Hotel Room (Part 5)

The long waited continuation of Hotel Room by Catterina Coha!!!!

Night time at the Warwick Allerton, Chicago, June 2016 – Photo by F. Marincola

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…A hotel room in Chicago; two years later

Madeleine was sitting at the desk but she was not working. The room lights were off, and the room was illuminated only by the glow of the surrounding skyscrapers that came through a beautiful glass wall window. And the candid rays the full moon, which dominated the sky with a cold hue, entered the room to highlight the contour of a person sleeping in the bed.

Madeleine was holding a glass of white wine, sipping it slowly, avoiding any noise that could disturb the sleeping companion. The memory of her past binge drinking was surfacing. Despite the awfulness of that moment in her past, she looked sadly at the cabinet filled with liquors, which was there, in the room like in any other hotel room, to tempt its guests. Madeleine did not long for alcohol; she had almost none in the past two years, and it did not take much effort to stay clear. But she had a deep desire to go back in time, not on account of the death wish and for the loneliness of that dark moment but rather for the joy that she had experienced in her dreams and most of all for the delight of seeing Juliet sitting at her bedside when she had opened her eyes.

Madeleine reenacted the events that had followed, as to make sure to never forget any details about her sister, her expressions and her voice.

After leaving the hospital Madeleine spent a few days at Juliet’s place. The small apartment was a bit messy but colorful and welcoming, and the crowded Russian neighborhood where Juliet had moved with her husband years earlier to be closer to the ageing father–in-law, shared the same characteristics. Juliet liked it and decided to stay there even after the separation from her husband, who was vexed by the place and preferred to go to the quiet suburbs. Madeleine had been there before, but never appreciated the good sides of it, letting her be distressed by the inconveniences of the place. Now, “rebooting” the spirit after two days spent in a coma, her attitude had changed.

The two sisters spent hours chatting and sipping coffee in the kitchen, while Juliet was preparing an old family dish that they did not have since childhood. It was improvised, like many things Juliet did in contrast to the careful planning and perfect organization of Madeleine. But it came out fine, seasoned by laughter, which was pouring spontaneously and almost uncontrollably from Juliet and Madeleine who were both exhilarated by having survived the dangerous event.   Laughter is contagious and soon the thirteen-year-old Svetlana came to join her mother and aunt.

“Svietka” ordered sweetly Juliet, “please set the table”. The young girl sighted but obeyed, looking inquisitively at the two women, sensing that there was something unusual beyond the sudden appearance of the aunt in her home.

“Hey Maddy” she asked her aunt with a slightly impertinent tone “you aren’t usually this fun… What happened to you? Did you win the Noble price?”

Madeleine smiled and quickly replied in an amused tone: “No, Svieta, I leave that task to you!”

As a response, Svetlana showed the tongue to Madeleine in a sweet, childish way, and they both smiled.

 

The dinner was nice and the simple food seemed so much more appetizing to Madeleine than the sophisticated cuisine she had at restaurants around the world in her frequent trips. Svetlana had to go to sleep early because of school and the two sisters were left alone in the late hours of the long day.

“You know” Madeleine said “I could not help but notice how Svieta spontaneously organized by color the napkins and the little forks, and…”

“Yes” Juliet replied cutting off her sister as if she could not hold the words any longer “she looks so much like you! …Perhaps not physically, …her hair is dark like mine, and she has the eyes of her father, …but it is her behavior, I sometimes think that she is more like you than me…”

“Nothing bad” continued Juliet in a reassuring tone, “she is super-smart in school, like you, she gets all top marks”

“But” Juliet continued after a pause, “I must confess that I am a little concerned about the way she is taking puberty …remember what a mess you were?”

“Oh yes, sorry….” was Madeleine’s answer, and feeling an impulse to be useful, she added: “maybe I can help her”.

“Yes, if think you could” replied Juliet, and went on to explain how Svetlana was missing her brother who had gone to college. He was sort of a second dad for her, given that the actual dad was not much part of the girl’s life.

“You are the determined, assertive person,” explained Juliet “whom she needs, and I am not”.

 

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In the following months Madeleine managed to find the time to visit Juliet more often than she had ever done. She invited Svetlana to visit her research lab, and sparked an interest in science in the soon to be high school freshman. But the best time they had together was a short vacation in Italy. An old colleague and friend of Madeleine used to let her use a house she owned in the hills of Tuscany. Madeleine had been there a few times, the last time with the man she had loved and perhaps still loved, the man she was thinking about on the fateful night of her acute alcohol intoxication.

Madeleine loved the place but after that romantic relationship had ended she could not go there anymore. But with Juliet’s family there was no more sadness, no longing for a lover, Madeleine felt happy and meaningful. They went there with the two kids in late summer, just before Victor had to go back to college. There was a piano in the house that Victor played, and they all sang old songs in the beautiful evenings, when the air of the darkening valley was rising to refresh the hot hilltop. The sun was retiring behind the silhouette of the far away mountains leaving a last present to the clouds by dressing them for the evening in an intense orange hue.

One morning, after dropping off Svetlana and Victor at the beach, the two sisters were driving towards a little town in the hills for some shopping. For the first time Juliet felt the urge to ask the question that had been lingering in the back of her mind since the night spent in the hospital at Madeleine’s bedside.

 

“Maddy, can you tell me why did you try to kill yourself? You pretended that it was a mistake, that you were exhausted and sleep-deprived and had made accidentally some bad decisions, but I know that it is not the truth”

Madeleine sighted and replied with a resigned tone

“I know that you were going to bring it up sooner or later…”

And after a long silence she continued

“You may not believe me because, like everybody else, you have idealized me as a perfectly balanced and self-confident person who always knows what to do”

Juliet tried to protest but was quickly stopped by her sister who continued

“I truly felt tired of life, but I guess not the way depressed people do, I was tired of having created a trap for myself in which everybody expected me to always be strong and rationale, and …”

“ I wanted to scream, to let out a huge pile of feelings that I could never openly express”

Madeleine paused for a minute and then continued

“But, I just did not know how to do it”

“So?” asked softly Juliet

“So, so, so….” replied Madeleine “so I rebelled for once and did not follow the script, did something outrageously stupid, and what is worst is that I did not have the courage to face it, so I tried to make it…..hum, final…”

Madeleine, who was driving, turned towards Juliet for a moment to check her reaction. Juliet was pensive, looking at her hands like if there was something interesting there that attracted her attention away from the confession of Madeleine. Then she said:

“Well, Maddy, I am relieved. You are still the same person I have always known”

“What do you mean?” Asked Madeleine, caught by surprise by her sister’s reaction

“I mean that you simply rebelled against the trap, and I disagree that this was cowardly, I think it takes some courage to accept death”

Then Juliet’s tone changed into a more cheerful one, her voice went up an octave, and she declared

“But I am so very happy that you screwed up, you did not succeed in making it final!”

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Hotel Room (Conclusion)