Prologue
This is another short story I wrote for a publishing company.
As a little girl, my mom would tuck me in each night and tell me stories of princesses and princes; stories that would take my little mind--create a magical world that she and I designed. A prince rescues a lost princess from a tower where she was held captive by an evil witch. In my mind, I played the settings out, always a happily-ever-after, no matter what the story entailed. As I grew into a spirited teenager, my mind continued to create stories of my own, and always, just as I was that little girl lying in my bed listening to my mother, they always had the happy ending that I believed would continue forever. My mother had the voice to bring life into any story, and it was she who opened my mind to all wonders.
But as life always has a way of doing—it corrupted my mind of time lost--that little girl is gone. Life turned me into a woman who believed nothing worked out in the end.
At twenty-nine and with no real relationship to speak of, I resigned myself to my fate and lived a life that some would consider lonely. I knew nothing about men--anything about real love.
CEO for a multi-million dollar advertising company, we were ahead of our competitors that had been around for years and years. Members of the board have said I took them there, and maybe they were right because I had lain to rest any feelings toward wanting a family. My work became my family—sad maybe, but it was what it was.
My mother, who pushed me as a child to believe in the magic of my imagination and always believed that in life it would work out eventually, says that she is proud of my accomplishments, but I can see in her weary and crinkled grey eyes that I am a disappointment. She would never come out and say it because that is the kind of person she is, but her face is the gateway to how she actually felt as opposed to what she told you.
Growing up in the slums of Italy in the 80’s never deterred me. I saw the way my mother fought and scraped for every dime she made to provide for us. I watched her struggles every day, but though she struggled, she wore a smile on her face. I could see that no matter how hard she worked—how hard her fingers bled as she tended to our garden to make something out of it every year—she saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
I came to San Francisco when I was only eighteen, and vowed that I would make something of myself. I would bring my mother over and take care of her the same way she took care of me as a child. But when that time came, she refused to leave her land. Her blood, sweat, and tears were there, and she couldn’t turn her back on what she had made for herself. I sent her money every week. It was the only thing I knew I could do, because I could not go back to the way of life that I grew up in. So, with many scholarships and loans, I was able to get my foot in the door at Notre Dame. I fell in love with advertising and knew it was my calling.
I worked my way up the corporate ladder—friends lost along the way. Late nights and long weekends brought me to the point where I could go no further—CEO of a multi-million dollar advertising company that had broadened ideas and made products sellable.
I compared myself to my mother in many ways, including the way she worked to make a life for us both. I too, worked hard and put in many hours in the office after everyone else left for the night.
Now that I was older and much more intelligent in the ways of the world, I no longer held on to the imaginary world of that little girl from Italy. She no longer existed.
