Rita

My name is Rita, short and simple.

My father was in love with a Hollywood actress his whole life, and when he settled with my mother — who didn't look like Rita, but had fantastic self-esteem and a tremendous sense of humour — they both agreed that it would be a good name if they had a daughter. Their reasons, of course, were different: to my father, the romantic, the name represented beauty and success; to my mother, a very straightforward woman, it was practical, easy to shout out whenever I was playing in the park or had messed up something at home. 

My parents were school sweethearts, married young, and were together until my dad got sick at Christmas a few years ago. At first, we thought he had eaten too much–– as he usually did on those occasions–– but when the festivities were over and he finally visited his doctor, it became painfully evident that it was not indigestion. A few months later, he was gone, and I was living alone with my mother. I was forty years old then, and although I had never planned to stay at my parents' place forever, it looked like that's what would happen.

I was born and raised in a town in northern Spain that I love, but I would be lying if I said it is the centre of the universe. It isn't New York, London, or Paris, but a place known only to those who have lived there. Inside a valley, crossed by a river, the town is full of people who did not want or care to look for anything outside. The winters are cold, but there is no snow, the summers are hot, and the nearest beach is two hours away, and despite the seasons changing, that place has stayed the same for as far as I can remember.

My father worked in the same factory for fifty years while my mother cared for him, my older brother, Daniel, and me. She didn't work outside the house, and the apartment she lives in now is the same one she bought with my father many years ago. I once dared to ask her if she wouldn't like to have a job, and she told me that Daniel and I were a handful someone had to manage, so for years, I thought that was a profession like any other. No one informed me about the lack of salary, benefits, or holiday allowances, and she didn't complain either, so I only discovered this much later.

My brother has always lived in town. He attended university in a nearby city and commuted to his classes. Now he works at a bank and has lunch with our mother once a week. When he started working and earning some money, he bought a studio apartment and left the family house, never to return. A few years later, he met a girl my mother tolerated - saying she liked her would be a stretch - and after some time, they married, closing the expected cycle of adulthood: grow, study, work, leave the house, marry, buy a bigger house. By the time this story happened, the one I'm about to tell you, the only thing he hadn't managed yet was to have children, which made him less perfect for my mother and more tolerable to me. It sucks to be the lesser child, and I shouldn't be happy because he isn't, but I didn't say I was perfect.

So, back to me. I was forty and living with my mother. That wasn't my plan growing up - sitting in the kitchen while my mum cooked, discussing my days at dinner time, and binge-watching series on my laptop in a single bed, but somehow, that's the point I had reached in life. 

At school, while most of my friends managed to choose what they wanted to do with their futures, I struggled. I didn't like studying; math and literature were equally dull, and there was nothing teachers could tell me that would inspire me. I never understood the connection between the things we had to study and the real world. My parents had a good life, and so did their lifelong friends. Growing up, I heard many times that their work wasn't exciting, and the managers sucked most of the time, but it was worth it because the salaries were enough, and when they were back home, their families waited for them to listen to their stories. It seemed a reasonable way of life, leaving time for a hobby or two and relaxing on the weekends. That's why I didn't see any benefit in spending years at university to maybe get a better position and have a higher salary. I had seen many graduates working as cashiers in the supermarket, and I always thought that getting an early start would give me an advantage in the future, so that's what I did. While all my friends, one by one, left town to study at university, I took a couple of professional courses and started working immediately. I've taken many courses over the years, either because I wanted to or because the unemployment office assigned them to me when I was between jobs. I've been a secretary, a shop assistant, worked in a supermarket, and, for a year, spent a fair amount of my weekends working in a nightclub, in the coat check room. After all that, the most permanent position I managed to secure was on a car parts assembly line for eight years, and I had been there for a couple of years when my father passed.

We buried him on a rainy day. After the funeral, I drove back home with my mother, and we sat on the living room sofa. We didn't speak, watch television, or listen to music for hours. We remained seated, looking at the walls where my dad hung family photos and trinkets until the room went dark. Then, my mother stood up and said she had to take care of dinner. As soon as she left the room, I realised I had to move out. 

My mother's job had always been to take care of us, but my brother had another home, my father was gone, and I felt I was in a place I shouldn't be, which suddenly became an unbearable weight to carry. At first, I felt guilty because if I left her, she'd be completely alone, but then it hit me: at my age, she already had a kid at university and another in high school. My most precious possessions were a secondhand car I'd bought from my brother and a laptop. I had no children, husband, boyfriend, or stable career. I wanted all that, but had no idea how to get it, and no one around me seemed to be able to help me on my quest. 

My mother had resigned herself to having me at home until the end of her days. My brother had always told me not to worry about leaving home, since keeping a job was already difficult enough for me. Many of my work colleagues were as limited as I was, and they told me I would be fine, but my school girlfriends didn't get me. I believe they thought I was lazy because I did not want to study as they did, and was taking advantage of my parents because I didn't leave their place. For years, I heard them saying I should be more adventurous, leave the nest, and learn to fly, but that's easier said than done. Some of them had support from their families, others had been courageous and run away, and I… well, I don't know what was happening to me for sure, but that funeral day, I decided I wasn't going to wait for someone to tell me. 

After dinner, I called my brother and asked him for a big favour. He still had his studio apartment from his bachelor days, and although he had rented it before, there were no tenants at the time.

"Rent it to me," I told him.

"And Mum?" he asked.

"She'll be fine. I need to move out."

"Well, I thought you'd never…"

"Rent it to me, please."

That's how it happened: He said yes, and I packed my stuff that night before I could think about it again and change my mind. I've lived on my own since then because I chose to… more or less. 

Once I had my own place, I did all the things my friends had spoken about for years: I painted and decorated, and I enjoyed my solitude and freedom. I didn't have to explain why I spent my weekends in pyjamas or ate cookies from the pack. I bought whatever I wanted to eat and cleaned whenever I felt like it. My life and well-being depended on me, and although it sometimes required work and planning, it felt good to do things on my own. And then, a year later, when I was feeling so good about myself, I got something else as a bonus: a boyfriend, Alberto.

One night, I went out with some colleagues from work, one of them, Tomás, introduced me to a friend of his. They had met in the gym months before. For a bit, when we started talking, I thought they were more than friends because Tomás seemed very affectionate. Alberto didn't stop his advances and comments about skinny jeans. Still, after a couple of drinks, my colleague gave up, left us alone, and we hit it off. Even though we were the same age and had attended the same secondary school, I didn't remember him. When he told me he knew me, I thought he was playing a trick on me. When I arrived home, I checked my school yearbooks to prove him wrong, but I couldn't. 

Days later, our first date was at a coffee shop, where I had to apologise for not remembering him. We were together from then on. He was friendly, not exceedingly handsome, and not too tall, but he had a cute smile. He had a little bald spot on the back of his head that he liked to cover by combing his hair to the right, and, despite being a lover of walks in nature, his belly seemed to say he preferred his sofa. He wasn't the kind of man I'd dreamed of, but it was easy to speak to him, and he seemed to like listening to me as well.

"So, this is how we start again?" he said.

"Seems like a plan to me," I replied.

"Then, if that's the case, I'm Alberto García Martinez, nice to meet you."

I stared at him and smiled. I knew exactly what to say.

"My name is Rita, short and simple."