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“…And then there’s my aunt Rosa with her husband and my cousin… Oh! And Martha with her husband Andrew and little Ella, of course!” Bia said, counting on her fingers as she listed the names. Sitting on the couch right next to her, Buster nodded, jotting everything down on his clipboard.
One of the first things to do was to get an approximate idea of how many people to invite to the wedding. Although Buster did not have many family members to invite, both he and Bia could count on a good number of friends, met over the years thanks to their respective careers in the theater and television fields, and then there were Bia's relatives from her mother's side of the family. “I think there’s someone you forgot.” Buster said, tapping the back of the pen on the clipboard.
Bia moved closer, resting her head against his arm as she read the list over. “Mh. No, these are all the people I can think of.” The woman said after a few moments, and moved back to her original position.
“What about Joe, your father?”
At the mention of Joe’s name, Bia’s expression changed. “No. My father is not coming.” She said, with a noticeably colder tone in her voice.
Buster looked up from the list of names in front of him. “You’re not inviting your own father to your wedding?” He asked in disbelief.
Bia’s reply came in the form of a short, dry “No, I am not.” But before Buster could ask for an explanation, his fiancée’s phone signaled an incoming phone call.
‘Maybe some other time…’ The koala thought in resignation when the caller turned out to be one of Bia’s best friends.- - - - -“Can you tell me what this is?”
“It’s our… wedding guest list?” Buster replied, his words coming out more like a question than a positive answer. His gaze moved from the paper sheet that Bia was holding up right in front of his nose to the deep frown on his fiancée’s face. “We wrote it down just yesterday.”
“Very funny, honey.” The other koala said, unamused. “And why is my father’s name written at the bottom of the list among our friends?”
“Oh, that.” Buster said, calmly taking the guest list from Bia’s hand. “I jotted it down on the list just in case you would change your mind about his invitation.”
“There’s nothing I have to change my mind about.” Bia countered, dry, and quickly turned around to walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m taking a pen to cross out your addition from the list.”“Why are you being like this?” Buster rolled his eyes. “I mean, I get it; your parents are divorced. But you’re his only daughter, and I think you should at least consider how important-” He went on as he followed her around the house.
“It’s not just for the fact that ‘my parents divorced’.” Bia interrupted him, turning around with a sharp motion. “It’s for all the hurt that my father has caused to my family in the last few years of my parents’ marriage. It’s for the humiliation of having all of our neighbors talk about us behind our backs, and it’s for the way he treated me and my mother when-” But before she could say more, Bia stopped herself, taking a deep breath.
She wanted to drop the topic there. She should have never started to talk about it in the first place. The past was buried and gone, and everything was better when she didn't think about her father. But it took her one look at her fiancè to know that it was too late to just change the topic like nothing had happened; he was waiting for her to go on, and she knew him well enough to know that he would have kept making questions until she would have talked. She owed him a full explanation. Bia took another breath in. “… When he lost his job and began to drink.” She said, looking away.Hearing this, Buster was reminded of something that happened when they were still in high school; one day, Bia skipped classes without giving any explanation and so, later that afternoon, Buster went to her place to give her the notes he’d taken that day.
“What happened to you?” Buster asked her in concern when she came to open the door, noticing the darkened skin around her left eye. “Did you and Trevor get into a fight?”
He surely hoped that it wasn’t the case; Trevor was the toughest bully in their high school and his name was known and feared by all students. No animal in their right mind would have ever thought of challenging his authority, let alone smaller species like the two of them.
“Something like that, yeah…” Bia replied, her lips curving up in a slight, unconvinced smile. “I got into a fight with… with a kitchen cabinet. The door was open, I wasn’t paying attention and... I hit it. That's all. But if someone asks you at school, feel free to tell them I gave Trevor a lesson.”
An unpleasant feeling made its way through Buster’s chest.
There was something about the memories he had of that day that kept itching inside of his mind throughout all of those years. He wasn’t dumb; he could tell by the nervousness in Bia’s voice that there was something she wasn’t telling him. And that night of so many years ago, as he laid in bed thinking about it over and over, he even came to guess what it could be.
That dreadful possibility, the truth that he had always refused to believe, looked awfully close to what Bia was telling him right now.“Wait. Are you telling me that... That time when you showed up at your door with a black eye...?” Buster asked his fiancée, his eyes wide in surprise.
Bia nodded. “That day was an exception. I found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it wasn’t a one time thing, no. Not with my mom.”
“Bia, I’m sorry! I had no idea that he-”“No, of course you don’t!” Bia interjected, angered. “You could never know what it’s like to feel afraid in your own home! I am the one that had to watch her own mother put up with all sorts of things, getting shouted at for no reason, getting hurt just because my father took the bottle after waking up on the wrong side of the bed!”
As she talked, Bia took a step forward, and Buster found himself having to fight the instinct to take a step back, intimidated by the flame of anger that was burning his fiancée’s emerald eyes. “I am the one that kept begging my mother to do something, to leave him, even to report him to the police, but she was so foolish as to fall for it every time my father swore it would have never happened again!” Bia went on, pointing to her own chest. “And so I had to sit there, always hoping for the best and counting the days left until I could pack my bags for college and leave!”“So, no. My father is not coming to our wedding!” Bia concluded after a brief pause. And after gathering her purse and her phone, the woman left the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her.- - - - -Buster stood by the window, absently watching the cars that were passing by in the street below him as he thought of everything that his partner had confessed to him earlier that afternoon. The koala’s ears moved, having picked up the light noise of the apartment’s door clicking open, but other than that he remained still.
A series of other small noises came from the hallway, signaling that Bia had come back home. She had been away all afternoon, walking aimlessly around the city to try and calm herself down, and he stayed there at home, waiting for her to come back.“Moonlight?” His partner’s voice called from behind him, thin and small. Buster turned to look at her as she took slow steps toward him. She looked tired. “I’m sorry.” Bia spoke again, climbing up on the pile of books he was standing on. “I shouldn't have yelled at you like that…”
Buster looked at her for a couple moments, then opened his arms. Without saying a word, Bia stepped closer, leaning into her partner’s hug. “How are you?” He asked after several moments of silence, holding her close. “Would you like some tea?” Buster tried again when he received no reply. This time, he felt Bia nod.. . .
Sitting curled up on the sofa, in the comfort of their home and with her steaming cup of tea in her hands, Bia finished telling her fiancè the whole story behind her parents’ breakup; she told him about the day her mother finally gathered the courage to speak up and asked Joe for a divorce, about how hard they fought when he refused to concede it, and about how Camila, that tried to avoid the scandal at all costs, was forced to take the question to court.
And then, as that tiresome summer left its place to autumn, the long-awaited time to move out for college finally came. Bia could still recall the deep sigh of relief she took when she first set foot in her dorm room with the knowledge that her mother, although far away from her, was finally living safely on her own.But a few years down the line, when mother and daughter had gotten used to their new life as a family of two, a cat named Floyd Bell came around.
“It took both of us a good while to open up to him.” Bia said, looking down to the mug she was still holding. “But Floyd proved himself to be everything that my father was not; he’s caring, he loves my mom - he really does - and he’s always been there for me and supported my projects and my career in the television industry. And every time I go to their place for a visit, and I see them smile at each other, joke with each other, I feel… Yeah, well, I feel relieved.”
“Why did you never tell me anything about what you were going through?” Buster asked quietly, reaching out to place a hand on her forearm.
Bia looked for a few moments down to where his hand was tracing soft motions on the yellow fabric of her jumper’s sleeve, and then looked back up at him. “I didn’t want you to worry over something that you couldn’t have fixed…” She answered. “And then… If we’re being honest, I did try to tell you.”
“Moonlight... Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.” Buster replied, worried by the odd look in his girlfriend’s eyes. “What is it?”
Bia hesitated. “I’m not happy here.” The girl then confessed. “I want to go away, and I want you to come with me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Let’s leave this town and move somewhere else. Anywhere we want! After all, we’re both eighteen now, we have the legal age required to live on our own, and I can drive. I won’t take much to fill a bag, we can go this same evening.”
“And you said that I wasn’t thinking straight, that no matter what fight I might have had with my parents, running away wasn’t the solution.” Bia went on, retracing the memories of that day. “You told me that you didn't want to go away, that you had your whole life here in this city; your father, your best friend Eddie, Miss Crawly... You repeated that this was where you wanted to buy your theater, and you promised me that you were going to take me to all the places where your plays would be set. But it wouldn’t have been enough. Going to Mars for one evening but having to go back to my family and my problems afterwards was not enough!” Bia went on, and the desperate look in her eyes made Buster’s heart ache.
He had always known her as a driving force of nature, one of those animals that light up every room they walk in with their energy and their bright smile. The Beatriz he met and fell in love with in his high school years was one of the most admired girls in their school, capable of making instant friends with anybody she would meet. He would have never imagined that her bright smile and cheerful attitude could hide so much fear and pain.“It was the day I decided to leave you.” Bia said. “You were right; I really wasn’t thinking straight. I had no intention to run away from you, nor did I ever find you boring to be with!” Her voice faltered. “What you heard me say to Jenny and Martha that night at Eddie’s party… I never meant it. The girls didn’t know about my parents’ situation, and I couldn’t tell them the real reasons behind my choice. I was so dumb! You were the best thing I had ever had, and I should have never-”
A sob interrupted her words. Buster quickly pulled her to him, trying to calm her down with soothing words as she cried in his arms.. . .“I’m sorry for adding your father to our guest list without consulting you about it.” Buster said at some point, as later that evening he and Bia were laying in bed all snuggled up to each other. “I didn’t know your family’s dynamics and I shouldn’t have assumed.”
“I should have told you sooner.” Bia replied quietly. “I don’t want us to keep secrets from each other.”“In the worst days I used to wish that my parents didn’t marry in the first place…” The woman confessed after several moments of silence. “So much hurt would have been avoided, that way.”
“But if they never married you wouldn’t have been here today,” her partner replied. “That’s one awful thing to imagine.” Hearing this, Bia’s lips curved up in a weak smile. “You’re my Beatriz, ‘The one that brings happiness’, remember? My own personal blessing.” Buster went on, running a hand gently up and down her back.
“Awh… Don’t say these kinds of things to me!” Bia whined, hiding her face in her hands to hide her flush. “I am trying to be sad, here!”
“Sadness is not allowed in this house. And especially not in this bedroom.”
Bia moved her head back to look up at her fiancé. “If you say so…” She said, smiling at him.That night, despite all of the thoughts that had been swirling through her mind that day, it didn’t take long for Bia to fall asleep, feeling safe and well-loved in her soon-to-be-husband’s gentle embrace.