Just one more day
- Marcel Courteau
- Apr 18
- 7 min read
"Are you still mad at me?" Milena asked with firm conviction, searching his eyes.
Through the kitchen window, in that English-style house on Pantaleón Rivarola Street, the first rays of a winter sun lit up the Agronomía neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
On the table against the wall, Milena worked her magic: the coffee cups, the mate, the toast, the butter knife, and the other one—the one for spreading jam.
Everything arranged in her unmistakable style, the same with which she had shaped not only the house but everyone’s life.
Dante had had a bad night. For some time now, his sleep had been restless—light, fragile, fragmented. He struggled to fall asleep, drifting into a thin layer of rest until dawn eventually overcame him.
The sounds from the kitchen woke him up.
The smell of toast and the soft movement in the room led him there. He sat in his usual spot and quietly observed Milena’s ritual: her precise gestures, the pink silk robe, her loose hair.
Nothing extraordinary—no makeup, no staging.
But that morning, there was something different about her.
She was particularly radiant.
At times, he looked at her and felt that her presence filled everything—as if it suddenly became clear and undeniable that even if one had everything, none of it made sense without her.
And at the same time, even if one had nothing at all, being there with her was everything.
Milena poured coffee for both of them, sat down, and took the first sip, savoring it.
"Ah... this is such good coffee," she said, enjoying it. "With this cold..." She paused, then added, "Aren’t you going to say anything?"
"What do you want me to say?" Dante replied, avoiding her gaze. "You know why."
Milena sighed."I don’t know what else to do. I’ve told you a thousand times—I had no choice," she said, trying to meet his eyes.
Dante took a sip of his coffee, clearly frustrated. This time, he did look her in the eye. There was sorrow in his voice when he said,"I get it. But it won’t go away.
Anger stays with me, eats with me, breathes with me... and sleeps beside me.Believe me, I don’t know what to do."
Milena clasped her fingers together on the table.
His words came slowly, heavy with regret:
"I wish things had been different. I was forced to leave that job, and all I wanted was for you and Manuela to be okay. There was no going back.I saw no other way out, so I took the contract and left to work abroad."
"I never told you that during those first three months, I slept in your pajamas," Milena confessed, her throat tightening. "That was the first time I felt the emptiness."
Dante clenched his jaw.
"I knew it. Manuela told me in an email. She was fourteen by then. She noticed those things. She felt she had to do it. It broke my heart, being so far away."
Milena lowered her gaze and said in barely a whisper:
"Then came California, Texas, Mexico..."
"I know. Don’t remind me," said Dante, resigned. "I didn’t see it then.Little by little, you became the head of the household, and I became the one who just paid the bills."
"That was devastating," said Milena, her eyes glistening."We didn’t realize we were slowly becoming something else.
You with your pains, me with mine. The kids, the bills, your job, and everything else that filled up our lives.And at the end of the day, you weren’t on the other side of the bed.
I’m not complaining, but you know... I think we switched to survival mode, and the space where we used to see each other just vanished."
"Now, looking back, everything makes more sense," Dante replied. "We can say we could’ve done better... sure.It could’ve been worse, too...But in the end, what matters is that we made it here."
"Then why are you still angry?" Milena asked, trying to get to the heart of it.
"Seems to me it has to do with that... What would you have done differently?"
"Yeah... there’s something to that," Dante admitted. "It’s hard to say it this way..."
"What?" Milena pressed him gently.
"I think I never should’ve even considered doing anything that would separate us—anything that could come before our connection.
You know, even if we had to accept the discomforts of real life, whether we lost or won, I feel like all those evenings together would’ve tasted different now."
Milena stared into her coffee as he spoke. Slowly, her face softened into a faint smile, growing as she raised her wide eyes to look at Dante.
"It was fear," she said.
"It always was.
In our relationship—like in any—fear showed up without hesitation.
But I was already living alone with Manuela, and meeting you like that made us leap into it, forced us to see everything from the lens of how we were going to hold it together.
There was no 'just you and me' before everything else—we just jumped in."
Her voice dropped to a whisper:
"I just know we loved each other,"
"Neither of us could’ve known how it would turn out.
It just happened that way.It was always hard, always complicated.
The hardest part was living it from a distance."
"Maybe we didn’t have the courage to give ourselves a break, to stop living with clenched teeth. Because the hard stuff was going to be there anyway."
"True," Dante nodded, a hint of bitterness in his tone.
"But I know that’s not everything."
"What else is there?" Milena asked quietly.
"Seems like I’m not going to find out today either."
"How can I explain it..." Dante said, struggling for words.
"It’s like a pain that doesn’t go away.
Because when you find the person who connects you to the world, something in you changes.
You become someone else. More grounded. More light. Someone better.
I could go anywhere in the world and endure anything.
Because behind everything, there was you, and Manuela... and later, little Imanol.
It felt like I was invincible."
"Do you remember when Imanol was born?"
"Your placenta previa led to a C-section, and then, because of the accreta, they couldn’t remove it and tore your uterus.
You were bleeding out, and the blood bank didn’t have your damn blood type and factor.
It had to be the rarest—A negative. Nothing was ever easy..."
"Out of nowhere, Gustavo and I were driving all over Córdoba City, from clinic to clinic, and finally, we found three units—paying out of pocket... and then Javier, the big guy."
"Haha!" Milena laughed. "I remember that when they were transfusing Javier’s blood into me, I was desperately asking you for some triple-layer crustless sandwiches... I was starving!"
"And Javier said, 'Get ready, now she’s going to ask for cigarettes, whisky, and fernet...
It was that feeling, of seeing each other and being able to face anything." Said Dante.
After a pause, looking Milena’s eyes, Dante continued,
“Later on, over time,” he said,
“I felt this desperate fear.It became hard to imagine that if someone like that is ripped away from you...what shadow do you become then?
Everything goes dark.
The connection to the world and its meaning dissolves.
Your horizon blurs, you lose your way... and you become someone who searches for them everywhere.”
“You drift,” Dante said, “scanning the stars for sparks of them—still lit, still glowing in the gestures of those touched by their love.”
"Like when, suddenly, you show up in Manuela’s smile...In Imanol’s stubborn ‘no’s...Even in how I set the table, or make the caprese salad."
"That’s it," he whispered."
I think I know now what’s really eating at me...It’s that.
That late-blooming certainty that keeps hitting me in the chest, reminding me—over and over—that we should’ve spent more time together.
I can’t stop looking for you... or trying to recover all of it.
And I can’t find you... and that tears my soul apart.
I had to say it.
I needed to.
And even if no one believes it, all I have left is this: to scramble your atoms in hopes you’ll reappear," Dante said, until no words remained.
"I understand," Milena answered, lowering her voice, as if the kitchen air might break.
"What I can tell you is what I always do—until you finally understand:
I had no choice.I couldn’t avoid it."
"You know I don’t have all the answers.
All I can do is stay with you.
Before I met you, when it was just Manuela and me, I didn’t expect anything more.I thought the world ended there—with just the two of us.
And yet, I found you.
And with everything we’ve lived, I feel like it couldn’t have been better."
"Now it’s your time to stop searching and waiting.
Maybe... maybe it’s time simply to find.
And let love cross the bridge.
That one that holds us, even above the abyss.
At that moment, their eyes met in an endless pause.
Milena, with nothing left to explain.
Dante, desperately, with no way to understand.
Suddenly, Milena cut throught the silence..
"You know... I have to go now."
"When will I see you again?" Dante asked, his voice cracking with anguish.
Milena looked at him with a tenderness almost luminous.
"As long as you need me. For as long as you want."
She stood up and walked calmly toward the hallway.
She made no sound as she left.
Dante remained still, staring at the steam rising from his coffee.
Then, he dared to turn his head.
The chair in front of him was empty.
It wasn’t the first time he and Milena had shared that breakfast, in the kitchen of the English-style house on Pantaleón Rivarola Street.
Even five years after Milena had left this world forever.
Sting - Fields of gold
Sources:
El Confidencial – Nuria Ibáñez – 06/25/2024
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