∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

MARIA

My head turned to face who else had opened the door without notice and it was that little girl again. She must've been around Romeo's age. She had short brown locks of hair that curled at the end and was still wearing her dungaree from earlier. My eyes widened a little at the sight of her. Luna. She looked like Luna when she was younger. But her eyes were darker, still grey like the clouds in the thunderstorm outside.

She seemed to realise her mistake as soon as she saw me, a soft gasp came from her. She looked beautiful, I couldn't pretend that she wasn't and she looked just like her mother; something all three of us had inherited.

Then I grasped the fact that she was my sister. My half sister. One I initially thought I could completely never accept until she was stood right in front of me. I suddenly felt bad. I had such hatred for her in such a small space of time until she came in. But Luna was my only sister. Seeing that new girl made my stomach feel all weird. John's daughter. Mamma's daughter.

Mamma cleared her throat. "Oh, sorry, Anya, I forgot," Mamma replied in a kind voice, one that I would be relaxed to hear as a child. "You must be starving." I looked back at her as she started taking things out from the fridge, wiping her eyes discreetly. The girl, Anya, looked surprised at the sight of me.

Anya, I thought to myself. That was her name. She looked like a sweet girl.

Awkwardly, she glanced between us, shyly avoiding my eyes. "No, I'm sorry for interrupting. I didn't know that..." She trailed off and just before her mother could turn back to look at her, the girl quickly escaped back through the door, and as it shut, I turned to see Mamma bringing out some vegetables. When she didn't use her crutch, she held onto the side of the bench to stabilise herself.

I suddenly felt emotional again, seeing her leg and remembering that balcony.

"Anya?" I said, making her turn to look back at me. "That's your daughter's name?"

A small smile came onto her face before she nodded. "We usually have dinner around now." Then she looked nervous before suggesting, "you and Luna should stay for dinner—I mean, if you'd like. I'd..." Then her grey eyes twinkled as she sincerely said, "I'd love it if you could both stay. I completely understand if you'd like to leave—I'm not forcing you. I would never..."

She had never been so nervous around me. It was always the other way around. Just like that, my own mother was finding it difficult to speak to me.

I inhaled deeply before looking outside. It was raining heavily but I still wanted to leave, however, a part of me was telling to stay. But nonetheless, I opened my mouth to decline then the door opened yet again, after a gentle knock, and Luna came in that time. I felt a lot better seeing her. She looked between us, as if to check that things were okay. "Lu," I quietly said, feel in my heart relaxing inside.

Luna beamed, "I'd love to stay for dinner." I looked at Luna as if she was growing thorns out of her head, giving her a look.

"'Love to?'" I mouthed with a small glare before she returned a 'shut up' look to me. The one time Luna was being sweet just had to be that day. My plans to head back to the car had been immediately shattered.

Then Mamma turned making Luna and I immediately look away from each other. Mamma smiled, and when she smiled, I noticed the tears in her eyes again. "Oh," she softly let out in happiness, her eyes gazing at the two of us.

Then Luna sat down beside me at the table comfortably with a relaxed posture. I couldn't believe how chilled she was and averted my eyes away before I started giving her any more looks.

"I'm glad," Mamma gently replied, even looking a little excited. She turned again and began washing the vegetables, still holding a smile on her face. It was new, we always had a cook leaving meals for us in the house.

I decided to use the opportunity to keep asking questions about the life she had lived without me even knowing, picking up on where we left off, "so...you just married to someone else and had a child. A girl at that. Did you never think to reach out to us?" I would never admit that I wanted her to reach out because I didn't want her to. Yes, I ruined the mood Luna tried to lift, but I was still feeling bitter and hurt. I believed I had a right to call out her choices.

Once again, she surprised me with her calm voice, "I didn't think I'd ever have another child and she wasn't planned." Mamma began to chop the ingredients, carefully and flawlessly. "But she felt right."

"Anya and John are my second chance in life." For a second, I felt a pang of jealously inside me.

Luna held a frown on her face before surprising me by saying, "well. It looks like you've done alright with that chance." I deeply inhaled as I looked at them.

"There were many times that I would be sat inside a car, right outside of Dream," Mamma confessed in a contemplative voice. She exhaled, "then outside a performance hall. Or stood in front of the television staring. But..." She turned to face us, her face softening at the sight of Luna and I.

"But I realised I was the last person you'd want to see. I was dead and you both seemed to be doing a lot happier without me. I didn't deserve to see you. I would only ruin what you both have built for yourselves." I didn't know what to say back.

Luna broke through the small silence between us, only filled by the chopping of the food. "Well...what's for dinner?"

Mamma turned and widely smiled as she
replied, "Ribollita, with gelato for dessert."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Dinner meant all of us were sat around the table with the hot, steaming food Mamma made for us waiting to be devoured.

Mamma called Anya in to eat and John took a seat next to his wife, leaving the only spare space on the head of the table, where an extra chair was placed for Anya to sit in.

It felt strange. Mammina never ate her dinner when I was a child and even if she did, she never ate being carefree and content with her food. When she quickly tried the food, she didn't hesitate to dip her spoon into the soup and have a full filling of ribollita, chewing and swallowing without a single repulsive look. Her portion size shocked me. Mammina could never finish the food on her plate no matter how small it was.

"I'm sorry," Mamma sheepishly said, her eyes darting between the food and us as her cheeks reddened. "I usually leave the food overnight to settle in the flavour but I was just chopping random things and threw this together." I wasn't used to her being so shy.

I watched the married couple before me. John gave his wife a stern but playful look. "Whatever you make, my love, always tastes delicious. Thank you." Luna and I must have looked like awestruck puppies looking at them. The way John looked at his wife was a way I had never seen anyone gaze at my mother before, filled with genuine love and compassion for her. My father never looked at my mother that way. It said enough about John and Mamma's relationship with a single gaze.

Then she looked up at him like he spoke the encouraging words she needed to hear to appease her anxiety, instantly smiling after he spoke. She really did love him, I could tell.

Anya came in and seemed to cautiously walk to her seat, shyly keeping her eyes well away from me and Luna. She took a sip of her water after tucking in her chair, briefly replying that she was fine to her father when he asked. She kind of looked like him once I saw them being in the same room together. Even the way they were with Anya showed their affection. Anya was clearly a loved child, comfortable around her parents.

"Please dig in!" John cheerfully said, his own spoon disappearing under the soup to begin eating. Then the awkward silence was filled with John complimenting his wife's cooking skills and his poor attempts at complimenting in Italian, a language he certainly couldn't speak.

I finally tasted my mother's home cooked food from herself. I noticed that she didn't put a small portion in bowl like she used to. In fact, it looked a lot bigger than I could handle. It tasted amazing despite hiding it on my face. I was having a spoonful, then two, then gradually, I was eating the food freely without even realising how quick I was going.

"You must've been hungry after all that vomit," Luna nudged me, making me finally see that I had finished half the bowl. I looked up to see Mamma's eyes and she smiled, quickly looking back at her own bowl.

"Seeing you all eat makes me full," Mamma quietly said, looking emotional again. She never used to be so in touch with her feelings.

"I'm Anya." Anya finally said something. Her eyes struggled to directly stay in contact with mine, looking bashful.

Luna smiled and, being the sweetheart she was, replied sweetly, "I'm Luna." Mamma glanced between us all, a mixture of emotions in her eyes as she watched her daughters interact.

"I know," Anya responded in a meek voice. She broke off tiny pieces of her bread to give her hands something to do. Anya smiled as she looked at us. "You both look just like the way you do in pictures."

"Pictures?" I repeated in puzzlement, unsure of what she meant.

Anya nodded before explaining, "Mama showed me...my sisters." I glanced between Mamma and Anya, surprised that she had told Anya about Luna and I. I softly let out a breath, speechless for a second. Luna's eyes expanded as she looked at me in astonishment. We weren't random guests in Anya's house; she knew exactly who we were.

I swallowed. "What did she say about us?" I asked as if Mamma wasn't right there. Anya could finally meet my eyes, maybe because I didn't have such a hard look on my face anymore. She held a small smile on her face, "that I'm not an only child. That I have two sisters that Mama can't see anymore because she didn't look after them properly."

"And that you're both amazing," Anya's eyes glistened as she warmly spoke to us. I was taken aback at how welcoming she was to Luna and I. Then my eyes moved back to Mamma who was refilling everyone's glass of homemade lemonade.

Then I suddenly sprung out a question in a gentle tone that even surprised me, "what do want to be when you're older, Anya?" It was an out of blue question that I had to know.

Anya sincerely looked happy as she answered me, "an author," and that single answer told me everything I needed to know about Mamma and Anya in one.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Anya really was my mother's second chance in life.

She was a child that wasn't forced to walk in her mother's footsteps like I was. Anya was free to anything she put her mind to. She was one of the signs that my mother had changed.

Anya loved reading. She showed Luna and I all her books filling her packed bookshelf after dinner, giving us previews of the short stories she had written and won contests for through school. Her art that reminded me of Luna.

It was when Anya and Luna were talking about art when I slipped away to the main bathroom.

After drying my hands, I walked across the landing, about to re-enter the bedroom again until I heard a sharp, "ouch!" from downstairs. I frowned at the sudden noise, carefully walking down a couple of steps. It was Mammina.

I paused when I heard John's voice, "Eva, you shouldn't have overdone it today." Then I heard my mother chuckle before sharply inhaling then letting out a loud breath.

"I'll do it slowly," I heard him gently tell her as she hissed. My eyebrows narrowed as my feet brought me closer to where all the sounds were coming from. I didn't suspect John but at the same time, I didn't know what was going on and thought of the worst.

"I really needed to spice up the garden," Mamma was saying, "I feel like I've been growing the same plants for ages. Don't the new ones look beautiful? I was thinking, John..." Then she let out a small 'ahh' and I peeked through the crack of the door, wondering what was causing her so much discomfort. "I was thinking of planting vegetables around the back."

It was her leg. John was massaging Mamma's bare leg on the sofa as she laid down. Her hand covered her eyes as she sighed, wincing. My heart dropped. Mamma had really permanently hurt her leg. There was a large scar that ran down her thigh, a thick, pastel pink mark in a perfect line. A surgery reminder. The skin sealed together looked thick and brutal, like a knife had cut deep down to her bone multiple times on different occasions. She surely had surgery more than once.

Then my eyes slowly reached my mother's face. She'd changed. Her eyes lit up as she gazed at John. I was on edge about John seconds earlier for nothing. He wasn't like my father. Mamma had never looked at my own father that way. That past look of anger and bitterness had been completely erased by love. It made her look nicer, younger and happier. She was happy. A lot happy than how she was with her ex husband.

It was a complicated feeling; anger, hurt, confusion, pain. But I also felt drained, like I had been contained with fury for so long that it had just evaporated out of me the second I saw her. All my frustration was a lot to deal with. It had been an overwhelming day and was exhausted. Being with Mamma for the whole evening spoke enough to me about my life.

"Luna and I are leaving now..." The words fell out of my mouth making the two of them quickly look over at me. It slipped out without thinking. I pushed the door open more and stepped in, just as Mamma sat up more to see me better. She held her small smile, but her eyes gave away her sadness. They lowered, unable to meet mine.

"Are you sure? It's raining..." John kindly tried to encourage us to stay, glancing between me and his wife. He helped her sit up as I nodded, pulling a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Yeah, we weren't supposed to be here, anyway..." I quietly replied, my heart skipping a beat hearing Luna's laughter from upstairs. I wasn't mad at her for being kind, I was more suprised that she had been able to be so comfortable, so quickly. Luna and I had different childhoods. I deeply inhaled. "We have a long ride back so..."

Mammina slowly stood, her hand gripping onto her crutch, the veins poking beneath her skin. She nodded and as she approached, her eyes ran all over my face as if to remember me one last time. I felt my heart race the closer the got, blinking rapidly as I tried to calm myself down.

"Maria, I'm..." Her eyes were glossy. "I'm glad that I got to see you and Luna today. I missed you both, and I love you both." Her eyes moved behind me and I felt Luna's presence. "And I'm sorry," she genuinely apologised, a soft and earnest tone to her words. "I am sorry that I wasn't a true mother."

I swallowed, my eyes dropping to my feet as I took in what she said. "I don't know what to think," I honestly told her, "I don't even know what I should be doing."

Then I firmly said, "but I'm on a journey to recover myself. So I just need time to digest all of this."

I didn't know if a relationship could ever form between my mother and I, if I could ever forgive her, if I could ever see her as my mother.

I also didn't have a concluded opinion on her and her new life.

However, one thing was for sure, Luna was my family and I was going to continue to protect and love my younger sister.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

~ Author's Note ~

That marks an end to a difficult chapter in Maria's life. She doesn't know what to feel at the moment, what to think or how to perceive things, but understands that it is completely normal to feel that way.

Only a pinchful of chapters left to go!

Thoughts on this chapter?

Please vote, comment, share and follow.

Please tag users you think will be interested in NEPENTHE!

Thanks for reading!

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘