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Bella Mattina- a love story. Please read and tell me what you think :)
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 Created on 10-23-07
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The fall always reminds Bella a little bit of that time in the past; that time when she had been a little younger, a little less jaded. Not that that time had much to do with the fall. The memories are triggered more by what goes on when it starts to get colder, when the season changes, not the season itself.
Everywhere she goes she sees it. Lovers strolling through the park, hand in hand as the leaves fall. So close to one another, as if no one else on the earth exists to be offended by their behavior. Couples exchange furtive glances, leaning toward each other across café tables laden with empty cappuccino mugs. As if they are trying to fight the distance between them. Their eyes are like fire.
It wasn't too many falls ago, Bella thought as she sipped her own cappuccino alone at her table, that I was that woman with the fiery eyes. It wasn't too long ago that I watched the leaves fall, golden and red and orange, and I was in love.
Bella gave herself the rare luxury of remembering what she so often refused to allow herself to remember.
It had been four falls ago this year. Four years since it had begun, and only a few months short of that since it had suddenly come to an end. Such a short time, she mused, for one to become so enamored. It took such a very short amount of time to change her world. She had been barely twenty, and new to the city. The falling slashes of color that were the leaves had drawn her out of her new apartment- she had never experienced a fall like this one where she was from.
In those days, she spent the time when she was not working exploring the city. She found it to be a lovely place, an almost fairy-tale world that she had somehow stepped into unknowingly. She sat in cafés and listened to poetry read live to the beating of drums. She picked up strange foreign delicacies in hidden alleyway markets, and ate them in front of her window that over looked the park. She walked through that park, marveling at the piles of accumulated leaves, and sometimes catching children flying and crunching through the piles of brittle color, yelling like banshees and laughing, always laughing, as the leaves floated up silently around them. The innocence of it captivated her. It was on one of these days spent in the park when she found herself suddenly and irrevocably in love.
She had been watching the painter on the bench next to hers for awhile. He didn't notice her there, which allowed her ample room for analyzing him, which was what she was doing.
He wasn't an unattractive person, she decided after a couple minutes of studying him. There was something in the way he held his head, drawn forward and slightly angled to the left, which gave him the air of someone deep in conversation. Bella found this intriguing, as he was completely alone but for his paints and canvas, and the small easel that propped them up. It was as though he wasn't really painting, but instead using pictures to write a whispered conversation that only he could hear.
His dark hair was worn a bit longer than what was normal for a man at that time, and curled over his dark eyes until he reached up to push it away, after which it almost immediately fell back into his face. He was on the thin side, though not in a bad way. His worn jeans and faded button up shirt hugged his body without being tight, and he somehow managed to look trendy while at the same time looking as though he could care less what he looked like. This was a feat that Bella had been trying to accomplish for years, and here was this man who did it so effortlessly. She wondered if he even knew how the world saw him, but decided that he couldn't know, or else the whole effect wouldn't work.
He must have felt her eyes on him after some time, as people often do, because she suddenly found him gazing back at her. They locked eyes for a long moment, his dark eyes seeming to dig deep into her paler green ones, rooting out her secrets and making her feel exposed. Bella felt an electric chill shoot through her body, like a promise.
She broke the moment finally, looking down at the book left open in her lap and blushing slightly under the heat of his still present gaze. It felt like fire on her face, drawing her to him and yet making her want to run in the other direction at the same time.
When she looked up, he was still studying her, a bemused smile on his lips and his eyes still flashing. He stood suddenly, collecting his paints and easel, and putting them into a canvas bag at his side. Bella was almost relieved to see that he was going, but she also felt a pang at the back of her mind, where the unspoken promise in his eyes had registered a moment before. She watched him finish gathering his things, waiting for him to leave. Instead, he picked up his bag, situating the strap across his shoulder, and walked toward her.
She must have looked surprised, because he laughed as he sat down next to her on the bench. He looked at her for another moment, drinking in her surprise and embarrassment, until finally he spoke.
"My name's Jaden." He said, simply. His voice was deep and velvety, and somehow already familiar to Bella, as if she had heard it in a dream only just the night before.
"Bella." She replied after a moment.
"Bella," he said, smiling again. "I can see you as a Bella. It means 'beautiful', you know." She blushed again at the compliment.
"What are you doing in the park, Bella?" Jaden asked, leaning over and cocking his head so that he could look into her eyes.
"I don't know… watching, I guess."
"I've seen you here before. What do you watch that fascinates you enough to keep coming back?"
"It's the weather, I think. It wasn't like this in the fall where I come from. It's beautiful." Jaden became suddenly animated at this, almost childlike in his obvious glee.
"It's my favorite time of year," he said excitedly. "I can't keep myself inside for more than a couple minutes, with all these colors everywhere. It makes me itch to paint everything. I can't get it all down fast enough."
Bella again found herself intrigued. "What were you painting?" she asked shyly. Jaden removed the easel from his canvas bag, and placed it on the ground before her. The still-wet painting appeared on it a moment later, and Bella took a moment to study it. It was a mess of color, jumbled together in an almost incomprehensible manner, until you looked a little deeper at it. She could make out the winding path through the park, surrounded by the tall red and orange maples, and the golden aspen. Their leaves were swirling bursts of color, falling to the ground like a million tiny fairies. Faceless shadows of people strolled along the path, some stopping to see the show of falling leaves, others seemingly oblivious to the beauty around them. The ghosts of children stomped through the raked piles on the park's lawn, throwing streaks of color into the air surrounding them. It was a passionate mess of reds, oranges, gold, and browns. Bella was speechless for a moment, having seen more than she had expected to.
"What do you think?" Jaden's slightly nervous voice broke through her thoughts, and she met his eyes with her own. Again, she felt the electricity of the contact.
"It's… beautiful." She answered.
"You sounded hesitant." He accused.
"I was trying to come up with a more fitting word for it. It's lovely. What will you call it?"
"Bella Mattina," he said, the mischievous smile playing across his lips again. "It means beautiful morning."
He caught her eyes again, looking at her intensely for a moment. He seemed to be thinking something over.
"Would you let me paint you?" he asked finally, as if he'd come to some conclusion.
"What?" Bella replied incredulously, unsure how else to respond.
"Can I paint you?" he asked again.
“I guess you can.” Bella answered after a moment’s deliberation. She had been going to say no. She couldn’t understood why yes had come out instead, but she decided that maybe it was time to step outside her normal comfort zone, and give herself an opening to experience something new. She looked around at the blazing beauty of the fall, at the smiling faces of the people trekking through the leaves, and she somehow felt like it was time. Everything here is different and new, she thought. Maybe I can be different and new too.
Bella took a last sip of her cappuccino and pushed the cup aside. The small café she sat in had mostly cleared out, but the one couple remained, still deep in quiet conversation, the intense expressions on their faces enough to make it uncomfortable to look at them for any amount of time. He said something, leaning into her ear, that made her laugh, and their hands reached across the table to intertwine. The obvious affection and closeness was suddenly too much for Bella, and she stood suddenly to go. The bell at the door chimed as she stepped out of the shop and into the bracing cold of the wind. Bella pulled her thin cardigan closer around her body; shivering as she started the short walk toward the park… what had once been their park. The place where it had all started.
She walked past bakeries and restaurants, boutiques and flower shops, but she saw nothing. Her thoughts again were in the past and not really with her on the cold, late October morning.
It took only a couple of minutes to reach the bench, and when sitting on it alone, that moment in time those several years ago came alive again in full, vivid color. Bella could taste the crisp breeze of that warmer day, could feel the soft rays of fall sunlight resting against her skin like a warm, silken caress.
Jaden had set up his easel a couple of yards away from the bench she sat on, pulling out a small folding stool that he perched on behind his fresh canvas.
“Just look natural. Be yourself.” He instructed her as he set out his various paints and other artistic paraphernalia in a circle around himself. He had become the center of a small world of strange, unknown objects; the axis on which all of them relied. Without him, they were nothing but an array of things with no purpose.
“What do I do with my hands?” Bella asked. She kept fluttering them about herself, unsure where to rest them, whether to rest them anywhere at all. Her nerves made her body want to keep moving. I’m being open, she reminded herself. I’m trying new things.
“Just put them where it feels natural for them to be.” He answered.
Right, she thought. As if there were anything at all natural about her sitting in the park being painted by a relative stranger, in a city that did not yet feel like home. She picked up her book, opening it to the page she had left off at, and holding it up slightly so that he could see her eyes while she read.
“That’s great!” he said, “I can really see you like that.”
Bella was confused. “See me? Could you not see me before?”
“I could see your body. Now I can see you.” He explained.
Jaden started to work. Bella could barely see what he was doing from behind the canvas, and she could not see the painting itself at all. He worked quickly, she noticed, throwing the paints into place as if he had a map of where each color or line went drawn out for him and he had only to fill in the blank places.
It couldn’t have taken more than an hour, but it had felt like an eternity underneath his dark gaze. Occasionally their eyes would meet over the canvas, and Bella would feel that same shock as before. It seemed that he was doing more than painting her. It was as though his eyes reached into her mind and heart, extracting what was inside and displaying it on his canvas. Like they had somehow known each other for years and had only just discovered it.
The painting was finished soon enough, and Jaden sat back from it, surveying it with what Bella took to be a knowing eye. Whatever was there seemed to please him, and he beckoned her to come over to him. As she reached the place next to him, his expression changed from self satisfaction to nervousness, and she saw what could be described as nothing but eagerness in his eyes. This man who doesn’t know me really cares, she thought. He cares what I think, and he wants me to approve of what he has done.
Bella looked at the painting and her mouth fell open in shock. This woman cannot be me, she thought. The woman in the painting sat on a weathered rod-iron bench, dressed casually in faded jeans and a rich, brown, knitted sweater. She was surrounded by fall foliage, leaves dancing to the ground around her, some resting across the worn walking path that ambled past in front of the bench. Her body seemed almost rigged, as if she was poised to jump and run at any second, her awkwardness apparent.
This woman held a book in her hand that seemed forgotten; though she looked to be reading it, her eyes were far away in some other place, perhaps some other time. Auburn hair whipped around her pale face with the wind. There was a kind of sadness about her, and yet a half smile played on her lips, as if she had been caught just before a laugh. The whole painting was a colorful contradiction, and the woman in it was too beautiful for words.
Bella was silent for several long minutes, looking and thinking. She was filled with wonder at the events of this day, and curiosity about who this man was and how he had managed to take her breath away.
Jaden could finally take the suspense no more. “What do you think?” he asked eagerly. There was that child-like demeanor again that Bella had noticed before. He seemed so innocent and eager to please.
“I think that the painting is beautiful. I don’t know how you could have created something so breath taking in so short an amount of time.”
“You like it?” he asked. He returned to looking excited, and the slightest bit self satisfied. Bella found the rapid and frequent changes in his demeanor intriguing, and slightly confusing.
“I love it,” She answered, “but is that really me? That’s not at all how I see myself.” She felt odd speaking so freely about her views of herself to this stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger. The contradicting emotions were off-putting, to say the least. To feel as though you know someone well, when you logically try to tell yourself that you don’t know them at all…it was something she had never experienced before.
“That’s who I see when I look at you.” Jaden explained. “If you don’t recognize her, I’d like to get to know her with you.” He smiled slightly, almost shyly.
Bella didn’t know what to say. It turned out that she didn’t need to say anything. She found this to be true about a lot of things throughout the course of their relationship; Jaden just understood her without the need for words. This became almost frustrating for her. It seemed that no matter how well she came to know him, she couldn’t understand him.
It was getting colder out as late morning faded into early afternoon, and Bella came out of her thoughts. She had to move if she wanted to keep the cold that seemed to be seeping into her bones at bay.
The park was almost empty as she walked down the worn dirt paths, only the occasional jogger was out, willing to brave the icy day. A man sat on a bench not too far away, surrounded by the familiar array of paints and brushes, scraps of cloth and bits of charcoal. His short blonde hair and blue eyes didn’t look anything like the man she had once known’s dark coloring, but she recognized the look on his face…the intense concentration and vivid awareness of his surroundings. He looked all at once far away and yet totally in the moment.
Bella remembered that look. She had seen it all too often expressed on the face of the one she loved. Sitting at the window of her apartment and capturing in charcoal the dreariness of the rain against the colorful storefronts across the street, his longish dark hair a tantalizing tangle of silk, his legs crossed under him. Crouched over like that he had seemed so young. She could feel his eyes move to meet hers across the room as she cooked omelets, the ever present shock of that electric gaze making her blush, as always.
It had moved almost too quickly, changing as if overnight from an innocent flirtation into so much more. Almost immediately after meeting they had become inseparable. When Bella was with him, it was like the warmth of the sun had returned in the middle of winter. The city seemed more alive, things tasted richer than they ever had. When Jaden was gone, even only for the space of a moment, things seemed to lose their color.
Thinking back over those first few weeks, Bella still couldn’t fathom what had brought them so close to one another so quickly. It had been too perfect. Each word passed between them meant everything. Each glance filled some kind of void that she had not known was there.
They explored the city together, rediscovering what should have been mundane to them. They watched crackling silent movies in dollar theatres, ate sushi in places where no one but they spoke English. They lay under the stars in the park, bundled up and close together to keep warm, discussing philosophy and politics until it seemed the sun would come up at any moment. And Jaden painted. Bella’s apartment was soon filled wall to wall with paintings of falling leaves, of women talking in cafes, of rain falling on frozen asphalt. Uncounted little moments captured in oil. Each painting seemed to be alive with the love that they had discovered, Jaden’s new perspective evident in the passion of each brush stroke. Each a gift he offered to Bella without condition.
Time seemed to hold still for them, each minute lasting for hours. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went as they created new memories and their future together began to take shape. The new year dawned for Bella with an exciting realization of the possibilities that lay ahead. It was as if she had been asleep before she met him, and he was the beautiful new morning that she had woken up to.
It felt too perfect. And as things usually are if they feel that way, it was. Bella waited unknowingly on the precipice of disaster, innocent to the truth of what lay ahead. Even if she had known, she wouldn’t have been able to stop it.
Bella suddenly stopped in the middle of the path, the staggering weight of what had happened making it impossible to move. The wind still blew on its invisible journey through the air, the leaves still rustled as they fell from the trees. The entire world continued to turn, oblivious to the fact that for Bella, it had stopped. A single tear slid down her cheek as she remembered the day it had all come crashing down.
It had been another cold day, not too long after the new year. The leaves were all gone, leaving the world gray and empty. Bella sat hugging Jaden from behind, her arms wrapped around him as he painted the scene from her window for what had to be the millionth time. He had felt distant all day, lost in thought. She was used to this; it was something that happened from time to time with him. She was content to wait for him to come to her with his thoughts, and the moment felt peaceful to her as she watched him bring the scene on his canvas to life.
He stopped painting abruptly, turning to her and enveloping her in a strong hug. “I love you, Bella Mattina,” he said softly.
Bella laughed at his sudden change of mood. It was something she had gotten used to, just like she had gotten used to the nickname he so often used during tender moments. It reminded her of the day they had met, the wonderful day that had changed her life.
“I love you too. What brought this on?”
He ignored her question, answering her with his eyes instead of words. Bella saw the love reflected there, saying more than any words could have.
“Let’s get married” he said suddenly. He turned until he was facing her, his eyes on hers all the time.
“What?” she laughed.
“Let’s get married,” he repeated simply. Bella searched his eyes, and still found that love…but there was something else there now, too.
She thought for a moment, finally answering after a minute or so. “Okay. In the fall, when the leaves are colorful again and…”
“No, now.” He interrupted, “Let’s get married now. I love you, and I don’t want to wait.”
“If we love each other, then what difference does it make?” she asked.
“Bella… I’m sick.”
“What? You’re fine, Jaden. What are you talking about?”
“No, I’m not fine. I’m dying. It’s a tumor, on my brain… there’s nothing they can do. They’ve tried everything.” Bella saw in his familiar dark eyes that he was serious. She turned away, unable to look at him at that moment. The world suddenly felt very small and too colorful even through the gray winter. That moment was too alive for her, even now.
It was one of those times when you don’t know what to say… when there really is nothing that you can say. Bella couldn’t meet his eyes, and so she left. She left him sitting at the window in her apartment, and as she stepped out into the freezing January day and started walking toward the park she didn’t even glance up to see him there.
She walked the path through the park, for awhile not even thinking, just taking in the day. The bleak sunlight shone weakly through the trees, and what little there was of it seemed to mock her, reminding her of a warmer time only months ago. Could it really have been that short a time?
After she had walked through the park and had run out of places to walk, she took a seat on the bench, their bench, and she began to think again. She realized she couldn’t avoid it forever. She started with disbelief, and then moved on to terrible sadness followed by anger. Finally, after some time, she settled into an exhausted state of acceptance. There was nothing left to do but go home.
Bella stepped through the front door quietly. She had been gone a long time; it had become dark outside. Jaden still sat in the same place by the window, looking as though he had not moved. His body was folded in on itself, his knees hugged to his chest and his head down. When he heard her, he raised his eyes until his gaze met hers. She was shocked to feel that same electricity flowing through her, as if nothing had happened. If she could only go back to believing that nothing was wrong.
“Bella…” he started, his tone pleading along with his eyes. She stopped him with a shake of her head. Their eyes held, locked together for another moment, and then she went to him, straight into his waiting arms.
They sat there in silence holding each other for a long time, until finally Jaden pulled away. Bella knew that they had to talk eventually, but it felt too soon, too rushed. She couldn’t get it all straight in her mind.
“I’m so sorry, Bella Mattina.” He said after looking at her for a long moment. He brushed the silent tears from her cheeks softly with his fingertips. Bella wondered what he had to be sorry for. She was the one who had walked out.
“How… how long have you known?” she asked finally, her voice cracking.
“I found out about this time last year. I’d been having strange headaches, mood swings.” He shrugged, at a loss for words.
“And… how long do we have?”
Jaden smiled sadly, shrugging again. “I don’t know for sure. It’s already been longer than they said it would be.” Bella felt her world shattering all over again, and she began to cry in earnest. Jaden laid her back on the window seat and put his arms back around her after lying down next to her.
They stayed that way for the rest of the evening and night, sometimes talking, sometimes just holding each other. He told her about the initial steroid treatments right after he found out, the biopsy that led to them discovering that it was inoperable. The several months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments… and finally deciding to give up when all hope was lost, so that he could live normally for what time he had. Bella couldn’t believe he had been through so much and she hadn’t known.
It was getting colder again, Bella realized. She had been standing still, lost in thought in the middle of the path, for quite awhile. It was time to go home.
She set off in the direction of her apartment, walking across the huge lawn of the park. As she walked, she could still see the ghosts of the alter and the chairs that had once been set up there. She could see herself walking up the grassy aisle between rows toward Jaden, see his grin and the tears coursing silently down his cheeks. She felt his kiss after they said ‘I do’, and could feel the ground under her feet as they turned to face the group of people there to share in their love. Friends and family smiled back at them from the recesses of her memory.
They had been married on the first warm day in March of that year, right there on the lawn of the park that her window overlooked. Bella could hardly believe that there was anything wrong with Jaden on that day, as alive and full of joy as he was.
It had been a small wedding, with only their immediate families and close friends present; a sweet, white affair that had been beautiful in its simplicity. Simple and short and sweet… just like the marriage that had been born from it.
The few months that followed flew by in a blur of happiness, but there was an air of sadness in the background; they knew that they didn’t have much time together somehow, even though the doctors could not give them any answers about it. Jaden seemed deceivingly healthy all of the time, except on the occasions of his rare but fierce headaches. They settled into an easy routine that remained unbroken, until one day in June, when everything changed.
Bella had gone to see her doctor after feeling sick to her stomach for a couple days, assuming she had some virus. The appointment was uneventful, and it had been a long day. By the time she reached the apartment she was ready to enjoy a quiet evening, to lie down on the couch and watch a movie with Jaden, and maybe order in some Chinese. She was wondering whether he wanted Chinese or pizza as she walked through the door.
“Jaden?” she called, wanting to find out and call in the order. She waited a moment for a reply that would tell her where in the apartment he was. There was no answer. She called his name again, walking into the living room. She found him there, curled up on the couch. He looked as though he was asleep. Bella kneeled in front of him and gently shook him, smiling slightly as she thought how sweet he looked, curled up like a child lulled to sleep by a bedtime story. His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t wake. She shook him, less gently this time.
“Jaden?” she mock whispered, yet he still did not stir. “Jaden? Honey, wake up… Jay, come on, get up.” Her voice started to sound frantic. His eyelids fluttered again, this time staying open.
“Bella… I love you, Bella Mattina.” He whispered slowly. Their eyes met, his half open and sleepy looking, hers growing more alarmed by the second. Bella felt the same electric shock of his gaze even through her rising panic.
His eyes took on a pleading look as he woke up a little. He wanted to say goodbye, she realized. She wasn’t ready. Time seemed to stop as she searched his dark eyes, praying that she misunderstood what they told her. She didn’t.
“Oh Jaden, no!” she sobbed, falling into arms that could no longer catch her. He wrapped them around her slowly, each movement seeming to take great effort. “You can’t… I love you.”
Jaden smiled softly, another movement that cost him precious energy. Bella could see him fading away as he closed his eyes, leaving her slowly as she lay wrapped up in his arms for the last time.
“No, Jay! You have to stay awake!” she cried, starting to sit up, “Let me call an ambulance. Jaden, you can’t go, you have to fight!”
As she tried to get up, his arms tightened around her. She was surprised by his sudden strength.
“No, Bella Mattina, just let me hold you.” His voice was barely there, a whisper that seemed to come out on breath that was also barely there. Bella’s face was so close to his as he opened his dark eyes. He inched closer and pressed his lips to hers as he held her. She tasted the salty tears on his lips and realized he was crying too.
The two of them lay there like that for what seemed like hours, intertwined on the couch of the home they had made together. Bella let him hold her, his lips pressed to hers and their tears running together, until she no longer felt his breath on her cheek.
Bella reached the front door to her apartment, and dug her keys out of her purse. She felt the tears again brimming behind her eyes. It had been so long since she’d let herself remember. The front door opened wide, right as she was about to turn the key, and her daughter bounded into her arms, giggling.
“Did I scare you, Mommy?” Sera asked, Her dark eyes glowing with childish mischief, so like her fathers.
“Yes you did, sweetie.” She answered, twirling the tiny, barely three year old girl around and into her arms. Looking at her daughter, Bella couldn’t help but once again remember Jaden. The child’s dark coloring and dynamic presence all but demanded it. She thought back to the day shortly after Jaden’s death when she had received the call from her doctor. He had run a routine blood test, just to be on the safe side, and had discovered that she was pregnant, quite by accident.
Bella had named their daughter Bella Sera, ‘beautiful evening’, in honor of the bitter-sweet end of a time in her life that had started also on accident, one beautiful fall morning.
“Can we go to the park, Mommy?” Sera pleaded, smiling impishly, “I want to see the leaves.”
The fall always reminds Bella a little bit of that time in the past. That time when she had been a little less sad, and a lot less strong. Her life had taken twists and turns that she could never have expected on that day as she sat innocently in the park, watching the dark eyed, mysterious stranger painting whispered conversations onto his canvas.
Bella felt the strength of a million different emotions as she now sat on that same bench, in that same park, watching her and that same strangers young daughter laugh and jump through the piles of rainbow leaves with the other children. Streaks of falling color cascaded through the sky, and for the first time in a long time, Bella felt like maybe this fall was just the beginning of another bella mattina for her.
Comments
Please Login to post comments| On October 26th 2007 onaipwolf Said : | |
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I'm very impressed. Beautifully written. I loved how you managed to weave the details from past and present together. It was almost like the story itself was a painting, written down. You did an awesome job in writing this. I'm glad I found it. :) |
| On October 26th 2007 atavanhalen Said : | |
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wow... that's all i can say. this was extremely well written and thought out... you have a real gift. |
| On October 24th 2007 HSandyI Said : | |
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Wow, That's amazing. It seriously brought tears to my eyes. |
