Chapter 4
Michael and Nora Have Problems with Their Family Responsibilities
Michael and Nora lived in a luxurious apartment, a combination of two outstanding luxurious Florence properties. This bi-level apartment had some interior stairs and an elevator. It was newly renovated and upgraded with contemporary furnishings. It had a living room and a dining room where the generously floor plan sparkled with style. The gleaming parquet floors, the floor-to-ceiling French windows and its marvelous stone fireplace made this superb space to be amazing. In the evening, the sofas and the comfortable stylish chairs made the fireplace to be a real delight. The apartment had a view onto the magnificent courtyard situated below the building. The kitchen was fully equipped with a range, two microwaves, a big dishwasher, an enormous refrigerator, a modern coffee machine, two tea kettles, a toaster, all cutlery, pots, pans, kitchen utensils, and everything that was necessary for a family. The bedroom was charming and nicely furnished with two single beds which could be assembled to form a queen-size one. The other bedroom had two large single beds which could be turned into a king-size one. Michael and Nora lived there with Mary, their daughter.
Nora was a dentist. Her husband,Michael, was a very tall man having very black round eyes. His hair was always very dry and unmanageable. Looking at his round face for the first time, everyone could say that he had passed through many negative experiences in his life. Going through problems in his life, he didn't overcome them and even he had set good goals before graduating from the University, he couldn't achieve them because he practically was a dreamer. He was a good fighter. His soul was tortured by love and by pain. He was an extreme introvert and this is why he needed time to recharge himself.
Nora told him, "Can you help Mary to learn her lessons instead of listening to her prate for two? She wants to feel a little more important. She's only eighteen and this is the reason why she's exacerbating her tensions sometimes. You said that sometimes she needs to compensate the absence of her real father. Give her the opportunity to stop exacerbating her tensions. You might find out that you like her more than usual!"
"She can do better than that appearance. You must help Mary keep her mind engaged and active, despite her problems. In fact, she's my step daughter." Michael became furious, but Nora continued, "There are a lot of activities that you can do together to help her to enhance her fine and gross motor skills. The first thing you need to learn is to calm down and to get past the nervousness. Try to play chess with her. For example, you can try different chess strategies and chess openings. That might give her some cool points with her friends for knowing to play chess better than before," Nora tried to stay calm.
"Just tell her that her dad is going to do something very important. I will go to my room, I'll shut the door and I will read a book. Whatever! I need some peace and quiet." Michael tried abruptly to end the conversation.
"You can invite her to discuss the news already published in the local newspaper, " Nora suggested. After that, she continued,"She might feel more connected with you, if she gets to understand new interesting ideas. Or, maybe you can take her to go to an indoor rock climbing gym. Do something, Michael, she's against this marriage."
"It's a waste of time. She doesn't like me. She doesn't accept me as a father, Nora! " Michael exclaimed being completely out of his mind.
"She has the mind of an eighteen year girl. She's still a child. First of all, she needs to understand us."
"Unless she's remarkably immature for her age, she's old enough to understand the situation. You know I love to be a part of your life and I love to hear about all the things that you're doing and thinking about. I'm glad that we're becoming so close. But your daughter can destroy everything in our relationship."
"Maybe she needs more time to be with you and maybe you cannot appreciate what she really does, but maybe she will be able to be your daughter in time. As long as she needs a father, she won't be capable of hurting you. Be reasonable, Michael."
"She is your own child, she's not mine and you and only you must be interested in all that she needs to say - not me. And if your daughter can pick up your apathetic attitude and she can bridge the gap between you two, it is because she's still a fighter. But she won't fight any longer ,if you don't help her. Don't let her do everything on her own."
"I don't know why you blame her all the time. Your mind works differently and you have different needs but I know that you want to build a stronger family relationship. You don't realize that all she needs is love. Love is a real force in the act of forming the family."
"Love? " Michael looked straight into her eyes." Love and always love."
"When we fall in love we need to lift the veil of time in order to understand if we really have eternal life or not, although we theoretically know that we are the eternal children of the eternal God."
"We are so transient, my dear. We experience only the wonder of love. God knows our hearts better than we do." He touched her.
He continued on looking seductively at her. She broke down because of all tensions. She didn't say anything any longer and she began to look at him. Suddenly, they became both very excited. He moved very close to her. He became very gentle and he asked her with a smiling face: "Will you dance for me? "
"Why not? " She answered with a question and she started to dance for him. She danced so gracefully that he began to imagine her a beauty in ice skaters apparently gliding nearly and without touching the surface. He wanted to offer her all the coolness of an ice and the detachment from everything around.
He touched her again. She felt something very strange like an invisible creature hooking his fingers into her soul and detaching her feelings once again. It seemed to be almost a gentle touch. She felt his possessiveness biting her sensibility. He shoved her against herself wounding her in a pleasant manner until she reached her agony and her ecstasy at the same time. That invisible creature sank his nails into her soul while caressing her maternity. She felt like not belonging to herself. Once again, the life ripped up the depth of her being.
Nora was a forty year old woman. She had delectable curves and a sensual body but she looked like she was fifty. She had smoky eyes and a small mouth with pink lips. Although her skin tone was pale like a vanishing cream, she tried to look very Spanish. She had gorgeous green eyes and her hair smelled like cinnamon. Her hair was colored in red . Her new hairdo made her look like a ghetto slut. She wanted to be an authentic lady drinking always only soft drinks and eating dainty portions while smiling, nodding and sitting politely with her legs coquettishly crossed like usually the ladies do. She looked much more like a red clown sometimes, but nobody noticed that. She had a wonderful heart. Long time ago, she was a very beautiful woman. She had her face covered in sweat because of her hard working. So, she lost her beauty. She was that kind of woman being amazed at everything.
Ella came to visit Nora. Ella was her best friend. Nora was like a sister for her. Nora always said that she cannot live without Ella. She shared all her secrets with Ella. She felt better after sharing her painful thoughts with her cherished friend.
At twenty-eight, Ella was a very sensual young Russian lady with a porcelain skin and a beautiful face. She had a slim body with large breasts and a shoulder length brown hair. She was looked like a mannequin or, more exactly, like a doll when she dressed and made up. An incredible beauty lied in her very brown eyes. She seemed to absorb the whole world in her deep, sparkling eyes.
"My mom's a very talkative woman. Of course that I have the chance of not living with her. There are certainly a lot of things I have always wanted to do, but I never had the time to do. When I get there, all those things help me to prevent some unpleasant situations. She has a friend, who's exactly like her. There are many times when they simply start talking over the top of one another. Sometimes, when I go to visit my mother I find her friend being there. It's exhausting sometimes. I've always got to knuckle down and hear them out. They may talk for nearly an hour but all I have to do is to sit there and hear them. In a sense, they tell me they care about me. My father died ten years ago. He was a very nice man. He used to say, 'Honey, I need to chill out after this long day at work. I'm very tired. 'I still remember him telling this to my mom." Ella had tears in her eyes.
"I was a child, when I was aimlessly trying to understand my situation. Generally, I needed some focused attention, but I was feeling so lonely trying to convince myself that everything was normal. Being so distant was exactly the wrong approach to my parents. I think it happened because I was stuck in a snobby school with no friends and many evil teachers, " said Nora, becoming suddenly very sad. "You didn't feel loved, Nora! You didn't feel that power of love, which makes us most unique and creates goodness."
"I knew that my mother was always right and it was unreasonable from me to expect her to do nothing but to listen to me all evening, after she had been working all day. I still do not know why I felt my mother was pushing me away. For a long time, I was too hurt to tell her anything about me. Because of her lack of love, I had to grow up thinking that I had been an old child since the beginning. She always preferred the wisdom against the feelings," Nora told Ella all those words about her mother, because she was seemingly trying to explain the situation more likely to herself.
"Maybe she forgot the wisdom of love, after she had lost the power of love long time ago. Don't judge her. It took me twenty years to realize that my mother had had an extraordinary influence on my life. When she was younger, she was that kind of person having thoughtful discussions sometimes and that kind of mother having time for her children. 'Stay strong in every choice you make, if you feel they are the right ones!'-she used to say." Ella became very emotional and much more clingy with Nora. "Everything that my mother has ever done, had been overshadowed by her thought behind it. I have learned to truly value my mother's thoughts by watching her. She has enriched my life with her passion for learning."
"In her endless love I had seen the hope and the life," said Ella." By the way, I think that your husband has a great problem with Mary, your daughter."
"He had been brought up in an atmosphere of hate and this is why he became a cruel man. But he learned to be a lover, not a fighter, even though he was also a fighter."
" Love is like a humanizing force, it can make a child to become a human being. If we could be in love every minute of our lives,if we could live completely without hate, without anger, without rancor, without envy, without lie, without cruelty, without greed, without selfishness and without any negative thought, then we wouldn't have any spiritual sickness."
"I have been married for ten years. It's the second marriage for both of us. The problem is that our views on what a marriage should be are very different. The life after getting married wasn't the same as our life had been before that moment. After that moment, he completely changed his attitude. I wanted to keep that closeness between us, I loved him more than before and I tried to be very attractive. But what I got in return was the coldness of his heart. He became exhausted and our sex life was drastically changed. He became also very critical. I have lived this way all these last years feeling unloved one week, then feeling adored the next week. I haven't found anything that could make me believe that he has an affair, but I feel this inside of me all the time. I am so hurt inside. I hate that I've become so distant and so angry. I feel that I'm not beautiful any longer in his eyes," Nora confessed to Ella.
"The beauty is a simply pleasure. It can irradiate the face of love. Perhaps, it is just some kind of magic in there. But the fact is that all the magic is within love. And if this beauty can be lasting, then love can be everlasting. The beauty will never pass away as long as it belongs to love."
"Love can penetrate the veil of flesh and see the soul within. Perhaps old age and ugliness become illusions when love is the vision of the eternal. What can you say about your husband? You have no kids yet. You don't know how it is to be a parent."
"From his early childhood he has wanted to discover something unusual. He dreamed of traveling abroad and seeing the world. He loves the nature so much and I can use a metaphor to say that sometimes it is raining because he is sad. On every continent in the world there should be a mountain peak named after him. He is a good climber."