“And the most important piece in this hall is this one,” the blonde girl with the blue scarf presented the sculpture behind her, “Antonio Canova created this beautiful artwork for Empress Josephine, the wife of the infamous Napoleon Bonaparte.”

She checked the small pocket book about the artist which she prepared before her departure to Italy. It’s supposed to be a work trip to cover cultural tradition in several cities. Yesterday she wrapped all the exploration in Verona. And efore moving to Venice, her obsession to sculpture brought her here, a museum in Possagno which became a home for the masterpieces of Canova, an Italian Neoclassical sculptor.

“There’s a story behind this sculpture, the reason why it’s called The Three Graces,” she stepped closer to the woman in the middle of the crowd, “We all know, that this sculpture, from left to right, representing the beauty of Zeus daughters, Euphrosyne, Aglaea, and Thalia. But when he’s working on this piece, he also took another inspiration from society perception during that period. Anyone know what’s that?”

Some people seemed intrigued and started discussing with their surroundings. Some just nodded quietly, having conversation with themselves, some just left and continued to explore the museum.

“If we see closely, their hands are so delicate, the way they touched, the way they embrace each other. But we can see these three beautiful women are all different. Why is that?”

Once again, the crowd splits into silent and murmurs.

“This sculpture portrayed what beauty is in the past. The first one, a beautiful woman must have brain. A smart woman considered the most beautiful. Let’s take a look at the middle one, her head’s slightly higher than the two. Here we can understand, that she’s the smartest, thus she’s the most beautiful.”

She cocked her head to focus on the middle sculpture. She’s the smartest and the prettiest, yet she still humbled and lowered her head, she thought.

“The second beauty is still the same with present days, the beauty that we can directly see with our bare eyes. The one on the left, are shaped in the confident posture. She had the most uncovered body part, to show how physically beautiful she is.”

She remembered her grandmother’s words, being a woman is not easy. The society would take times to realize that woman’s place isn’t below the man. Therefore you should be confident, and do what you gonna do, believe yourself, and you’ll overcome everything in life, she recites once again the last message she received from her before she moved to the capital.

“And the last one is generosity. However, in the past, the term of generosity he meant here is how the woman would spend her time to carry a baby and give birth to them.”

An invisible truck just hit her from the back. She didn’t know she dropped her book until the lady next to her tapped her arm and returned it back to her. She could only send her a quick smile, a very forced one, it’s almost painful to see.

“Ironically, the Empress Josephine herself couldn’t give a child to Napoleon. In the dire need to have an heir, at the end Napoleon had to divorce her.”

Her feet worked on itself, sprinted her torso that has no more strength to hold her above the ground. The spring breeze wiped her drenched cheeks once she’s sitting by herself, eyes looking forlornly to the front, focusing to some spot away across the hill.

Still with uncontrollable sob that seemed become messier every second passed, she took out her phone from her purse and pressed the speed dial.

“Hey, Honey. Di—“

“Please, don’t divorce me. I beg you.”

“What?”

“Please.. don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone..”

Gwiboon’s practically bawling. The streams running down her face, harder than before. Last week they went to the hospital to get the result of the test they took on the visit two weeks prior. The ob-gyn greeted them with a bright smile, awfully pole apart with the statement she had five minutes later.

She found three cysts in her ovaries, as the result of endometritis she suffered since she was young. The doctor described that most ovarian cysts are benign and would naturally go away on their own without treatment.  However, due to Gwiboon’s excessive activities and works, she needs to get another check-up as soon as possible to get better diagnosis because one of the cyst is apparently almost considered ruptured one.

The whole conversation explained everything to her. It’s the reason why she always got merciless abdominal pain during her period. It’s the reason why her period cycle is a mess. It’s the reason why up until now, their fourth year of marriage, she still cannot get pregnant. And the horror of being divorced just because she’s not fertile enough to continue the family tree strikes her in a very harsh way.

“Honey, Gwiboon, what happened? Are you okay? What are you talking about? Please, don’t make me take the closest flight to Italy. Tell me everything’s alright, Love, please.”

Unable to compose herself still, she kept crying on the phone, worrying her husband on the other line, “I just.. It just.. It just hit me. It would be so hard for me to give you the daughter you always wanted. I might have no chance to get pregnant. At all.”

“Dear, God. Honey, the result’s still bothering you? It’s treatable, you heard yourself, we already have the schedule to see the doctor again once you get back. We will find a way. It’s okay, Gwi. It breaks my heart listen to you cried like this.”

“I am afraid.. I’m afraid you would leave me if I cannot have a baby..”

The man on the other line tried to suppress his own weeps, he took a very deep and long breath before carry on with the call.

“I, Lee Jinki, promise to be there for Kim Gwiboon. I promise to love her unconditionally, until all hair became white and all we could do is sitting together on the porch, wrapped in each other’s embrace, while listening to the sound of the rain. I promise to stay by her side, both in face full of acne or adorn by after glowing. Both in bad hair day or freshly cut hair. Both in debt after all week shopping or granted promotion bonus. Because she is the only home I will be coming back to. Do you remember that?”

She nods vigorously, and found herself being stupid because obviously Jinki cannot see any of that.

“Listen. I married you not because I wanted you to bear my child. But because I love you. So what if we can’t get pregnant? We can do surrogate. We can adopt. A baby. Twins. Or dogs. Bunch of dogs. Or just stay the two of us, so we can have whenever we want, wherever we want. Stop blaming yourself, will you?”

The nightmares she had every night after the doctor appointment were hell for him. He has no heart seeing Gwiboon’s sleep talking, stating how useless she is, or how everything is her fault if they couldn’t have baby.

The weak chuckle he heard after a dreadful silent eased his mind. Oh, how he wished he’s in Italy right now to hug her tight and kiss all over her face.

“I miss you, Lee Jinki.”

“I miss you more, Princess. And remember, I would never, never divorce you just because you’re unable to conceive.”

“Because you love me?”

“No, because the alimony,” he scoffed, “Of course because I love you, you silly head!”

“Oh, I almost die for a second.”

“Then I’d go to underworld, jump to the dead river to rescue your soul, bring back my beautiful wife to me and we live happily ever after.”

“Hercules?”

“Yeah, it was on Netflix last night.”

She laughed, burden-less. The first time after what seemed like forever, haunted by remorse feeling and overdose anxiety.

“I love you, Lee Jinki.”

“I love you, Kim Gwiboon. Soooo so much.”

“Pick me up at the airport next week, then?”

“Yeah, can’t hardly wait.”

***

A/N. all the stories of the sculpture are sourced to the guide explanation on my last visit to the museum. Hopefully, I wrote it right because I have a memory of a goldfish sometimes :P this very old drabble was written in one hour around 4AM where I was living so please mind all the grammar errors XOXO