“Hey Angelina…”Verona tenderly call out, as she momentarily gazed into my eyes.
“Yes.” I answered.
“I can understand if you don’t want to talk about this any further. But I just have to know if you included in the book what she was feeling…as a woman?” she added. “And if you did, was it written exactly the way she told it to you.”
“Of course. And yes, I included a few passages involving her feelings. Revisiting those memories were just too painful for me, especially during the time when I was working on the manuscript. I tried covering as much I could without falling back into the frame of mind I was left in.
I can recall moments when we talked about their journey back to recovery. On numerous occasions I felt an emotional charge shoot through my body, resulting in bone-chilling spells. What I heard in her voice, the pain alone was enough to make me want to get up and pace the corridor outside of her room.
When she would open up I would sometimes feel the intensity of her emotions filtering through in her words. She often spoke of regrets, sorrows, and discouragement. She even spoke of times when she felt totally rejected by my father, and moments when she recognized the breaking down of their intimacy.
Every emotion expressed. Every one of her well-guarded thoughts, all of them became imprinted upon my heart. Caught up in my own feelings, at first I felt anger, then disgust. Mostly at life because of how things turned out for them. They were just two people trying their best to make the impossible work for them.”
“So, what happened after you read the back of the picture?” Verona inquired, cautiously.
“I turn it over and just stared at it. After about ten minutes of mentally narrating passing images of memories that led up to that point, my inner voice began to grow weary as it drifted into the quietness of dissipating thoughts. Then, all of a sudden, at what seemed as a slow awakening from a dream, I gradually became surrounded by silence. Much like the closing of a door at the end of a long corridor, suddenly muffling the sound of distancing voices.
