Madrid English Version

Chapter 16

For her part, Aria spent part of her evening face-to-face with her British friend and the other part with a man. A man she knew well. Very well indeed.

He'd just left. The man in her apartment had just left. The brunette sighed with relief and called as she had agreed with the Englishman. She pressed the Lanny contact and pushed the video call button. The British man answered very quickly, wearing a sweatshirt, hood pulled over his head, wrapped in a blanket, probably on his sofa.

- Ari! Said the pilot, enthusiastically, when he saw his friend through the handset. How are you?

- Fine, and you?

- What are you up to? he asked curiously.

- I'm going to work for a bit, then I think I'll go to bed, what about you?

- I was watching a movie on the couch. Why didn't you work before?

- My brother came to see me in the evening.

- You've got a brother? he asked, astonished by what he'd just discovered.

- Yes, Rafael. He needed help with a physics project on the force of gravitational attraction, so he came to see me. Because no one at home had studied physics or this subject, he jumped at the chance to come and see his favorite big sister.

- The moment you use the word gravitational pull in your life and know what it means, there's a problem.

- Stop it, that's mean, she said, dramatizing to make him feel guilty, which worked because he apologized immediately afterwards. Besides, it was better for him if I helped him than my father, she asserted, laughing.

- How's that? Lando asked, not understanding what she was getting at.

- Let's just say my dad isn't the best at explaining math, physics or anything.

- He doesn't understand what needs to be explained?

- Either he doesn't understand the teacher's lesson, or finds it doesn't make sense and rephrases it by changing the whole meaning of the sentence, or he uses the way of: "you're forbidden to do anything: eat, go to the toilet, stretch your legs from sitting so much." Nothing, you had to sit in your chair until you understood and passed each exercise. After that, he mostly did it with me. When it was my little sister's turn, it didn't matter if she didn't understand everything and didn't do her exercises.

- But it's horrible, Lando admitted, after hearing Father Torani's practices.

- There are worse things.

- Is it even possible?

- Once, I had a fever, I think it was the flu, and I had to go to school and do all my homework. Whereas my sister, who had a bit of a cold, could stay at home and not work. And that evening when I was ill, I didn't understand because I had a fever of forty and he forced me to sit on a very uncomfortable chair for two hours, without eating or anything, without any medicine to calm the pain and the fever. And during those two hours, I saw my sisters playing console games and eating dinner next to me.

- But I'm surprised that now you think it's normal to work all day non-stop.

- At least his method taught me to stay focused, even when I'm sick, hungry, tired...

- You do realize that's not normal, Ari? And that he should never, ever have done that. He asserted firmly, to make her understand that her father had in no way helped her. The brunette shrugged her shoulders in response, not knowing what to say.

The two friends spent an hour talking about anything and everything, especially the young woman's father. Lando discovered that he had spent his life favoring the Spaniard's younger siblings, treating her from birth as if she were an adult. Luis Torani had always expected his eldest daughter, Aria Torani, to act like an adult.

How can a child of four act like an adult?

How can a seven-year-old learn to cook for her youngest children when her parents go out to dinner without them?

How does a ten-year-old learn how to do the laundry, otherwise they'd have nothing to put on their backs?

How does a thirteen-year-old have to learn how to do a tax return, because her father figure has decided that it's the right age to learn such things?

How is a sixteen-year-old supposed to learn how to take care of three kids with the flu, and herself, when her parents are away on business?

Aria had spent her life looking after her younger siblings. Taking care of them because her parents were away.

Absent from their home.

Absent from her heart.

She was the mother figure to her siblings.

The mother figure replaced by his parents when they reached the age where he could take care of them. Camilla, Mia and Rafael Torani had had three parents. Their biological parents, and their big sister, Aria, who looked after them through chickenpox, lice... Yet they had had three parents, to the detriment of Aria, who didn't have a mom and dad, only a mom and dad.

Aria didn't have a dad.

Aria didn't have a mom.

She had a father.

She had a mother.

The British had just helped her realize this.

To realize that she had been the parent she had dreamed of as a child.

A thought immediately popped into her head that made her touch her belly. She could have become a mother. She could have become a mother. Be the mom she'd dreamed of as a child. A mommy who brings snacks after school, who cooks for us so we always have something to eat...

- Did you just touch your belly? guessed the pilot, when he saw a small tear trickle down the corner of the brunette's eye, and lowered his gaze to what, today, could have been rounded, but wasn't.

- Ho... How did you know? She stammered, at a loss for words.

- That's because I'm Super Lando, Lanny! He said, imitating a superhero, which made Aria laugh and Lando smile.

- I'll leave you to it, Lanny.

- Have you eaten? he asked hastily.

- What? Why are you asking me that? she replied, not understanding the purpose of his request.

- You know very well why I'm asking you this, Aria. I'm going to repeat it once and only once, so listen carefully. Aria Torani, with far too many names, have you had dinner tonight?

- No, I haven't. Confessed the brunette, lowering her gaze in shame at her honesty.

- What you're going to do is go and see Carlos, he'll have something to eat and ask him if you can take him dinner.

- But Lando, how do you know he'll have dinner?

- He's my best friend, I know him. He cooks all the time, he loves it. Come on, no arguments Miss. I'm hanging up now and I want a photo of you eating to make sure you've done it.

The British man didn't give Aria time to reply as he had already hung up. She told herself that if she didn't go, it wouldn't matter. Yet the pilot had asked her to do this. She could do it for him. She'd do it. She'd go eat at her neighbor's, to please Lando.

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