The Return

The minute she heard his voice on the other end of the receiver, she knew all was lost. She came to the realisation a few days ago by the tone of the emails and the ways the meetings ended; in dead end. She knew what to expect but decided to fight for it until the end.

"Naida I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Irving is pulling out. Two million is just a huge amount and the business plan is inconsistent. He could see this from the start"

 " Ok. Fine. Let's discuss in the morning. It's late now anyways" she replied keeping calm, after all she knew it already. After all calamity was one of her strong points together with stubbornness. Naida was like that, she kept calm under the most stressful situations. No one knows how exactly she does it, no one knows how she acquired this capacity and when. Then again, she might always be this person or at least inclined to be. Even when she was young, too young to know her own self.

She hanged the receiver and stared at the massive clock on the wall, ticking the hours away. It was already 2 o'clock in the early morning. The darkness outside was dense and the air was chili. Naida could guess. She stayed up many nights before, tormented by insomnia, she knew exactly how each hour of the night looked like.

But tonight, she was not planning to stay up. In fact, she felt her eyelids heavy and her body tired of agonising over the outcome for the past months. At last she knew. Even if it wasn't the outcome she wanted. Even if that meant her life was changing once again, at least she knew. 

She checked on Cadence before going to bed. Her daughter was sleeping, oblivious that tomorrow their lives would change. Naida, didn't mind for herself that much. But Cadence, would feel her world being ripped apart and Naida was afraid of her daughter’s reaction.

Cadence was sixteen already, tall and slender with a set of dark hair and a pair of green eyes, just like her father, dreaming the day she would go off to Evenerst School for her art studies.

Naida, walked pass her room, thinking, they will manage, the two of them, just like they managed when Cadence dad passed away, they were left the two of them, Cadence almost a new born and Naida a young woman faced with an unbearable loss. But they managed,

She lied on her bed, craving for rest and sleep. She felt as if an elephant was sitting on her chest and it was difficult to breath. Tones of darkness fell upon her while her eyelids were shutting. She would do all the thinking, all the planning in the morning. 

And the morning came, and light reflected from the leaves of the nearby trees crossed into her room and woke her up gently.

Steven was the first person she talked to that morning. She called him and asked him to give her a statement of her assets before liquifying them, including that very house they were living in, including Cadence studies in Evenerst school, she so longed for.

They were just enough to pay the company’s debts and render it bankrupt.

She finished the formalities with him and sat back on an armchair that would soon not belong to her.

She founded the company fifteen years ago, a young widower, parenting her daughter alone. Everyone thought it was madness, but she kept going, putting in the long hours and sleepless nights, and for a while they all seemed to be worth it.

She saw the warning signs early enough but chose not to consider them. She was too busy enjoying her success, enjoying her daughter, enjoying her life.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Havana ooh na na ...Havana ooh na na ...."

Her phone rang and a photo of Cadence and her came up on the screen. They were on vacations in Barcelona last summer. It was a selfie of them on a roller coaster in a fun park. They had spent the day sightseeing across the city, visiting the famous Guell Park, admiring the early sketches of Picasso in his dedicated museum and by the end of the day they sat at a café bistro to enjoy and full plate of seafood rice before heading to the fun park.

Looking back, she wouldn’t trade the good times. She will take the bad times

Nadia took a good look at the vibrating photo, Cadence was oozing confidence and joy. The sort of confidence and joy Naida never experienced at that age. She remembered herself. Shy, uncertain, avoiding all human contact.  Nothing to reveal the woman she was now. The only connection between her and the anguished teenager of the past was that even then she secretly knew she would manage. Somehow, she would manage. Even when she would get petrified of speaking in front of the classroom, even when she rushed out of school the minute the bell rang to find what seemed to be security in the nearby woods. She remembers it well. The woody smell of pines and wet soil. The scratchy noise of her boots made while walking on the autumn leaves,

If it wasn't for Adam, she would still be in that woods trying to find comfort and security, while all the time comfort and security lied within her. 

She hadn't been there for years. She avoided it. She left it to the past, to the teenager Naida. Like many things from that small town. They never tried to understand her, she was the one who had to fit in. Keep herself silent and fit in, to the norms of the small town. Naida didn't know how to do it. Her curse and gift. 

The last time she was there to see her mum and dad, Cadence was only six. She loved the garden, she played there for hours and when she got tired, she would walk up to the kitchen and had a few of her grandmothers treats. They strolled into the town together. Naida felt people looking at her, whispering,

Naida can’t tell if Cadence remembers any of it. After all, that late November was the first and only time Naida visited her home in the past twenty years.

 “Hello”, she eventually picked up her phone.

“Hi Julie” and unfamiliar voice sounded

“I think you have the wrong number “

“Oh Sorry” the voice sounded puzzled before hanging up.

Naida was left there, with her hand still in the air holding her phone next to her ear, pressing on her long dark hair. As if she was doing it mechanically, without thinking she did something she hadn’t done in a long time. She dialled her mother’s number.

The phone rung once, twice, three times….

“Hello…. Hello”

Naida felt the need to clear her voice with a soft cough.

“Mum…. It’s me, Naida”

The silent followed as if the person on the other end of the receiver was trying to capture the meaning of the words just spoken out to her.

“...Hello Naida. How are you? ….. I wasn’t expecting a call from you… How is Cadence? She must have grown a lot from the last time I have seen her… Your father…”

The woman tried to continue her sentence.

“Mum....I am coming home”