SINGLE MOTHER AND CEO

Sofia:

Once at the clinic, my mother ran to the emergency area and managed to get in, to talk to the doctor on duty. Meanwhile, I made the arrangements for my father’s admission and care. Then, I went to the cubicle area where he was being examined.

After a few minutes, Mom came out, letting her tears run down her beautiful face, which I almost totally inherited. I hugged her and sat next to her, I felt really miserable, wretched, I never supposed to be the cause of so much damage to my parents.

During these four months of pregnancy, I cried, I suffered a lot. I even thought about aborting my children, but my faith and my belief in God did not allow me to carry out this decision. Hence, the decision to have them without thinking about the damage this would cause to my parents.

Thinking about the drastic change in my life, just at that moment, the cardiologist who was treating my father, one of the best specialists in the region, came out. Apparently, Dad had been in consultation with him that day. That is to say, he suffers from a heart condition and he was unaware of it.

The doctor approached us, talked to my mother and reminded her of the recommendations he had given them just a few hours ago. According to him, she should avoid anger, excesses and, above all, stress, because something worse could happen to her.

“Oh, God! Precisely, everything I made him experience in a few minutes of discussion with him,” I reflected, feeling more miserable.

The doctor didn’t give much hope, they were taking him to ICU. Dad was having strong problems with his heart. Besides, that this sudden cardiac arrest, could leave serious after-effects, if he got over it. For example, it could leave a simple neurological deficit, or even more severe lesions in the brain, such as a vegetative state.

-This aggravates the pre-existing ailments,” confessed the cardiologist. In any case, he offered to do everything possible and impossible to save him.

-Mom,” he interjected, “why didn’t you tell me that Dad was suffering from a heart condition? -I reproached.

-Because he didn’t want you to know, so as not to upset the completion of your studies, nor your life here in Ciudad La Rosa. In spite of being a curmudgeon, he loves you very much and cares about you,” my mother assured me.

I felt this as a strong slap from my mother. I have years of reproaching my father for not being present at the events I consider essential for me, without weighing up whether or not they had the availability to come to this city, where I am, by choice.

I hugged her crying, ashamed of my own behavior and asking for forgiveness for my lack of understanding with both her and my father.

-I was only thinking of my own interests, my own desires and needs, never yours! -I begged repentantly.

-We are your parents, who decided to bring you into this world, so we are the ones who should be there whenever you want or need us, not when we can,” she exclaimed, with strong feeling.

After crying hugging her, I decided to explain what happened to me without omitting anything, telling how the events really happened. My mother has always supported and understood me, so I could not lie to her and I told her the whole story.

-It’s our fault, daughter,” concluded my mother, with tears in her eyes, “If we had been there, this would not have happened to you. Your father would have taken them to celebrate somewhere else,” she assured her.

-No, Mommy! I am the only one responsible,” I assured her, because I should not allow her to assume a guilt that is exclusively mine.

-I feel very bad, daughter,” she confessed to me, “thinking of everything you had to go through alone, without the support of someone to defend you. Because in the long run, the one who defended you, also took advantage of your innocence and the state you were in.

-I know, mother! -That’s why I tried to find out who it was, but the owner of the place, without referring to what happened to me, when I asked to see the videos of that day, assured me that they erase the recordings of the cameras every day.

-I don’t think that’s true! -She assured me, “Once I get out of your father’s, I’ll take care of it, don’t worry,” she warned me.

(***)

For two months my mother had to stay here in Ciudad La Rosa. Her life revolved around visits to my father in the clinic and my care here in the apartment so that my children would be born healthy.

On the other hand, she put Reyner Medina and his son Jose David in charge of the management of the shipping company temporarily, while she stayed with my father and me. They, in spite of their astonishment at seeing my pregnancy, did not make any comment.

When I was six months pregnant

The narrator:

Sofia, leaving the gynecologist’s office, with her friend Shayla, received a call from her mother, Estefania. She had left early that day for the clinic to check on her husband, because he had been having complications for two days.

-Tell me, mom! -She answered the cell phone, opening her car door.

-Daughter, I need you to come quickly to the clinic,” her mother begged, crying.

-What happened, Mom? -She asked, “Tell me, please! -she begged, fearing the worst.

-Come, daughter! Here I’ll explain,” answered her mother, worried, not wanting to give her more information because she was driving, in her condition.

-Tell me, mother! -Sofia stubbornly begged, sensing that something had happened to her father. Estefania, realizing that she was wrong to call her in the state she was in, told her what had happened.

-Your father… died! -stammered Estefania, in a heartbroken voice, bursting into tears.

Mom, are-you-are-you…? -hesitated, hesitated with a trembling voice Sofia, letting her tears flow like a waterfall- That my father is dead?

-How? -Asked Shayla, running to her side, to hug her and help her open the car- What are you saying Sofia? -He confronted her, unable to believe what he had just heard.

Sofia could not articulate another word, hugging her friend, she let the tears flow and drowning in pain, she only repeated….

-I am to blame for her death! -she assured, her voice choking.

“I killed him! I killed him! -she chastised herself, thinking of the day he went into cardiac arrest. From then on, her father never regained consciousness.

-Calm down, my friend! You can’t blame yourself,” said her friend, not knowing how to console her.

-Yes, I am guilty! I spent all these five years fighting, arguing, disagreeing with my father, and he was the one who spoiled me the most, supported me, even when he didn’t agree with me,” she declared aloud, kneeling on the floor of the clinic’s parking lot.

-God, this must be my punishment! I did not honor my father, I did not respect him,” she cried out loudly, at the loss of the one she loved so much. Shayla could not lift her from the floor where she was kneeling.

At that moment, a group of people passing by helped her to lift her up and take her to the emergency area. While there, Shayla asked for her gynecologist to be called, who arrived immediately.

Once Sofia was attended to, Shayla called her mother and explained what had happened. Her mother, making all the arrangements for the transfer of her husband’s body to Paradise Island, asked her to stay with Sofia while she worked out her departure.

Sofia, was unconscious for a few minutes, until the doctor managed to restore her, calm her down and leave her under observation, due to the risk that this situation represented for the triplets…This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.