Win or Loss?

"Jules, you are going to rehab to get your life back on track. Until and unless you are well enough to take care of yourself, Sana will have custody of your daughter.", Georgiana said as we stood in the private room booked for Jules at the hospital. The loss beeping of the different machines created a maddening hum, I no longer wanted to deal with. I had had enough of hospitals.

Georgiana bad agreed to act as a buffer between us to explain to Jules what was going on.

"I want to see my baby.", she said.

"You cannot. Not until the court determines you are fit to take care of her.", Gina explained.

She sat on the bed looking down at her hands.

"Can you give us a minute alone?", I said to her.

Georgiana nodded and stepped out of the room.

I didn't bullshit or bluff.

"Did you try to kill the baby?", I asked her point blank.

She didn't answer. She stayed, ominously quiet.

"Answer me, Juliana Bianchi. Did you try to kill your baby?", I asked again unable to keep the horror out of my tone.

" Juliana!"

"Yes! God fucking dammit! Yes, I did not want the baby! I was not prepared to be a mother!", she screamed.

Utter, terrible silence replaced her outburst. This was the woman who had carried me on her shoulders, bloody and broken on a stormy night to a church to save the life of my son. This was the same woman who had lifted Joshua on her shoulders, had come to visit him at the hospital even when we were at war professionally. How could this be the same woman I knew?

How could people change so much that you could not recognize them even when you looked them in the eye?

Those were the same eyes that had looked at my son with love, concern and mischief.

In the span of a year every good thing had unraveled into an ugly mess revealing how many secrets we held inside. How much resentment we could harbour and the people we thought loved us more than everything could drive the knife into your heart.

I realized in that moment that while we were all being a family, Jules and I had built separate houses for a long time.

It sent a lance of physical pain through my chest.

To see her, sickly and emaciated, her rich blond hair, pale and waxy bereft of all the gloss, the bluish shadows of her eyes, I couldn't help but feel.....guilty.

How could I have missed the signs?

Because you did not want to see. Because you never wanted to know. It was far too easier to hate her than to wrap her up in your arms and say, "We're family and family sticks together no matter what."

My conscience was ruthless.

"Jules....I......"

"DON'T! Don't say a word. I never wanted to be mom. I wanted Cal. You know that. We were breaking apart, we were drifting away after what happened at the company. He thought of me a betrayer,wanted us to break up....and then he found out I was pregnant. The look on his face.......", she trailed away.

" I wanted that, I realized. If a baby was the way to keep him with him, I would do it. I would fix it.....fix us. But I struggled. I hated it everybody, this thing, that was destroying my body. The way it grew ugly and rotund. Nothing would fit me. I was tired and nauseous. It was impossible. I drank all the time. I hid it well until I didn't. Caldron caught me."

"That's why he was at the bar that night.", I remembered.

She let out a bitter laugh.

"It's like all the light went out of his eyes. His hatred of me was palpable. I could feel it in our bed, in the house, fucking everywhere. He didn't want to be with me. He wanted the baby. He didn't me. HE DIDN'T WANT ME! ", she cried.

I stood there unable to speak, like a mute.

" So, I cut him off. I told him I didn't want him to have the baby with me. It was too late for an abortion. I drank, I got high. I spiralled out of control."

I didn't understand that I was crying until the years settled at the base of my neck, wetting the collar of my shirt.

I wiped my face, trying to regain some sense of control.

I wanted to go to her and soothe her but somehow I didn't. I wanted to hug her but I didn't. The insidious voice in my head, burned with poisonous fire.

I stood there waiting for her sobs to subside.

"I just want to w-want to s-see her once.''

" You can't."

They say revenge feels sweet almost heady. They don't talk about the ashy aftertaste it leaves in your mouth.

We stayed silent. The machines hummed, our breaths mingled with our sighs and all over the room, the heavy weight of history and our decisions hung like a saber.

I thought about many things.

I thought about the day when I had been to a venture capitalist's office to get funding for my company. They listened as they always did and then politely rejected my proposal. It had been my 100th rejection at that point. They couldn't gamble their money on someone who didn't go to business school. I had been all over US by then. Unable to raise myself up after such a huge number of failures, I had stood crying on the sidewalk.

That was the best thing about New York. You could be sobbing im the middle of the road but people wouldn't bat an eyelash. It had been then that a young, beautiful blonde who had brought me a box of tissues and a bottle of mineral water.

In hindsight, it was probably what any decent person would have done but after suffering so much unkindness, I had grown accustomed to being treated that way.

When they raise their hands on you, they don't just bruise skin, they bruise everything inside of you. They kill the person inside of you, who you are beyond flesh and blood, the sun total of your experience and existence. They kill that person with one slap.

Because when the person you love slaps you, they do more damage than a knife wound would.

That but of kindness would stick with me forever, even on my deathbed. I would remember the girl who had no obligation to be kind but chose to be anyway.

They say our choices define us. They say we are more than where we are born because of who we choose to be.

That choice changed both our lives.

I remembered when she said, "Your idea was brilliant. I heard. You can cry. Of course you can. You are heartbroken. Or you can help me break into this insanely expensive bottle of whisky that I stole from my boss' office."

I had stared at her dumbfounded.

She had winked at me, patting her massive Hermes bag to show that it contained the bottle.

"Oh, come on! Don't choose crying. Or I would risked my job for nothing.", she said clutching my arms.

The warmth of human contact had seared into my hands.

" Okay.", I had replied to this force of nature.

"What's your name?", she asked.

"Sana Bianchi. Yours? ", I said extending my hand to shake hers.

"Juliana Bianchi.", she said laughing. Instead of taking my hand, she hugged me. It was oddly comforting, this overly familiar stranger.

"Gosh we are sisters! We share the same name!", she exclaimed.

She was the kind of person who talked with her hands as if just talking wasn't enough to express her feelings. I liked it.

"I don't want you to get into trouble with your boss.", I said worriedly.

" Relaaaax! My father is my boss. He won't miss his whiskey bottles. Nepotism gets you everywhere, doesn't it?", she said winking again.

I agreed with that internally. Though I didn't say anything cause I didn't want to offend her. She was the first person who had cared to know me in this huge city.

"You don't talk much, do you?", she asked.

" I do. Just around people I like.", I said surprising myself with my retort. I hurriedly started to apologize.

"No. No.", she insisted laughing out loud. " God no! I'm not offended. I can take a hit once in a while."

"First time in New York?", she asked.

I nodded slowly.

Thinking over something, she said to me.

"Let's go to my apartment, drink this and then I will take you across the city. You must see why this is the most interesting city in the world. Gosh, I'm excited. ", she said clapping her hands.

" You're not a serial killer are you?", I asked warily.

"Would I tell you if we're one?", she asked rolling her eyes.

Fair point.

Truth to be told, I was intimidated by her. Her expensive bag, the reckless way in which she stole from her boss, the clothes, the Louboutin clad feet. All of it screamed money, more than I could possibly have known at that point.

"Ok, maybe not my apartment. We will go to someplace else, someplace public. And then we can talk about your company. Agreed? "

"Fine.", I said.

" Cool.", she echoed.

I nodded again.

And the rest as they say is history.

"You win. AGAIN . You always win!", she said softly breaking through the webs of the past.

I didn't win.

I clawed my way through the finish line.

It was impossible.

To feel any joy at this victory.

At the end of the day, she had lost her daughter and I had lost my company and my trust.

The company might not be mine again, I realized.

But, it also would not be hers.

"Sign it.", I said pushing the file towards her.

"What is it?", she asked.

"Your resignation letter. I drafted it."

"Jesus! Today of all days?", she asked bewildered by my cruelty.

" That was what I thought when Josh almost died and I lost everything.", I echoed.

She kept staring at me.

"Just sign it.", I sighed.

She did and with one flick of a pen, Juliana Bianchi had LOST.

"Here.", I said, giving her a picture of her daughter. "Isidora Esther Bianchi."

The breath whooshed out of her in a painful gasp.

She looked at the picture as if she could not believe she had created such beauty. Such angelic and extraordinary beauty.

The mop of blond hair on the baby's sleepy head was exactly the same shade as hers.

"Thank you, Sana.", she said finally.

" Thank you for being the bigger person."

"Get your life back on track, Jules and do not try to sabotage my life again if you want to see your daughter. Rest assured, she'll be well looked after. Till then, goodbye."

As moved to go out of the room, she asked, "I know it's too late but do you think you can ever forgive me?"

I wanted to torture her, be unforgiving and harsh but my poise failed me.

"There is nothing I can't forgive you for, Jules. Nothing. It won't be now. It won't be tomorrow but it will be. One day. "

"Cal will be coming in shortly.", Georgiana said as she re-entered the room. I had said my piece. I left.

I lost a company. She lost the love of her life. I lost the joy of seeing my son walk. She lost the joy of seeing her child grow. I lost my sister. She lost everyone's trust.

Two sisters. Then two mothers.

My body felt like a wounded soldier's perforated by bullets. Each one opening old wounds.

Yet, I walked on.

There was still a lot to do.

A company to win back.

Children to raise.

And becoming the Boss Lady again.

___________