The Passion

Is it just fate?
After the fireworks came to an end, I just stood there looking at Henri’s face. He looked different, not afraid anymore, he just looked happy. I continued rowing down the lagoon in my boat, looking at my city of mazes. The only one that saw me grow, the only one that keeps my secrets behind its walls, and the only one that would keep my dear Henri safe. . . .Five years havepassed since I saw Henri; they say that Henri is still crazy but I believe that his just Henri. My daughter has grown so much; she’s no longer a baby. Her name is Venice and she loves the casino as much as I did.
I have read this so many times, and today made no difference. I sat down at my boat, getting through every canal and thinking of my mother’s life. Now I’m eighteen, I work at an oldcasino down town. At my exact age my mother started working here, and every time I think of what this might have been for her.
I haven’t seen my father for a long time. Today I have decided to go to the madhouse and pay a visit to him. When I arrived he was, as always, working at the garden. He loved been there, and I’m not going to lie: the place was beautiful. But that place meant something elseto him; that was his home. I invited my dad for a tea, and we talk for hours. While he talked about his garden and about his ghostly friends, I talked about boats and the casino. My father has always told me that I reminded him so much of my mother. After the sun came down, and the day was coming to an end, I said goodbye to my father. But before this, he told me that he had something to give me.It was a little notebook, full of pages and stories.
Every story in his pad took me from war to the meeting of my mother. Every page has passion. I yet don’t understand what this meant, but apparently my dad did. He felt passion for Bonaparte and for my mother. By my dad’s descriptions I think I have felt passion, I believe I felt passion for gambling. Trust me.
It was a dark night and I camehome back from the casino. My mother was at home cooking dinner, as always she looked miserable, her eyes looked lost as if she was missing something. I came to her; I kissed her in the forehead and told her that I had met a guy at the casino. Her glassy eyes stared at me; they were wide open as if something was terribly wrong with me. My mother staggers for a long time before asking: “How did youmeet this man?”
“Well mom, I was working late and this sweet and really appealing man came to me; he played his luck for a long time and after a while he invited me to have supper with him in a week”. My mom was speechless words didn’t came out of her, the only thing she said to me was: “Love is like gambling: you never know what you will get, so be careful my dear Venice. I don’t want to seeyour heart get stolen as I got mine twice”
After that my mom was silent. I have never heard her talk like that. My mom was a reserved woman now. But my dad has told me that she wasn’t always like that. What has happen to her, that’s an answer I’ll never get.
My mother and I had dinner, and all you could hear was the silverware clinging against the plate. Everything was silent; and after a whileI step out from the table and went to my room to read in front of the fireplace. My room was at the top of the house and the long stairs make me sweat every time I went through them, after ten minutes I arrived at my room. I took the little book my dad had gave me and sat down to read it for a while.
I wake up early in the morning so I could have breakfast with my dad before going to work. WhenI arrive I asked my dad about everything he wrote in the notebook and he told me that everything was the truth and that he wrote it to remind himself of everything he felt at the moment. After a long conversation my dad told me that he missed his home, and he wanted to go back there. I asked him why and he told me that his mother asked him to go back.
A week has passed since the last time I...