Chapter 32 – Alice
“Look, Hoppy! They’re bubbles!” Millie’s happy scream made Alice smile, as she blew bubbles towards her daughter “Try to catch them!”
“Oh, I forgot how much energy kids of her age have.” Thea murmured, standing next to Alice, stretching her spine “I miss when Josh was that age, but at the same time I don’t. I get more tired having to chase a baby than I do after cleaning this house…”
“One good thing is that she is using all her energy now to get a good night’s sleep.” Alice laughed, blowing a few more bubbles into the air as Millicent ran back and forth, her arms up as she tried to get Hoppy to reach for little clear balls. “And I need to make the most of these nights of rest because, the day before her birthday, she won’t even be able to stand still for a single moment waiting for her cake and sweets.
“Millie commented at lunch today that she had never had a birthday party that wasn’t at her daycare.” Thea mentioned, and Alice was grateful that she was concerned, but was still trying not to be intrusive “I’ve never been to the Dawsey residence, but, if your grandfather was in the same league as Tommaso and his father, then I think there was certainly enough room to make something special for Millicent, right? Did your parents…?”
“My father is always very busy with his work, so I doubt he’s ever thought about Millicent’s birthday.” Alice shrugged, the feelings in her chest so old that she couldn’t even shake it, like when she was a child “And, well, whenever you wonder why nothing was done for me or my daughter at the mansion Dawsey, know that it was because my mother didn’t want it. My sister is always her priority.” She blew some more bubbles for her daughter to play with ” Maybe I was lucky to realize this relatively quickly, back when I was a teenager. I could have spent a lot of time suffering, like in my childhood, wondering what I could do to make my mother love me and treat me the way she treated Amber. It may sound depressing to say this, but the one thing Kendra taught me about being a mother… Is that I wanted to raise my daughter in the exact opposite way to how she raised me.”
“As my grandmother said, every child deserves to have a mother, but not every mother should be a mother.” Thea commented, sadly.
“Do you know what hurts me most?” Alice found herself admitting it, perhaps because it had been a long time since she let those feelings out, especially after what Kendra had done to her, stealing her savings and forcing her to get married “I look at Millie and… I can’t imagine loving her sibling more than her. I would love them both equally because they would both be my babies. I know that my birth probably wasn’t the easiest period in my mother’s life, since she and my father had gotten married very recently, which sparked a lot of gossip that she only got married because she had gotten pregnant at a very young age… But, even so, I wonder why was it so easy for her to be a good mother to a daughter who wasn’t me? Is it really that hard to love me?”
“Oh, darling.” Thea lowered herself to where Alice sat on the grass, her eyes heavy with tears that she refused to shed “I’m so sorry to hear that. But even though I’ve never met this
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+25 BOTIUS
woman you were forced to call mother, I can say with complete certainty that the problem lies entirely with her. You are the only one who deserved a real mother, who loved her child as she should. Just like you love Millicent.” She stroked Alice’s head, making her smile “It’s a shar we didn’t get to know you sooner… But, the important thing is that you now have a new family for yourself and Millie, right? You have me, Josial, Joshua… And Massimo.” Thea smiled an unsure but also hopeful smile “I mean, I can see that at some point you two harbored positive feelings about each other. Who knows, as time passes, your marriage could become something real, who knows?”
“Thea…” Alice straightened up, trying not to sound too nervous as she dashed Thea’s hopes as gently as possible “I don’t think…”
“Massimo!” Millie’s shouted, which caused Alice to turn around to find her running towards a nearby tree, where, as always, Massimo seemed to be trying to go unnoticed “Are you here to play?”
“Uh…” he cleared his throat, making Alice wonder why he remained so interested in watching them, if he never seemed ready to accept Millicent’s requests. “I… I mean, we can do that, I suppose.
“Great!” Millie lifted Hoppy into the air again “Do you know the story of the tortoise and the hare? Mommy told me last night! Hoppy wants to play that! Eat, mommy! Thea, too! Come play!”
