Chapter 5
Breathing deeply to try to regain some control, Silvia tipped her head back as she swiped ineffectively at the tears that were again running down her cheeks. She gave a quiet, grim laugh, why not torture herself completely she thought, before deliberately bringing to mind another painful memory. Sniffing back the tears, she remembered years before when Pepa's nightmares about the shooting on their Wedding Day had disrupted their sleep for months. It seemed as though every week Pepa had woken screaming or crying out for Silvia or, more worryingly, sometimes she seemed to shutdown unable to accept Silvia was still alive and that she wasn't still dreaming.
After several months of this behaviour, Silvia had tried to push Pepa to talk about it with her or even with the precinct psychiatrist. She had thought that if Pepa were to discuss what was happening in those horrible dreams, and to expose that fear to the light of day, then the dreadful root that was the source of the nightmares - the night when Silvia had nearly died and three of their friends, Gonzalo, Kike and Nelson, had died – would wither and die, and take the dreams with it. Silvia's logical deliberation on the situation had concluded that if Pepa opened up and explored her feelings, was able to discuss and deal with her reactions to Silvia nearly dying in her arms and being revived by an ambulance crew who had arrived at administer medical assistance just in time, then this would surely help to dispel the power the visions had on her wife.
When she had persisted in pursuing - what Silvia would later describe as discussing, but Pepa insisted was crotchety complaining - her idea of Pepa talking to a psychiatrist, Pepa had completely clammed up refusing to talk about it at all. She had then taken the rational action, according to Pepa; overly-dramatic, divaesque step, from Silvia's point of view; of moving into their spare bedroom, stating that if she was stopping Silvia sleeping which was 'obviously a problem for Silvia', then she would sleep elsewhere to avoid disturbing her.
After a week of enduring Pepa's 'polite and considerate' persona both at home and in work, Silvia couldn't take being 'ignored' by her lover any longer, so she had, in a moment of silly peevishness, rashly decided to aggressively continue the argument with Pepa the very next time she had entered the lab. Unfortunately for both parties, that course of action had only led to Pepa having a complete emotional meltdown, which had meant she had been unable to function, spending several hours sitting on the lab floor sobbing uncontrollably whilst holding Silvia in a desperate embrace.
Silvia couldn't help but analyse the situation, she had wondered why her response to the whole trauma was so completely different. Was it the difference in their personalities that made her have almost an intellectual reaction to the shooting? On the other hand, perhaps her reaction was altered because she could not remember much about the events of the day after she had been shot. As she saw it though, she had survived and they were together now, so why wouldn't Pepa want to discuss it with someone to alleviate her nightmares.
"Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes" went the old saying, and now Silvia could appreciate why. Yes, now life had given her a much more intimate appreciation of what it felt like to be the person on the outside, the one holding onto the person you love as they die in your arms. Nowadays she deeply regretted the time she had wasted arguing with Pepa about dealing with her nightmares, as she thought it would be considerably easier to thrust her hand into the centre of a raging fire than to have to relive those cruel memories. It was bad enough in her dreams, but to have to talk about it with a stranger; to know they would be judging you for your actions, even if it would not be as harshly as you judged yourself, she knew she simply couldn't bear it.
Sighing quietly she slowly stood. Her bones felt old and her spirit felt even older as she fumbled around until she found her robe on the floor, nearly buried in the sheet where it must have fallen when she kicked off the covers. Wrapping it around herself, and moving like every step was her last, she moved sluggishly towards the living room.