Club of Virgins (4 page)

Chapter 7

A month later...

Doralice

8:05 pm

“Peta, how did you get money to pay for my surgery? It was fifteen thousand dollars. I'm worried about it!” I questioned my daughter who was sitting in the back seat of the car. We were on our way to the hospital. Denise and Peta were sitting in the front seats. Denise was driving her father's car.

“Mom, I said we'll talk about it after the surgery when you return home. I promise I will speak about how I got that money and do not worry, I did not steal, nor kill. This money is ...”

Peta exchanged a secret look with her friend Denise and stopped talking soon after that.

“We’ll talk about it another time, Mom. Now we have to think about your recovery.”

“Okay.” I agreed, embracing my bag full of my objects. I had been asked to bring some of my personal things to the private clinic.

“But when I come home ... I want to have this talk with you. Nobody gets fifteen thousand dollars easily,” I mumbled and I supported my elbows on my immense bag.

 
Peta

The time had come for my mother’s surgery. She had been taken into the general anesthesia room.

Before she made her way through the corridors of the clinic she hugged me tightly. We both started to cry, already missing each other. My mother would be hospitalized for a few days and I would only see her after she would be taken to the private room.

“Go with God, mother! Everything will be fine!”

“You too, God be with you! Lock our home properly and anything that comes up, you can get help from our neighbors!”

“I know, mom.”

She held my face and looked me in the eye. “When I return home, we will have that little talk.”

“Okay.”

I hugged her again.

“I love you,” she muttered over her shoulder.

“I love you too, mum.”

We embraced for a while. If I could change everything, my mother would be healed and not need to go through that surgery. But thinking of the positive side, after her surgery, she would be out of danger.

My mother hugged Denise and thanked her for everything. Soon my mother was being wheeled by a nurse along a corridor. Holding her bag to her chest, she looked back at me and gave me a last nod.

I almost burst into tears seeing that scene. I was already missing her so much.

11:20 pm

During my mother's surgery, I remained in the hospital, sitting in the waiting room. Denise was sitting next to me. I waited anxiously for news of my mother.

I wanted to know how everything was going, if she was really okay.

Before long, the surgeon appeared in the waiting room. He was dressed in his white coat, had removed the disposable gloves from his hands and lowered the mask from his face. The doctor had gray hair and his skin was flushed.

Before he said anything, I ran to him, asking, “Doctor, how is my mother? How was the operation?”

I felt Denise also stand up and stop standing right behind me.

The doctor looked at my face and said, “I'm sorry, but your mother did not survive the surgery.”

At that moment, I advanced on the doctor and grabbed the fabric of his coat and closed my fists around it. In despair I screamed.

“Tell me that this is a lie! Please! My mother did not die! My mother is alive! You liar!”

My voice rose. Denise grabbed me and pulled me to her, so I left the doctor's white coat. I hugged Denise, weeping uncontrollably. My friend also began to cry with me. She could not imagine the intensity of my pain, but she knew I was suffering a lot.

A piece of me had been removed from my chest, from my life.

Chapter 8

Peta

My mother’s funeral had taken place on a day without rain. The sky was cloudy and sometimes the sun insisted on making an appearance. Denise was at my side. Her parents had also attended the funeral.

At the end of the funeral I walked slowly to her grave. Everything seemed quiet there. I had been crying the whole day and my face was swollen and my eyes were red. The pain of loss would not leave me.

In my dark suit, I stopped in front of her grave. It was white. There was a wreath of flowers on top of it.

I closed my eyes and began to pray, silently asking God's forgiveness for her sins on earth. I knew her addiction to tobacco had killed her. If it wasn’t for that my mother would still be alive. She was a woman who was still young. She hadn’t even reached her fifties yet.

Now she had gone to meet my father on the other side of life. I felt relieved thinking that they were together, perhaps before God.

I put my hand to my chest and squeezed my eyes. There was a sense of guilt inside me. I had sacrificed my purity to save my mother’s life. However, even in so doing I could not save her. She did not leave the operating room alive.

I fell down to the ground and started to cry again.

“Forgive me, Mom! God forgive me for what I have done. It’s so bad!”

I remembered my mother’s words and I began to sob again.

When I return home, we will have that little talk.

I remembered her last goodbye. That scene would be etched in my memory forever.

Moments later, I opened my eyes and looked at her tomb. The sun's rays were different. They seemed brighter. I blinked, completely surprised when I saw hundreds of butterflies flying over her grave. They looked happy.

My mother loved butterflies. I imagined that hundreds of them had come to say goodbye to her.

I also thought that perhaps my mother’s spirit could be in one of those butterflies.

Chapter 9

Three years later...

Peta

At twenty-one years of age I was attending the state university and undertaking a course in history. My friend Denise was attending a law course. The cool thing was that we were both studying at the same institution, although in different faculties.

I found that in this period, after the death of my mother, I had matured a bit more. I was more interested in seeing the world through different eyes, unlike that eighteen year young girl.

The college reading room was empty. It was a Friday and the students did not want to waste their valuable time holed up inside a library.

Most of them were already in their homes, on the streets or in any place that was far away from there.

I decided to stay. I was working on an artistic performance which was to be delivered the next week.

It was almost 9:00 pm. The reading room was partially illuminated. My fingers turned over the pages of a book with more than five hundred pages. I needed to do a summary hastily.

I looked down at my phone and realized it was already a little late and I had to get back to my home and prepare something in a hurry to eat. Even though it was late I decided to stay a little longer to put a bit more into my summary.

It would not cost me anything.

A moment later I heard a noise coming from a table behind me. Someone had come into the room and laid some heavy books on the table. It was probably a college student.

Seconds later, the sound of the chair being dragged caught my attention, but not enough for me to look over my shoulder and see who it was.

I kept concentrating on my reading.

Another noise. The person was browsing the books on the shelves and throwing them to the side. I could hear it. Obviously this person could not find what he or she was searching for or else had no patience or ability to find what he wanted.

I realized that I was paying more attention to the noises coming from the person that was behind me than in my own reading.

Why?

I tried to concentrate, sighing heavily.

Soon I heard the sound of something being ripped and a mint aroma invaded the room. Then suddenly there was a really loud bang as a large and heavy book of seven hundred pages fell to the ground.

POOOOHHHHHH

At that point I jumped in fright on my chair, my heart beating wildly. Immediately I looked back over my shoulder and began to carefully observe the person who was responsible for this cacophony. 

I saw a young man with dark hair, dark eyes and ruddy skin, sitting at the table behind mine. He quickly looked at me with a flushed face. He seemed embarrassed by his lack of care for the library books.

If the book of seven hundred pages could speak, it would probably curse him in that moment and ask him to stay away from it.

Quite seriously, the guy, in a navy blue shirt, looked down and seemed to contemplate the bright pages of his open book. I realized he was pretending to read. But I had nothing to do with it so I turned around and again looked forward and started to read a paragraph silently in my book.

Within minutes, my neck started to hurt. I passed my hand over it and rubbed trying to ease the pangs coming from it.

The young man sitting at the table behind me averted his eyes from the book and looked at my movements. My hand still massaged my nape. I was uncomfortable in my chair and I could no longer concentrate on my reading.

His curious gaze slowly slid down the contours of my slender body. I was wearing a pink dress with slim straps.

Serenely, his curious gaze stopped on the tattoo of butterflies on my back. He could see some of them on my back.

My red hair was a very deep red in the dim lighting of the reading room.

Not enduring more, I closed the book and muttered, “Enough for today!”

With that, the young man behind me quickly turned his gaze away from my back and back onto his book, afraid I might stand in a hurry and look towards him. I would realize then that he was secretly looking at my back.

Then I got up, gathered my things including the book from the library. I walked to one side and did not look at the table behind me. I felt that the young man had lifted his head and was looking in my direction as I walked hurriedly to the other room.

His gaze was still attached to the tattoo of butterflies on my back. He was probably fascinated by it.