Page 74 of Three Times You

She holds my hand, shuts her eyes, and kisses it. Then she holds it tight against her cheek and then, once again, pulls it back to her mouth, opens her eyes, smiles at me, and releases it. “I’ve forgiven you, you know that?”

I walk along close beside her. I know that, in this case, anything I could say would be wrong. To say “thank you” would just be awful. So I say nothing.

But she continues. “You’ve given me the most beautiful thing in the world, the thing I most dearly desired. You gave me the finest gift there could be, and having it from you makes it even more special.”

“Gin, I…”

“Shh.” She raises her hand and shuts her eyes for a moment. Then she starts pushing the baby carriage again, doing it slowly, perhaps to keep from awakening Aurora. “Let me say a few more things. You have your whole life ahead of you to say plenty of things. Now let me talk, and you just listen…”Then she smiles at me. “Well, okay, every now and then, you can still say something, but don’t argue with me. If you do, you’re just going to wear me out if I have to come up with answers to your points…”

We continue strolling along the inner road in the park. Every so often, a young person jogs past, an older woman goes speed-walking by, or on a bench we see a gentleman reading the newspaper, while just a short distance farther on, at the water fountain, a woman is letting her little Jack Russell terrier have a drink before she opens a bottle to fill it with cool water.

We continue along the road in the park that leads to the little piazza atop the hill. Here we no longer encounter anyone else, and the sunshine is dazzlingly beautiful.

And then, suddenly, perhaps filled with inspiration from all this tranquility, Gin starts talking again. “I want her to learn to be a boxer. I want her to be strong but still feminine, elegant but also athletic, intelligent and amusing. I want her to resemble me…”Then she thinks better of that last one. “I want her to be like me in some ways, to have something that makes you think of me, every now and then, maybe when you’re all alone, something that makes you smile and appreciate my finer qualities, through her.”

“But I’ve always appreciated them.”

“Yes, that’s true. In that case, let’s just say that she needs to have them in any case, okay?” And she starts laughing. “I want to know that you’ll always be there for her, that she’ll never have to wonder where you are, that you never miss her birthday, that when you scold her, you do so lovingly, that you always make her feel capable and important, even when she’s making her first, beginner’s mistakes. That whoever she has beside her, you will trust that person one hundred percent. I want you to be like Mel Gibson in that film we saw together,What Women Want, do you remember it?”

“Yes. It was summer, and they were showing a festival of Mel Gibson films at the Cinema Tiziano.”

“He could read women’s minds. And he helped his daughter, who didn’t really know what she was doing, in preparing for the prom, and he helps her when she’s about to go to bed with a guy for the first time.”

“I don’t remember that part!”

“Liar. Or else you just need to see it again. You need to be present at those moments too. You’ll have to think about her love, guide her, but never force her. Give her advice, but always leave her free to make her own choices…That’s how.”

So now we’re at the top of the little piazza. Gin stops beside the bench and looks down into the baby carriage. Aurora is still asleep. She delicately slips her hand under the sheet and carefully tucks her in.

I look at her too. Both arms are thrown wide, up near her face, as if someone had seen her unexpectedly and cried out, “Put your hands up.” And Aurora lies there, obediently, and goes on sleeping peacefully. Her cheeks are pink, her tiny mouth is ever so slightly open, and she’s so, so beautiful.

Then Gin climbs onto the bench and sits on the backrest, making herself a little taller than a normal person sitting up. She brushes back her hair. “How do I look?”

“Very nice.”

She shakes her head. “And to think that I continue to trust you…”Then she reaches into her purse and gets out her iPhone, readies it, and hands it to me. “Someday in the future, when she asks about me, I want you to show her this video we’re about to make…”

“But…”

“No ifs, ands, or buts. I know that this isn’t original, but I’m not in a competition to see who did what first. I just want her to know something about me, that she be able to get to know me at least a little, that she not have to just look at still pictures that wouldn’t tell her a thing. I want her to hear my voice, see my laughter, be able to imagine what her mother was like. Tell me the truth now, how do I look?”

“I told you, you look great. You’re beautiful as ever. You’re just a little tired, but when I frame you, it’s nothing you’d notice.”

“Okay, well that’s already a much more perfectly acceptable lie.”

Then she takes a series of deep breaths, pushing the air in and out of her lungs, like a free diver preparing to go under for what he hopes will be a longstanding world record. “Are you ready?” she asks.

I nod my head.

“All right, then. Start recording.”

And then, after a brief moment, Gin starts talking. “Ciao. Here I am, I’m your mother. I so wish I could have been there for you every single day, be at your side, but in some sense, I really am, a little distant perhaps, but I’m still there with you. I held you in my arms all the time I was able, and I never pulled away from you. I gave you all of my love, and I prayed every day that you would be exactly as you are, as I’m imagining you, as I wish I could have lived to see you every instant of your life.

“Now, you may have seen a few pictures of me, but I want to tell you something more about me, something that perhaps you might not have known. I was very shy when I was small, and in spite of the fact that everyone told me I was pretty, I didn’t feel like I was at all. But after all, beauty isn’t all that important. Your father loved all my defects, and you’ll need to find a young man who will be able to love all of yours.

“But above all, try always to be happy. Sometimes you don’t have time enough to savor your happiness, and when that’s the case, we’re never happy enough.”

Then she tells a few stories about high school, a few of her boyfriends that even I had never heard of, and how strange her first kiss turned out to be, and in so doing, she even manages to coax a few laughs out of me.

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