Chapter thirty-seven.
I had a flight early in the morning and I was closing my suitcase. All of my bigger stuff was stored away in a garage I had rented, I was planing on using it again in September. My family didn’t know yet but I was expecting to stay in Dortmund insead of finishing my studies in Amsterdam as I had planned before meeting Marco.
He was coming to get me anytime now, since we were having dinner with his family. I was staying at his house today, and he was going to drive me to the airport the next day. I hadn’t bored to get myself a cute outfit today, I was just wearing a plain dress and a pair of trainers, something comfortable that would also do the trick for the next day.
He gave me a call when he got to my door and then we changed spots since he still hadn’t gotten his driving license and I was driving to his family house.
“You need to get your driving license Marco” I told him while we were on our way.
“I know” he said “I’ll promise you I’ll get it this summer”
“I doubt that” I said sceptically.
He just laughed it off and changed the dial, tilting his head back into the copilot seat.
It was a thirty minute trip to Marco’s parent’s house and we talked about everything but me going away. I was happy to see my family but, on the other hand I didn’t want to leave Marco – or Dortmund for that matter – because I had really grown a safety net and I felt myself at ease at the city. On the other hand, I knew Marco didn’t want me to leave but he understood my reasons and that I needed to see my family, so he was trying to make thins easier for me. That’s what I loved so much about Marco, we really didn’t need to talk about things but instead he just got me no matter what and he knew when to push a subject and when not to do it.
As I parked into Manuela and Thomas’ driveway I saw there was light in the living room. Manuela heard the car and she came to the door to greet us.
“Hi” she said excitedly “Hi sweetheart, how was your holidays?”
“They were great, thanks” I said hugging her.
“Are you ready to go home. I bet you are delighted to go back” she said as she entered to the kitchen, making me follow her.
“I am” I said “I hadn’t seen my niece in ages”
“Oh right, you had a little niece” she said, as she started to cook “Wasn’t she Nico’s age?”
“Yes, she is” I said, starting to tidy the kitchen to help her finish sooner. “She’s my little girl”
Soon after that Yvone entered the door with the little ones and she brought Mia to the kitchen, while Marco, Nico, Thomas and Yvone’s husband stayed in the living-room. I brought her to my lap as soon as the little girl entered the kitchen, and I payed with her while the mother and daughter were catching up.
It wasn’t much later when dinner was ready and everybody gathered in the living-room. Both Manuela and Thomas sat at the heads of the table and the rest of us sat down on the sides. Me, Marco and Nico on one side, and Yvone, Mia and Yvone’s husband on the other side.
Nico had been all afternoon at a friend’s house, and he had a pool in his backyard so his hair was still a little wet and frizzy. He told me how much fun he had had and how exited he was to his holidays in the beach with his family, even though, he was a little sad he wasn’t going to be able to swim with his sister. He also asked me about my beach holidays, to which I told him my house was so close to the beach that I could walk to it, so I wasn’t having beach holidays. Everybody got interested about my house and town so I talked about them gladly, which was a little bit moving, since I was starting to get really homesick at this point.
After dinner, Yvone put Mia to sleep and we stayed on the table, making small chat until really late in the night. We left in between tender hugs and kisses wishing me a good trip and making me promise to visit again as soon as I went back to Dortmund at the end of the summer.
I gave a special hug to my little Nico, whom I was very sad to leave for two months and I gave a lot of kisses to Mia’s little face, who didn’t knew what was going on around her, for the time I will be back she would probably grow into herself a lot and she would be moving around like crazy, maybe even having a few teeth.
The airport was full of people, it always was. Some of them recognized Marco and wanted to take their picture, which I gladly took. Because of that it took us a while more to check in my luggage but we didn’t care. After that we sat down at a coffee shop and we ordered two bottles of water while we waited for me to enter the terminal, avoiding to say our goodbyes as we had been doing for the last days.
However, we could not stop time and I eventually had to make the queue to wait for my flight.
“I’m gonna miss you” Marco breathed into my hair as he was hugging me “I don’t want you to leave”.
“I know” I said with my cheek pressed into his head, my forehead in the crock of his neck. “But I have to. I miss my family, you know?”.
“I know” he said letting me go “I love you, OK” he said before giving me a quick peck.
“I love you to” I said tearing myself away from him.
He stood close as I followed the line and as I was passing through security doors he was there making funny faces. I didn’t know how much he actually stayed in the airport because I had to venture into the terminal in order to find my door, which it ended up to be one of the last ones in the terminal.
I didn’t have to wait much for my flight since I had arrived pretty late and Marco had bought me a fist class ticket, which I had accepted gladly since there was a lot of hours ahead of me.
I ended up sitting next to a blonde woman, she wasn’t very kind and she had a huge laptop in which she typed the whole time. Instead, I sat in my seat and tried to relax once the airplane started to move and the security instrutions were given, because I thought it was rude to not pay attention to the flight attendants giving instructions, who were just doing their jobs. The seat was really comfortable and it was easy for me to relax as soon as we took off.
When I arrived to the airport it was already dark outside. I had been waiting in Barcelona’s airport for quite a long time before taking my last flight – a normal one this time – and I was pretty tired. I had brought two suitcases and a big bag and my arms were sore of dragging them around the floors.
My mother was waiting for me at fist line when I got out of the gates – knowing her she had just probably spent there two hours waiting for me – and as I saw her I could see tears in her eyes.
“Adela!!” she said hugging me. “I missed you terribly”
“I missed you too mom” I said smiling.
“Let me help you with that and lets get you home” she said grabbing one of my suitcases.
I followed her quietly into the parking lot, in where we found mom’s car and we took off to our town, which was two hours away from the airport.
Once I got home I saw my brother making dinner at the kitchen.
“Hey” I said “It smells delicious”
“Thanks sis” he said smiling “It was time for you to come back”
“I missed you too” I said hugging him. “I’m going to unpack quickly and I’ll be downstairs”
“Do you need help?” my mother asked.
“No, thanks” I answered. “It’s just the essentials”.
I went upstairs quickly and placed the most important things around my room and in my bathroom drawer and I went downstairs, where my mother and brother had already set the table in and were just about to finish dinner, I had missed them.