AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GLASS

It had happened to her several times, when she saw that little girl playing with those three big dogs, in the courtyard of the great house , where she lived , that Terry felt that the little Mill was in danger. Mill was too small, and those three dogs too big, that they could  attack the little girl. But even if the dogs had just accidentally bumped the child, they would have dropped her. That had been , for Terry, a concern dictated by reason and prudence. How could her parents leave a child of three years alone in the company of three big beasts like those dogs?

Mill lived in the wide house in front of Terry’s house with her parents, grandparents, brothers, uncles, cousins….hers was a numerous family, whose members were all immigrants from Romania. Mill was the youngest of that large family, more a tribe than a family indeed, and Terry felt no one really cared for her, that the little girl was left to fend for herself.

Then, one evening, Terry hadn’t still turned on the light and, sitting by the living room French door, she was drinking her glass of wine when she saw….what was going to happen to Mill.

At the bottom of the glass she was drinking from, and which suddenly had seemed ( to her) not only much larger, but also much deeper, Mill’s little round face had appeared, her great dark eyes wide open, as if the child were trying to breathe painting while she was drowning. It had seemed to her that Mill was drowning in a lake. Terry had screamed, the glass in her hand had fallen to the floor and had shattered. As she picked up the pieces of glass, with trembling hands, Terry  h repeated to herself that she had to warn Mill’s parents, but also other her family members, because for sure the little girl was in danger….a misfortune was going to happen to her.

Terry hadn’t  the slightest doubt about what had appeared to her at the bottom of the glass: she had had a premonition when she had seen Mill who was drowning.

As soon as she had finished picking up the pieces of glass___and picking them up in a hurry, trembling, she injured her hands____ she hurriedly wrapped  her hand, which continued to bleed , with a handkerchief , and left the house hastily ,  there was no time to waste,  she had at least to warn Mill’s mother, that little child was in danger.   Breathlessly she had rushed to Mill’s house. In the room she had been let into ____it had to be the kitchen___there was a great confusion , a great disorder. Mill’s mother and grandmother were preparing dinner. There were pans and plates, bread and cold cuts, and pieces of meat all over the room, even on the floor.

Some little boys, they were Mill’s brothers and cousins, who were chasing each other around the house, went in and out of the kitchen, shouting, pushing each other, overturning dishes and crockery. Terry barely managed to get close to Mill’s mother. “ I don’t see Mill. I came just for her” she said. “ Ah, if you came to bring her something, you can leave your gift to me. Mill isn’t here now. She went to the rides with her uncle Paul.” Mill’s mother said, without even looking at her, as she was wiping her hands on her apron. Amid all that confusion  Terry  didn’t know how to tell the woman what she had seen, the premonition she had had about Mill. “ Look ( listen to me), I have come to talk to you about Mill. Couldn’t we go somewhere quieter?” She ( Terry) had dared to ask, looking around. Meanwhile even the big dogs ,with which Mill used to play , had entered the kitchen.

“ Ah, if you have something to tell me about Mill, you can speak here….What’s up? What happened? Did my child do some pranks?” the woman said, as she kept on cutting vegetables.

“ But no, Mill didn’t do any pranks, don’t worry…. Indeed I have come to inform you of something else, something more worrying  than …some pranks”

“ Ah what is there to worry so much about Mill? Let’s hear” she asked the woman, but as absent-mindedly, continuing to sling between pots and vegetables. Terry, in front of the indifference of the woman, she had found herself in difficulty. How to tell her what yet she had to tell her, what she had run to her for? Since she hadn’t felt like at all to talk ….about what she had seen at the bottom of the glass, she had started by recommending that she, they, had to watch over Mill, they had to take great care of their child, because Mill was in danger. She knew that Mill was in danger, she had the feeling  that Mill was in danger, Terry had repeated.

“ Ah, come on….you’re still worrying about the dogs, aren’t you? Look, there is no fear for dogs, Mill is safe with them” the woman had said, speaking with nonchalance .

Terry had felt lost, damnation, there was no way of letting Mill’s mother , too busy with pots and pans, understand that her child was in danger. Besides, Terry, who lived alone, frequented a few people, so she didn’t really know who she could talk to ask what she had to do, how she had to behave with regard her premonition. That hers had been a premonition she had not the slightest doubt, therefore she hadn’t the slightest doubt that Mill was really in danger, that what she had seen at the bottom of the glass____the child  that was drowning ___it was really going to happen.

So the first one to whom she had talked , on phone, about her premonition had been her son Gabriel, who lived in another city, whom she rarely saw, with whom she was not even in tune.

He, Gabriel, after listening to her, had asked her if she was okay .” God, here we go again,” she had said herself…”and, besides, what else could I expect? But sure that Gabriel sees my premonition as nothing more than a fixation, at least a projection of mine”

“ Oh, that little girl again! Oh, mom, not once, when you talk to me, that you don’t remember your neighbors little girl, that you don’t say you’re worried about her, that she is in danger!” Gabriel blurted out.         “ But this time is different! I had a premonition, Gabriel! Oh, I saw that little girl drown! And I’m sure it will happen if…if I don’t do something to prevent it! And what…what can I do? That poor child is always left alone, with the only company of those big, ugly beasts! Her mother, oh, imagine if she listens to me when I recommend she keep an eye on her child!” Terry, speaking, had raised more and more her voice, ending up to yell.

“ Mom, please, try to stay calm, and reason. First of all, it is not at all said that what you believe was a premonition , is really such” Gabriel said.

“ But I tell you it is a premonition! I couldn’t be more sure about it! I know, I feel mine has been a true premonition! “ Terry yelled, anguished.

“ Listen, mom…stay calm and listen to me….Don’t you think that you in this little girl-___who is called Mill, isn’t?____which you always see in danger, for which you are always worried….ehy, mom, but listen to me: don’t you think that you in this little girl  can project another little girl, which was really in danger? “ Gabriel asked.

“ No! I don’t project any other child into Mill! “ Terry protested vehemently. “ Ah, but if you start making these speeches , what am I talking to you?” She screamed angry and hung up the phone.

When he had asked her that question about the little Mill___might be that she always worried so much about that little girl because ( since) she saw another little girl in her?____Gabriel was referring right to her, to Terry as a child, who had been always left to herself, since no one had ever taken care of her, neither her parents, nor her grandparents….Sure, Terry too, as a child, had been neglected , and she had suffered for it. However, as a child, she had never been in such dangerous situations as those in which Mill seemed to be habitually.

But it hadn’t been Gabriel’s allusion to her as a child that had impressed Terry, causing her tohang up the phone. Her son’s question had made Terry remember another child , which had been in her life, and that Gabriel didn’t know anything about, he didn’t even know that child had existed. That child, Rosie, was the daughter Terry had had ( had brought into the world) as a teenager. A few days after Rosie was born, she had died. …But had her child really died? Terry had always thought that her parents had made her believe that her child was dead, while instead Rosie had been given to someone.  That child…her child…had she really died or had been given to someone, she had remained like a thorn that kept on hurting, stinging in Terry’s heart ever since.

But now there was Mill, now she had to think about saving Mill from the fate that threatening her….and Terry didn’t know what to do, how to do. Seen the scarce attention the mother of the child had paid her, Terry tried to talk to Mill’s grandmother.  But even the child’s grandmother seemed  to not care about her words, about her warning, also the grandmother seemed to not want at all to take Terry’s premonition seriously, to believe it. But on, Mill was not at all in danger, the child’s grandmother had said after Terry had told her of her premonition. Oh, come on, how could Mill have drowned into a lake? There were no lakes there…..the nearest lake was miles away.

Terry, every time saw the little girl, and not a day went by that she didn’t see her, she felt her heart tighten . She had even thought of having the child entrusted, so that she would keep Mill always with her, so that she could take care of watching and protecting her , but then she didn’t feel like asking for the little girl to be entrusted to her.

Days went by, weeks went by. Whenever she saw Mill, always alone, often in the company of the three big dogs, Terry felt that grip in her heart.

One afternoon Mill, who was playing with her dogs in the yard of her house, suddenly disappeared. The dogs disappeared too. Terry had seen the little girl and the dogs just before they disappeared.  Nobody had seen Mill moving away from the  yard, so nobody  knew where she could have gone, as nobody knew what had happened to her.  Where could such a very little girl have gone? People thought Mill had been kidnapped by someone, perhaps a pedophile.  The little girl was searched everywhere in the neighborhood. After many hours of searching Mill was found drowned in the swimming pool in the park of an abandoned villa, that was miles away from the child’s house.  That villa was fenced off by a gated net. How could Mill have entered the park of the villa where the swimming pool was located? How did the dogs get in? Yeah, the three big dogs were found on the edge of the pool, as if they were watching Mill . It was said that the dogs had tried, in vain, to save Mill when she was drowning.