I look at the clock on the wall above the television. The seven. It's cold outside, I know. Too cold to go out, but the dogs do not care. If you do not bring Billy out now that I have the strength to do it, then tonight will be a mess in the kitchen, and then I will have to bear all his screaming and crying. And to think that his dog is: a present from her for our anniversary, three years ago. I had kissed him with tears in his eyes when he saw this ball of fur with big eyes decorated with bows, it was the best present ever, he said. Then we made love like never before. We were great set at the time, I must admit.
turn off the TV with the remote, I am sitting in the darkened room a few seconds, then I get up and I get close to the cabinet, to take his coat. Billy understands now, and I'm jumping around, wagging his tail.
go down the stairs skipping two steps at a time, I did as a kid, I open the door of the apartment building and I get hit by a gust of icy air. Turin is still largely covered by snow fall in recent days: the news they said that for thirty years you could not see such a snowfall. I remember what they refer. I was a little more than a child, and my grandfather took me on his shoulders to cross the park covered with snow. He reached just above the knee, and I less than a meter tall I sank up to his ears. It is a clear recollection of this: one of the few I have left of my childhood.
reach out a little 'Billy the leash, so that I can do his business, quiet, small park in the center of the square, while I was leaning against a tree and I light up a cigarette.
do not know what it is, but my relationship with her for some time has changed. I never believed in the love story that has a fixed term, beyond which is a good deal of affection, a few caresses and little more. In fact, I'm sure. We love each other again. There are times when I watch her sleep, late at night, and I still amaze me to what is beautiful. I would wake her, to make love like when we were kids when we did it three times at night when it happened. But then I block, and let their dreams. I turn away and try to sleep for several hours. Unnecessarily.
the silence in front of the TV are getting longer, we do not send text messages and there never call you during the day. Yet it would take so little to turn a bit 'of passion. A small gesture, a caress or a smile. Am I condemning our relationship: a conviction for exhaustion, starvation. Slow but inexorable.
An old hat passes me and gives me a shy wave. I do not know who he is, but I answer politely. The fingers crush the cigarette you are freezing, but no matter: I can not smoke at home, and the only alternative is abstinence.
Billy is sniffing something behind a large tree, while a couple of guys on the twenty sits on a bench in the middle of the garden. He has the air of an intellectual left unconvinced him: several days of beard and hair uncombed, and she has a huge scarf that wraps the face and walked with downcast eyes, before sitting down.
A child would climb on the swing, but his mother drags him by the arm, not caring to her screams capricious.
We should have a baby. We always repeat it, the other couples, when they invite us to dinner. Also after putting them to bed, children. It seems that the secret to run a report to fit it all in giving birth to a screaming bundle. We thought we had, in fact, more than once. But it would have meant radically change our lives. Laura had a strong passion for work and independence: the idea of \u200b\u200bputting everything aside to raise a creature frightened her. Indeed, just terrified. Years have passed, and now I think it's too late to think of something like this: if a child is now proposing to do, I know how to react. After all we already have a dog to look after, and I can not even too well.
The two boys on the bench talking about the plan. I can not tell if they fight or not, but I think it unlikely: each time you laugh at a joke to him, caresses his hand, almost shyly. For a few seconds
envy their intimacy: the noise of traffic around the square, people walking and all the hustle and bustle does not seem to touch them either, right now.
him, all of a sudden, he kisses her. An unexpected kiss, suddenly. Caresses her face with one hand while the other is intertwined with hers. They look like two fourteen year olds for the first time they discover the magic contained in that simple gesture.
And I remember when I met Laura for the first time. I worked as a barman in a local along the river, a place frequented by college students in search of adventure to tell. I had noticed at once, a thousand. Her eyes. Her lips, her perfect teeth. His hands resting on the counter. I gave a shove to another bartender of the time, just to be able to serve me. She had noticed the gesture and had fun of the thing. Throughout the evening we played with the looks and I had been waiting at the exit and we had breakfast together at a bar before take her home and finding myself madly in love.
She is embracing the boy. Her eyes are closed and the air confused but happy. It's beautiful. He leans her head on her shoulder and whispers something.
Billy back to me, wagging his tail. He holds a tennis ball in his mouth, found somewhere. The pat on the head, and I went toward the door of the house. An Indian who sells roses pass me by. The firm, Laura and I buy five, while the two young people get up and walk toward a side street. She takes his arm, smiling. He looks as if seeing her for the first time.
I go home and put the roses in a vase.
This evening, just come home, kiss her lips. Like the first time.
I was lost, but infuse it's never too late to find your way.
