Chapter 70 Aria

• “Are you going to be gone for a long time, mommy?” Elowen asks with a trembling whisper, her voice filled with an innocence only children possess. She sits at the edge of my bed, her little legs swinging back and forth in an excited, but also nervous rhythm.
• The weight of her gaze is like a beam of light that illuminates all the doubts within me, a series of questions and fears trying to take root in my heart. I’ve never felt so torn. Anxiety and apprehension flood my core, and I wonder if I’m really doing the right thing by leaving, entrusting them to my mate’s care. This will be the first time I’ll be away from them, and the idea feels strange, almost unnatural. It’s as though I’m challenging the invisible laws that have always kept me by their side.
• My hands hesitate as I finish packing clothes into my suitcase, the old, dusty one I found at the back of the wardrobe. And now, in this moment, I wonder if I’m being selfish by leaving my children behind just to throw myself into the company of an ex-lover who, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, still stirs in me intense, almost unreal sensations that transport me into a world of fantasies and repressed desires. The voice of reason tells me that perhaps this is a bad choice, that maybe I’m being a terrible mother by giving in to these wants, but at the same time, something inside me cries out for a break, for a moment outside of the suffocating routine.