My father’s white armchair

The last box seemed to weigh more than the others. One more step. Done. The move to the new office is finished. Lara wipes her forehead, a little sweaty, and looks satisfied that large room still to be arranged, but that very soon will become her first real study. She begins to open the smaller boxes, and between design paperweight, pens and notebooks, she finds her old degree, rolled up like a parchment that holds a precious secret. She graduated in Psychological Sciences and Techniques, too many years ago to remember exactly how many. Yet it seems like yesterday.

Since she was a child she had dreamt of being a psychologist, she wanted to follow the footsteps of her father who, every day, had her enter his studio for a few minutes. “Here I try to help people”, he explained gently. And Lara daydreamed of becoming just like him one day.

Today, perhaps, that day has come. After years of training and apprenticeship, Lara can finally hang the plaque with her name on the door. A study of her own, like his father’s, and not just in her heart. In fact, the new office will be furnished with the furniture of his father. “He would have liked that”, Lara thinks melancholic, who, since her father disappeared, has a slight veil of sadness in her eyes. But she never gives up, never. She promised herself and to him that she would open her office and it was really happening today.

Unfortunately she could not recover all the furniture and furnishing accessories from her father’s studio, but one thing is certain: for nothing in the world she would have given up the white leather armchair. It was his armchair. One on which he sat for years listening to the people he helped in the path of understanding themselves. It was a very elegant armchair, very comfortable. The touch of the soft skin under the fingers relaxes her. She closes her eyes for a moment: Lara sees herself as a child, sitting on that white and immaculate armchair, while waiting for her dad to give her a new book to browse through for her indomitable curiosity. “Careful not to dirty the armchair”, he use to recommend.

Bontempi Casa Clarissa armchair, chromed steel frame, seat and back in white Premium leather.

Lara smiles, opening her eyes. It just remained as it was, it does not seem like one day has passed. The white skin is still perfectly intact, smooth and fragrant.

She removes all the cellophane that surrounds it and places it near the wide and bright window that illuminates the room with the warmth of that early autumn afternoon.

As she walks away for a few steps to admire it under the light, Lara stumbles into the corner of the bookshelf and nearly drops a glass flask. “Here is the precious bookshelf of dad”. It is a design bookcase, very light, but really robust. The shelves that separate the mountains of books – of psychology, philosophy, art, architecture – are all different from each other. “Dad was just a creative,” she recalls. He had chosen to personalize the bookcase with leather shelves, alternating with glass and wood shelves. Lara could have never missed it in her study.

Bontempi Casa Lexington bookcase, structure in natural silver lacquered steel, shelves in natural oak veneered wood and ice SuperConcrete.

For a moment she starts to browse through those books that his father had collected for years. They smelt of history, they smelt of past and knowledge. It was something that always fascinated her, the scent of the books pages. Of course, she also had an iPad and a laptop, but the feeling of flipping through a book and storing it in the bookcase would be unique forever, she was sure.

After having dusted the cupboard, the small table and chairs, Lara sits down for a moment at the desk. “It was here that dad kept his notebooks”. She opens the secret drawer, that is located under the top. The notebooks with the black cover and its silver pen with the initials are still there. Lara is moved. She turns on the lamp on the desk and caresses that little diary, that for professionalism and respect she decides not to open and never read. Probably among the pages yellowed by time there were still the secrets of many people who had been lucky enough to meet her father. He was a very sunny and positive man, putting his patients in a good mood. As a child she had always wondered if she would ever be able not to be infected by fears and insecurities. Like him, who seemed so strong and sure. Over time, once she became an adult, she had also discovered the human and softly fragile side of her father. And she had loved him even more, more consciously. Maybe he was not a real super hero, he was a simple person, who loved his job and his family. And that was how Lara wanted to be, too.

Bontempi Casa Secret secretary desk, structure in natural silver lacquered steel, external band covered in indigo blue leather, natural oak veneered wood top and flap door in glossy Arabesqued SuperMarble.

After putting the notebook in the secret drawer to which it belonged, Lara continues to open boxes, add books to the bookcase, she dusts some antiques items and voilà. For today it can be good. “I’ll be back tomorrow”, she thinks satisfied. She takes her coat leaning against the clothes hanger at the entrance. That too is a piece of his father’s.

Bontempi Casa Alga Hanger, structure in sand lacquered steel with adjustable hooks.

Before leaving, she remembers his old hat hanging right there, every day for so many years. From today she would have hung her hats, her scarves and her men’s jackets – even those inherited from a father she had loved very much. “Oh yes, dad would be really proud of me”.

The door closes, but for Lara it is a future that opens.