Recalled To Life novel Chapter 1

"Mama Mia, what a beautiful girl. She placed the baby on Paula's breasts, and the little one immediately began to search for the nipple. Have you thought of a name yet?" The midwife looked at the baby, who had just been cut off from her mother's umbilical cord, the mother, who was sweating and exhausted from the difficult birth.

"She does not have to give her a name; at the institution, they will take care of that." Paula looked at the two women standing by her bed and whispered, "I want you to name her Alba." It was just dawn, and it was pouring rain outside, hitting the room's window. Lightning pierced the sky, followed by a tremendous thunder that shook the building; so terrifying was the noise that the baby burst into tears, frightened from everything around her.

I assembled this scene in my imagination until I believed in it. I desired to understand why my mother handed me over as soon as I was born to an institution? I got the answers many years later when I was already an adult and searching for my roots...

I remember exactly everything that happened to me from the age of five, but everything that happened before has been erased, except for a few particular events that come to my mind as a vague dream. Whatever it is.

Paula is my biological mother; you already understood that, a member of a Catholic family of ten brothers and sisters from the small village of Scorzarollo on the banks of the Po River in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy.

At the age of thirteen, my mother became pregnant without knowing by whom, apart from the teacher, she fucked all the male children in the class. She finally ran away from home with a young man from the village where they lived to the big city of Bologna.

Life has not been easy for the young couple. At first, they lived in public parks. Then, they started stealing; they settled in the train station and stole the passengers' wallets, sometimes a camera or a wristwatch. Then they started breaking into shops and even houses. When Paula's stomach swelled to dimensions that made it difficult for her to 'work,' she abandoned her boyfriend and returned to her parents' house. Her father threw her out of his house on a stormy night. Their neighbors picked her up and called the social workers from the nearby town who brought her to a shelter where the birth started.

I was born prematurely but healthy in a natural birth. Paula, this is my mother, fed me for one whole night. The following day the two social workers came and separated me from her for forty-six years.

By the age of six, I already knew how to write, and my parents considered sending me to school, but the teaching nun objected and said I was not mature enough yet. What did she understand? She herself was not really grown up. Once she was asked why she has a wedding ring, she replied that she is married to God, does that sound like an evolved person to you?

Once, I noticed a woman standing outside the kindergarten for hours and watching us playing; I was sure it was my biological mother who wanted to kidnap me. I was scared and told my parents. After that, I never saw her again. Ever since my parents told me I was adopted, I have had these fears, but I kept them to myself.

Once when we were in the yard of the house where I lived, Maurizio wanted to compete with me, who could urinate farther; only then did I see that we had different organs for the first time. He was very curious about the way I urinated and laughed when I bent to do it. I admired him for being the smartest in the class, and I was happy every minute I could be alone with him; that way, he was just mine. But the love ended when we entered first grade in two different schools.