He has gallstones.”

There is not even a sigh of lamentation. Not a hint of concern, nothing.

“Tomorrow I’ll talk to her.”

And when are you going to see her?

“Whenever.”

I close my eyes to banish any urge to yell at my own father. He has no regard for the woman he has been married to for over twenty years.

“Are you coming home today?”

Strange question, because surely he should have known better. Then I hear a female voice on the other end of the line, too.

“Not. Who is there with you?”

There is silence on the other end of the line.

“I’m still at work, Aurora.”

I don’t believe his excuses. I look at the clock. It’s past eight o’clock at night.

“Tomorrow we’ll talk.”

He hangs up, and I get a flea behind my ear with Claudio’s suspicious attitude. I hope it’s not what I’m thinking. I try to rest, but I can’t. That female voice on the other end of the line keeps me awake at night.

I only ask God not to make me hate my father even more.

Luke Fagundes

A lump formed in my throat as the plane took off towards Brasília, but I didn’t cry. I will never cry because my father decided to be a son of a bitch with me. I got used to your disdain, your lack of empathy. Likewise, I might even be going to hell, but I would come back stronger than before and be ready for my revenge.

An hour later, the plane landed on the runway. I went down and came across an unknown man, standing waiting for me. Gonzalo thought of everything, every detail, to make sure that the punishment would be strictly imposed against me. The man, in silence, directed me to a car, stopped a few meters away. Someone pushed unceremoniously from me into the backseat. Half an hour later he stopped on a street, without asphalt, with mud puddles and boys running barefoot. The place stank worse than the building where he was hiding with his mistress. The man opened the door and pulled me out.

“Your aunt is waiting for you,” he said, pushing me into the middle of the street, causing me to bump into a boy who was running with a kite in his hand.

“You don’t look where you’re going, do you, Uncle?” He looked at me and then turned his back and walked away.

The man got back into the car, pointing his finger at a house far ahead, indicating that was where I should go. Then he left.

For the last five hours, they had tossed me around like I was something nobody wanted. At that moment, I felt like garbage, thrown in the middle of a dirty place, with strange people, at the mercy of my own luck. Who knew my own father would do this to me?

I walked towards the house. It was actually a shed, where the wood was being eaten by termites. The roof was old; the sewer ran in the open sky, there was garbage scattered in the middle of the yard. How could anyone live in conditions like that? Even worse, like my father, being rich left a relative as close as his own sister to live in inhumane conditions just like that. As I thought about all this, I watched a fat woman come out. His hair was disheveled, and his sandals were old and worn out.

“Luke?” his face was so fat that they pressed his eyes in with the surrounding fat.

At least she wasn’t hungry, I thought.

“It’s me”, I replied.

“I thought so” she said it wrong. "You look a lot like your bastard father,  please come in”.

I also noticed that she didn’t like Gonzalo very much. But if that were true, why then did she agree to keep me there?

“Your father took it hard on you” he walked behind her, while crossing a wooden gate and heading towards the entrance of the house. “What did you do this time?”

If I told her, would it help me escape this hell? Hardly, no.

“I had enough evidence that he cheated on my mother”.

“You see,” the woman let out a loud and satisfying laugh, “I feel sorry for Olivia, who has to live with a man like him”.

We entered the house. Apparently clean, had a torn and dirty couch. A small TV rested on top of an old, rusty table. And that was all there was.

“How do you know my family so well?” I asked, while she turned to me and looked at me “because I didn’t know you”.

“I left Belo Horizonte before you were born,” he replied. “I never got along with Gonzalo because he always refused to help me financially”.

It was just the way he was.

“And why did you agree to keep me here?”

“You see, Luke boy,” she began to confess,  “I have nothing against you, you understand? But your father promised me a large sum of money to help him punish you. Surely with this money I will get out of this misery”.

But what a motherfucker. Apparently, bad cretism came from the genetics of the Gonzalo family.

“Oh, of course!” Once more I looked around the environment “​​I turned to currency exchange for your own interests”.

She looked at me, confused, certainly not understanding what I was saying.

‘We don’t have a bedroom at home, apart from mine and my husband’s” she probably didn’t have any children, I presume, “so you can sleep anywhere.’ I’ll get you a mattress”.

We walked to the other room, the kitchen of the house. There was a pot on a small wood stove. A rusty refrigerator and chickens walking in the middle of the room. Looking at that whole situation, I even understood why she had accepted my father’s proposal.

“I’m going to get some clothes for you,” he kept saying while stirring what was cooking in the pot. "You can call me Magdalena, Luke boy. For today, I will take it easy on you and let you rest. But be up at six o’clock in the morning, because you’re going to work at the grocery store I have right around the corner”.

And left the kitchen. Magdalena walked with difficulty, and I even felt sorry for her. Imagining the suffering life that woman lived for years might even break my heart, but her chalice would also be mine from that moment on. I needed to find a way to escape from here and make Gonzalo pay for all the evil he was doing.

The next day, I went to the little market that looked more like a bar. In fact, it belonged to Geraldo, my aunt’s husband. He was a nice and hardworking man. He started to teach me what I had to do, but I was completely out of the mood for that. Magdalena appeared in the afternoon and handed me a package.

“Your father told me to give you this” he held the thing out to me “and he said there’s a note inside that you should read”.

I took the object and started to open it. It was a cell phone. I was surprised. What kind of punishment would that be, where I could communicate with the rest of the world and be able to tell everyone what I knew?

I also took that note and read it

“Pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you. Don’t use that phone to do your crazy things, because I’ve certainly proven what I can do. If you disobey me, I will send you out of the country and there you will live real hell for the rest of your life. In six months, on condition of good behavior, I will send you a small amount of money every month to support you. In a year, I’ll bring you back. Until then, you’ll be working just to pay for your stay at Magdalena’s. Do as I command, and soon this hell will end. And when you return home, you will return as a man.”

I crumpled up the paper immediately. Gonzalo would keep me in a prison, with inhuman and even slave conditions, just to hide from the rest of the world how much of a petty and unscrupulous traitor he was. I wanted to find a way out of it all, but there wasn’t. I would have to endure and dance in the footsteps of my dear father. Once again, my throat closed up, and I refused to cry. Absorbing all the chaos, promising myself to make it my strength. I would get out of it, and Gonzalo would experience hell itself.