Neighbors. Sometimes you live with them for decades, not knowing what they do, who they are and how they look like. She wasn’t the type of a woman who made friends with the occupants of the same staircase. She silently passed them along the stairs, she took a glimpse of their shopping bags, noticed the dogs taken for a walk, said all those polite words: ‘Good morning’, ‘Happy Easter’, ‘Merry Christmas’.
She remembered that when she moved in the neighbors’ boy was in primary school and she saw him sometimes in his winter clothes because he loved going outside with his parents to play in the snow. She looked at him with a mixture of interest and amusement. She didn’t have children. When she was young she wanted to travel and experience all the greatest possible adventures of her life. She wanted to have a career. So she had a career. It was a good career of ten years, after which she was made redundant and couldn’t find an equally well-paid job. Her travels were curtailed. So was the number of exciting opportunities. From then on she stayed at home and mainly watched TV.
She remembered that her partner left her when the neighbors’ boy was finishing his high-school. She saw him once or twice in a white shirt after his final exams. They didn’t speak, as they never spoke to each other. They didn’t seem to be interested in each other's fate. Around that time something changed in her, something broke. She wanted to have a child of her own. She was alone. This loneliness terrified her. She started to crave a little human growing up by her side.
Prices for various procedures were expensive and her current salary couldn’t cover all costs. Not having a partner didn’t help either. And then the doctor told her the devastating news. She actually couldn’t have children. She must have ignored the symptoms and what her body was telling her all those years. She was infertile. And soon too old to consider any miraculous fertility treatments.
That was a blow. She didn’t expect that it would be so difficult to deal with the situation. She couldn’t bear that all her friends were having children. Once she was invited to welcome a new-born, she came, bought a present and later on didn’t keep in touch. Her social life completely disappeared.
It was around the time when the neighbor woman went to Norway that she had a serious wave of depression. She underwent drug treatment and psychotherapy and for many years she was teaching herself that she’s worth on her own, without children and without a man. She learned the hard way that she can be considered a complete woman.
Then this girl came. A young brunette with curly hair. She was living in the same flat, the neighbors’ flat. At some point, she noticed that the girl was pregnant. Oh, what a pain it was to pass her on the staircase and see her stomach enlarging. She was beautiful in her full figure. Fresh, plump, a mother-to-be. It made her jealous. She was so seriously green with envy of this growing baby that she glued herself to the entrance door and watched like a spy as the girl was leaving the flat just to catch a glimpse of her stomach.
When the baby started crying behind the wall she felt that all the years of psychotherapy were shattered. She was devastated. She sold the flat and moved to a different district.
It was a sunny spring day and they were spending time outside in one of the parks. Grapefruit wore an orange tracksuit and he genuinely looked like a grapefruit. He ate a chocolate bar at home and his face was all smudgy with brown sweet paste. Suddenly a woman approached him.
‘I think we are neighbors. I saw you were coming out of the same staircase. We just moved. We have children in similar age. How old is yours?’, the woman sat next to him on the bench and took a look at Grapefruit.
‘Two years old,’ he answered, looking at her, trying to sound polite.
‘Mine is three. You don’t look alike.’
‘He looks like his mother.’
‘Mine doesn’t take after me, either,’ she pointed at her boy, playing in the sand ‘All the vitamins, hormonal treatment. We took a loan for all the procedures. And the first months. What a drag! I lost my breasts. After breastfeeding they looked like old lady’s socks. So we took another loan. This time for breast implants.’
He laughed. They both laughed.
‘Do you come here often?’
‘Not often. We rather stay at home. But sometimes he wants to play outside. Then we go. I cannot let him out unattended.’
‘I know the pain. Oh, I wanted to have a child so badly. And then he was here and I looked at his face. He doesn’t even look like my husband. He looks like my distant aunt. She’s sixty-four. He has her features. And she’s not the most handsome if you know what I mean. But you won’t say you regret it, will you? No one says it. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. It would save us so much money. Do you regret yours?’
‘No. We have fun. To be honest, it was an unexpected gift from fate. You know, we are a little family. I wanted to have a family.’
The park consisted of such little families of devoted parents and amused children in various ages. The woman noticed that her child was trying to hit another with a plastic shovel. She screamed her lungs out to make him stop, without leaving the bench. Grapefruit managed to get his orange tracksuit dirty from the sand. Now he looked more or less like a giraffe.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ she gasped ‘Still. I would rather be in the Canary Islands right now. But now we are paying off those loans.’
She remembered that when she moved in the neighbors’ boy was in primary school and she saw him sometimes in his winter clothes because he loved going outside with his parents to play in the snow. She looked at him with a mixture of interest and amusement. She didn’t have children. When she was young she wanted to travel and experience all the greatest possible adventures of her life. She wanted to have a career. So she had a career. It was a good career of ten years, after which she was made redundant and couldn’t find an equally well-paid job. Her travels were curtailed. So was the number of exciting opportunities. From then on she stayed at home and mainly watched TV.
She remembered that her partner left her when the neighbors’ boy was finishing his high-school. She saw him once or twice in a white shirt after his final exams. They didn’t speak, as they never spoke to each other. They didn’t seem to be interested in each other's fate. Around that time something changed in her, something broke. She wanted to have a child of her own. She was alone. This loneliness terrified her. She started to crave a little human growing up by her side.
Prices for various procedures were expensive and her current salary couldn’t cover all costs. Not having a partner didn’t help either. And then the doctor told her the devastating news. She actually couldn’t have children. She must have ignored the symptoms and what her body was telling her all those years. She was infertile. And soon too old to consider any miraculous fertility treatments.
That was a blow. She didn’t expect that it would be so difficult to deal with the situation. She couldn’t bear that all her friends were having children. Once she was invited to welcome a new-born, she came, bought a present and later on didn’t keep in touch. Her social life completely disappeared.
It was around the time when the neighbor woman went to Norway that she had a serious wave of depression. She underwent drug treatment and psychotherapy and for many years she was teaching herself that she’s worth on her own, without children and without a man. She learned the hard way that she can be considered a complete woman.
Then this girl came. A young brunette with curly hair. She was living in the same flat, the neighbors’ flat. At some point, she noticed that the girl was pregnant. Oh, what a pain it was to pass her on the staircase and see her stomach enlarging. She was beautiful in her full figure. Fresh, plump, a mother-to-be. It made her jealous. She was so seriously green with envy of this growing baby that she glued herself to the entrance door and watched like a spy as the girl was leaving the flat just to catch a glimpse of her stomach.
When the baby started crying behind the wall she felt that all the years of psychotherapy were shattered. She was devastated. She sold the flat and moved to a different district.
It was a sunny spring day and they were spending time outside in one of the parks. Grapefruit wore an orange tracksuit and he genuinely looked like a grapefruit. He ate a chocolate bar at home and his face was all smudgy with brown sweet paste. Suddenly a woman approached him.
‘I think we are neighbors. I saw you were coming out of the same staircase. We just moved. We have children in similar age. How old is yours?’, the woman sat next to him on the bench and took a look at Grapefruit.
‘Two years old,’ he answered, looking at her, trying to sound polite.
‘Mine is three. You don’t look alike.’
‘He looks like his mother.’
‘Mine doesn’t take after me, either,’ she pointed at her boy, playing in the sand ‘All the vitamins, hormonal treatment. We took a loan for all the procedures. And the first months. What a drag! I lost my breasts. After breastfeeding they looked like old lady’s socks. So we took another loan. This time for breast implants.’
He laughed. They both laughed.
‘Do you come here often?’
‘Not often. We rather stay at home. But sometimes he wants to play outside. Then we go. I cannot let him out unattended.’
‘I know the pain. Oh, I wanted to have a child so badly. And then he was here and I looked at his face. He doesn’t even look like my husband. He looks like my distant aunt. She’s sixty-four. He has her features. And she’s not the most handsome if you know what I mean. But you won’t say you regret it, will you? No one says it. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time. It would save us so much money. Do you regret yours?’
‘No. We have fun. To be honest, it was an unexpected gift from fate. You know, we are a little family. I wanted to have a family.’
The park consisted of such little families of devoted parents and amused children in various ages. The woman noticed that her child was trying to hit another with a plastic shovel. She screamed her lungs out to make him stop, without leaving the bench. Grapefruit managed to get his orange tracksuit dirty from the sand. Now he looked more or less like a giraffe.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ she gasped ‘Still. I would rather be in the Canary Islands right now. But now we are paying off those loans.’
