Loose End. Eva Mikula

      Amused by this externalization, I replied: "I could leave her at home, so she made us coffee".

      We hugged each other tightly, I was jonesing for my mother: I hadn't seen her for over a year. She stayed with us for two months; so I had time to recover. Health returned to its place and so did I.

      I put the work in order, found a babysitter to follow Julia as I worked; I hired her full time with room and board, to have continuity and tranquility. I had fully recovered and re-stabilized. So, having found my full balance, my mother left to go back to my father, she was always apprehensive for him.

      She continually asked herself a thousand things: "What is he eating? What is he doing? Who did he talk to? Let's hope he hasn't argued with anyone. Did he remember to lock the door of the house when he went out to go shopping? Will he have found the socks in the bottom drawer of the closet?". They were the little anxieties of a woman who, despite what she had endured, continued to be devoted to her man. For me this almost maternal affection was an inexplicable fact, towards a husband who had mistreated, betrayed and beaten her and who had plunged her into the darkness of depression, alcohol, pain. But it was her free choice and I respect her.

      The days passed in serenity with Julia nearby, I had found my lifeline. She had a different color, beautifully charged. She grew strong and fast like a train.

      I too proceeded like a Frecciarossa train: I managed the house, the woman who helped me, the company and myself.

      The frame of a rediscovered everyday life were the smiles of a little girl in search of love. Her sweet happiness perhaps concealed an unconscious unhappiness, mysterious to her, but not to me: she did not have a father. Slowly, therefore, my life began to oil the gears that risked rusting.

      After a couple of years, I also managed to carve out a space for myself. With a group of friends, at least twice a month, we would go out for an aperitif or to eat a pizza. It became my own corner ritual, because the rest was governed by the imperative of my duties, my responsibilities: my daughter, my son, home, work. I was at the same time man and woman, mum and dad and also the responsibilities were double or triple.

      That small, innocent and one-of-a-kind amusement with my friends had thus become a vital diversion.

      Once again karma sent me an unpleasant warning: ugly, hateful, humiliating, bad, the same adjectives that fit perfectly with the actor who played that role of a little man by treating me unfairly, or perhaps in retaliation, because I had not indulged his winks. It was certainly not my fault, I did not like it.

      I liked to go with my friends to a restaurant in the center of Rome, where they played live music. A pleasant place, I liked it very much and we were happy, there was a nice atmosphere and was frequented by apparently decent people. In my life path I had learned firsthand that there are at least two types of people: respectable and "bad" to stay away from. But appearances are sometimes deceiving.

      One evening it happened that as soon as I crossed the threshold of the room a bouncer approached and invited me to go out, to go away. I thought for a moment that he got the wrong person, but he took me by the arm and forcibly dragged me out of the club and told me I should leave immediately.

      My friends watched astonished without understanding what was happening. "I'd like to speak to the owner" I said. "I have a right to know why you're throwing me out." "Now I'll tell you" he replied when we were well away from the entrance and went back inside. After half an hour no one had appeared yet, neither the bouncer nor the owner, but the girls joined me to keep me company. I did not know what to do and did not understand, I knew the owner of the restaurant, he had come several times to our table.

      He seemed a nice person with me and with all the guests. In truth he had addressed some more appreciation to me and wanted to take me out to dinner, but I declined his invitation, he was not a man I liked and I did not, however, want and intend to relate to him.

      I just had to go home, but I promised myself that I would return the following week and that, if the scene was repeated, I would call the police. I always keep my promises and in fact I went back. Again, as soon as they saw me they threw me out. I asked again insistently to speak with the owner. He did not deign, but he sent me to say by a security officer: "You are not welcome because you are Eva Mikula of the White One Gang."

      I called 113 and when a patrol arrived I explained that I was being prevented from entering a public place. They recorded my grievances. The owner was invited by the agents to come out to provide an explanation, justified himself aloud, in front of everyone: "The lady is not welcome in my place because she has a criminal record, she is a delinquent, has frequented delinquency, has been the woman of the White One Gang".

      The policemen left with the report in hand and I tried to enter, but the two bouncers stood in front of me. I never went to that place again, but the bitterness remained in my mouth.

      Appearances are deceptive, in fact. Other than good people! I later learned that this place was a reference point for business meetings. I don't care what others do, it's their business, but the discrimination I suffered was really heavy. A little revenge from the owner, a real minus habens, who had failed to invite me out for dinner and maybe even get something else, which perhaps he had taken for granted. Like all cowardly people, he retaliated by rubbing it in to humiliate me in front of others.

      The police report of that evening did not lead to anything obviously, only a piece of paper remained, but I didn't want to let him get away with it. I went to a lawyer. What a pain! I asked myself: "But if I have to convince the lawyer as well, where can I go?". How many prejudices behind that refrain that is always the same: "Forget it, there are many other restaurants".

      People always tended to trivialize and discourage me without trying to make the slightest effort to understand what I felt inside, without even trying to understand my state of mind, putting themselves in my shoes for the wrong I had suffered, no one felt a shred of empathy towards me.

      I tried to get over it. But the bitterness remained, like the fear that other similar episodes might be waiting around the corner.

      With the global recession that began in 2008 after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the clouds began to thicken over the real estate sector as well. Between 2011 and 2012 the crisis in my professional world made itself felt in a pressing way. So I chose the path of increasing the business by extending the network of contacts: I intended to broaden the range of action outside Italy, especially in London.

      I had become a Rome-London commuter, a great sacrifice for me as a mother and for Julia as a daughter, but everything was aimed at our future. Luck helped me for once: my daughter's babysitter was good and very honest, she stayed with us full time for four years and I am grateful to her for the quality and amount of effort she put into helping me to grow Julia.

      I was a very caring mom. At the beach or at the playground, wherever there were many people and the risk of her getting lost increased, I wrote her name and my phone number in ink on her arm. I taught her to dial 113, and told her that in an emergency, if mom got sick or wasn't at home, she would have to dial it. She asked me, as all children do: "Why?", I explained to her that it is the police number and that policemen are good people who intervene whenever someone needs help. Julia listened to me in silence. And then: "I want to call them now!" I was blown away, I thought that perhaps I had not explained myself well. "There is no emergency now, we are all fine, there is no reason to call", she, in a voice full of love and innocence, said "I want to tell them that I love them". I melted, it was touching. Her naivety had broken all kinds of barriers on respect and trust in the forces of law and order. I hugged her and promised that one day she would have the opportunity to greet all the policemen in person, even through their boss. A secret wish.

      Managing had now become the word of my life: I managed the small spaces with the son who lived with his father Biagio, I managed the trips to London; I was managing a complicated job that I had to invent step by step and day after day, because it was full of traps and characters that were not always crystal clear. Fortunately, my London collaborators were suitably professional. And I learned from them to focus on a deal, to put into practice strategies to search and find clients for prestigious