Every Thursday morning at eleven o' clock on market day Rosa would weave her way through the tables of Il Bar del Mercato and sit at her favourite table waving at Franco the owner. He knew how she liked her cappuccino and always kept her an almond croissant. He made her feel safe. Her instinct told her that she could trust him. She hadn't always had this gift, the gift of knowing who you can trust.
Walking down the aisle
on her father's arm all those years ago she had really believed she was
going to live happily ever after. She had loved Alberto so much, couldn't
bear to be apart from him and wanted to be the perfect wife and make him happy...
The first time it happened she thought that she had tripped over
something and bumped her head. Feeling stunned, she had turned round and shuddered in fear when she saw her
husband's face. Cold hard eyes within a mask of vicious fury. In that moment, something profound and important changed forever. Something
broke deep inside her, an unbearably painful feeling of loss and
hopelessness ripped through her very soul. A darkness descended on her. From then on she knew she could never let down her guard. Knowing her husband was capable of hitting her changed everything. As she stood there, she was vaguely aware of their baby son Giulio crying at the sound of his father's angry voice and in a trance she instinctively reached out to pick him up and console him.
The wounds on her soul never
healed. She had just learnt to manage them. It had taken her a long time and instead
of trying to make her husband happy, all her energy had gone into not making
him angry. One day when the attacks were particularly frequent she had confided in her mother-in-law to seek some help. The
beseeching desperate look she had received had told her all that she needed to
know.
At that moment she made up her mind. Although she was trapped in her marriage, she knew she had to let some light into her life in order to survive. She knew she had to break the cycle. She had to protect her son, to show
him that there was another way of being a man. That would be her life mission. Her weapons became
humour, love and kindness. It was like rowing a boat on a lake knowing
that a monster lay beneath and could strike at any time.
Now Giulio had graduated and left home to live with his girlfriend, Mia. Rosa's reward was to hope the cycle had been broken...
Rosa sat back in the chair at the table, looking up at the grey sky, the chattering of the other customers a light reassuring sound. The sight of the women perusing the stalls holding up scarves and jackets in bright spring colours had always given her joy. A feeling of relief swirled around her. But the tears came to her eyes and she felt immense sadness too. She hadn't imagined her marriage would have been like this. A survival course.
For all those years she had thought the violence was all her fault. With every rage she felt dirty and numbed. Every time he lost control, Alberto would shout angrily that his were only reactions to her actions. She cowered every time never really understanding what she had done wrong.
Now this sort of thing was talked about a lot, it was all in the open, in the newspaper, on social media. There
was even a special day each year dedicated to it, world wide, with red shoes and red benches everywhere. Recently, on a
television chat, show someone had said that it was always unacceptable,
it was never the woman's fault, a man must never ever hit a woman. She had cried
then, deep body -wracking sobs, thirty years of tears in one afternoon.
Franco came up and placed her cappuccino and almond croissant in front of her, with a flourish. She looked up into his warm brown eyes and noticed a patch of blue which had just appeared in the sky.
'Thank you Franco,' she smiled with gratitude.
Franco smiled back, wisdom and kindness in his eyes. He knew Alberto and without words he seemed to understand her pain.
Just then Giulio and Mia passed by and called out,
'Hey mum can we join you, we knew we'd find you here on market day?'
As they pulled up their chairs the sun came out, its bright beams shining on Giulio and Mia.
The darkness that would forever be lurking in her soul shifted and parted like the clouds in the sky to reveal a chink of hope and joy for the future to come.
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