The Florentine Bridge

by Vanessa Carnevale

  ‘I should have told you that we’ve got stellar views. But they come at a price. You feeling it this morning?’ says Luca from somewhere behind me.

  ‘Completely, but look at this view. The steps are totally worth it.’

  ‘I brought you a surprise.’

  I turn around and it’s impossible to not be distracted by his physical presence. He’s immaculately dressed, as though he’s been out and about already. ‘What are you looking at?’ he asks, a lazy grin spreading across his face.

  ‘Nothing special,’ I reply, my mouth bending up into a smile.

  ‘Wait until you try this.’ He unwraps the package he’s holding. He tells me it’s a local dessert called delizia al limone, a spongy cream custard, and it’s as delightful as its name implies.

  ‘This is so good. Wait! Did you just spoonfeed me?’

  He laughs.

  ‘I can’t believe you just did that!’

  ‘Sono italiano,’ he says, raising his eyebrows. ‘It’s the romance gene. It’s hard to switch off. Especially around you.’

  ‘You sure this can pass for breakfast?’

  ‘The Amalfi Coast is home to the best lemons in the world. They grow in every terraced garden. We’re just supporting the local trade.’

  ‘Could we visit a lemon grove today?’

  ‘You really want to paint today?’

  ‘How did you …? I didn’t say that.’

  ‘But you were thinking it, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Read your mind. Let’s go.’

  After I get ready, we make our way up steps and through alleys, until we finally reach an expansive lemon grove. The sturdy branches of mature trees elegantly hold the weight of fruits the colour of the sun, and thick drops of water roll off the plentiful green leaves, the residue of an early-morning spray. I snap off a leaf and crunch it between my fingers, and the citrus aroma brings me closer to what will become my subject matter. It takes me a while to find the right place to sit and work, but once I settle in, the world around me contracts and it’s just me and my paints and brushes. My eyes scan the area in front of me, and as soon as I take a step back from my easel to contemplate the scene, Luca leaves me and goes to browse the local artisan store that lies in my direct line of sight beyond the trees closest to me. I start by sketching an outline of a basket from which oversized lemons spill. Then I move to the rows of glass bottles with their cork tops and vintage labels that read: Limoncello di Positano. Inside each one is a slice of the Amalfi Coast in liquid, citrus form.

  Somehow Luca calculates exactly the right amount of time for me to have finished the main components of my work in progress.

  ‘Perfect timing,’ I murmur.

  He guides a paper straw into my mouth, urging me to take a sip of the zesty, sugary, bubbly liquid. I shift across, making room for him. ‘Sit here.’

  ‘No, keep going,’ he says. ‘I’ll watch.’

  ‘I don’t want you to watch today,’ I say, cleaning my brush with water. ‘I want you to try.’

  ‘This is your thing. I can’t do this. I haven’t painted since I was around ten years old. I’ll ruin it.’

  I slide the brush into his hand and move behind him, resting my hand over his, guiding it into the yellow paint and onto the paper.

  His hands tense up and he shakes his head. ‘It’s okay. You won’t mess it up. You just need to loosen up a bit. Like this,’ I say, showing him how to let the brushstrokes flow. ‘And here, if you do this, you get depth.’

  He watches with interest and nods in silence, before gradually loosening his grip and then I let go completely, watching him as he takes to this new experience.

  ‘This is why you paint and I turn screws,’ he says, retiring the brush into the muddy water. ‘But I like the world you play in, painter girl.’

  With the sun high in the sky, we start the hike back to the apartment. Overhead, the emerald coastline glistens, beckoning us closer to it. Perspiration is dripping from my temples, and I wipe it away with my forearm.

  ‘This heat is off the charts,’ says Luca, lifting his t-shirt to wipe his brow.

  ‘Could we take a rest?’

  We find a spot in the shade under a lemon tree, where the coastline dotted with sunbathing bodies, colourful umbrellas and glistening blue-green waters lies beneath us.

  Luca passes me a bottle of water. ‘Make sure you drink. We should have left earlier. This sun’s ferocious,’ he says, pouring a bottle of water over his head.

  ‘But don’t you think it’s worth it? I mean, look at the view from here. Look at how good life is right now.’

  He smiles. ‘You’ve come so far.’

  I nod thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I have.’

  He hesitates slightly before speaking. ‘What was it like? The chemo, I mean.’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘No—I do want to know. I know it’s behind you, but I want to know what you went through.’

  I lean my back against the tree before taking a deep and purposeful breath. I don’t want to ruin our holiday with memories I’ve worked so hard to leave behind. He deserves to know though, so I open the door and let him in and hope we will never have to discuss it again, because I am truly ready for that door to close for good.

  Fourteen months earlier

  I was scheduled for my first chemo session at eight am. I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, picking at a loose thread on a thermal blanket. My mum paced up and down the room, poking her head out the door every five minutes. My dad sat in a chair and stared at the floor, not looking at anyone. It smelled kind of like the dentist but worse. With every inhale, I felt my stomach growing queasier.

  A nurse entered the room and started checking my vitals: blood pressure, pulse, temperature. She recorded everything on a green clipboard and left the room, her rubber shoes squeaking against the grey linoleum floor. When she returned, she was wheeling in a trolley that rattled so much I thought she’d lose some of the cargo: tubes and dishes, boxes, wipes and needles, all neatly arranged on the top tray. She pulled at the fingers of her latex gloves before stretching them over her hands and tearing open a packet of sterile wipes. She started wiping parts of my body with them while I sat there imagining what might happen to my parents if I didn’t make it. Would my mum walk into my bedroom and curl up on my bed calling out to heaven for me to come back? Would my dad lose his grip on the steering wheel of his car on the way to work one morning, blinded by the tears?

  ‘Okay, Mia, I want you to take a deep breath. Think of something that makes you happy,’ said the nurse. I tried to breathe out the fumes of alcohol before leaning back into the pillow, my mind scrambling for something to hold onto before she punctured me, but nothing surfaced. I fought for a breath and then she pressed the needle into my arm, pushing through the thin layers of skin. She held a tube against it, my blood filling it up like a leaky tap. She smiled at me. ‘You didn’t even flinch. I’ll be back soon, sweetheart.’ There was a metallic sound from the vial hitting the kidney-shaped dish and then she turned to my mum and dad. ‘You should grab a coffee. Just head down the hall and turn right,’ she said.

  ‘Um, when will we see Doctor Henderson?’ asked my mum, glancing over at me.

  ‘He’ll come by soon,’ she replied.

  My mum and dad didn’t say a word while we waited for Doctor Henderson.

  When I couldn’t bear the sound of the ticking clock any longer, I broke.

  ‘Can you please just stop it?’ My voice was louder than I intended it to be.

  My dad blinked away his surprise, before clearing his throat. ‘What’s gotten into you, Mia?’

  ‘Look at the two of you! I’m not dead yet! How am I supposed to believe this is going to be okay if you don’t believe it’s going to be okay?’

  ‘We’re just worried about you,’ said Dad.

  ‘What about me, Dad? How do you think I feel? When that nurse comes back, she’s going to pump me with poison and in a w
eek or two from now, I’m going to lose my hair!’

  I could feel my mum’s hand rubbing my back, but I shrugged her away. ‘And it might work or it might not.’ My voice turned into a whisper. ‘I just don’t know how to make this okay for you if it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.’

  My dad rubbed the stubble on his chin. ‘You don’t have to worry about us, Mia. It’s our job to worry about you.’

  ‘But what if this doesn’t work?!’ I asked, hysteria creeping into my voice.

  ‘It’s not going to get to that. Doctor Henderson said—’

  ‘What did I say?’ asked Doctor Henderson, suddenly appearing through the curtain. He offered a warm smile; I wanted to reciprocate but couldn’t.

  ‘Her chances, Doctor,’ said Mum. She glanced at me nervously. ‘You told us that—’

  ‘Her chances are good. You just need to focus on here, sweetie,’ he said, pointing to his head. ‘Now, we’re good to go for today. Do you have any questions?’

  Will I live or will I die?

  I shook my head just as Mum nodded. She followed him out of the room and my dad made his way to sit down beside me on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Remember when you were eight and you fell from the monkey bars at school? You begged the teachers not to call me and your mum because you didn’t want to worry us, but they did because you almost passed out from the pain and wouldn’t tell them where it hurt.’

  I nodded. ‘I remember. My arm was fractured.’

  ‘You never complained about it hurting, so we didn’t find out until three days later. I’m sorry that I never told you how brave I thought you were, pumpkin.’

  ‘But I already knew that you did,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, I want you to remember that you still are.’

  He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop himself crying just as Mum re-entered the room. The nurse wheeled in a drip stand with a pump seconds later.

  ‘I’m sorry, but the doctors only allow one parent to stay,’ she said. She loosened the plastic tubes and hooked a bag of saline at the top of the stand. She was moving so fast I could barely keep up with what she was doing.

  My dad looked at the drip for a second or two before standing up. ‘You stay, Julie. I’ll go get some coffee.’ He looked almost relieved.

  Mum glanced at him and bit her lip as they shared an exchange: one look, a nod, no words. She held my free hand while the nurse propped my arm on a cushion, under which sat a heated pad. The clear tubes snaked up and around the pump and then into me. The nurse pumped me with the saline, and then I knew I was almost ready to marinate in the liquid contained in her small zip-lock bag.

  ‘How are you feeling, sweetie?’ she asked, checking the tubes. ‘Are you comfortable?’

  My eyes travelled from the machine to the bag to the tubes to the needle in my arm and then back to her. ‘Uh, yeah, I think so,’ I replied, biting my lip. She squeezed my other arm and smiled.

  The drugs were now trickling through the bag and into my body, to the background noise of a pump, whirring and sighing and stuttering, slowly separating me from the life I once knew. I closed my eyes, trying not to think about the months ahead, but when I did, a part of me faded away, as if a part of my spirit became diluted when it let the fear seep in. My palm found its way to my heart. It was beating differently now, like I had to remind it to keep pumping. I begged my body to let the drugs do their thing, and when I opened my eyes, the nurse was gone and my mum was sitting on the side of the bed watching me. She smiled.

  ‘Hey there,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t want to be here,’ I said. ‘I don’t want this to be happening. I just want to go home. I really, really just want to go home.’ The muscles in my face contracted and my mouth contorted into an ugly shape while I tried to hold everything back. ‘I can’t do this, Mum. I don’t want to do this.’ I pulled my arm away from the drip stand, and my mum lurched from the bed, catching it just in time. She clasped her hand around my arm, pulling it down and back beside me. She moved closer to me and framed my face with her hands, begging me with her eyes to relax. She ran the back of her fingers across my cheek and through my hair, and then I let my head fall back into the pillows behind me. She stood up and walked to the other side of the bed and nudged me to make room for her. She reached over me for the TV remote and switched it on to a reality show.

  ‘I hate this show,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, me too. It sucks.’

  She changed the channel and I rested my head against her chest. She was soft and warm and I could hear her heart beating. Her lips rested on the top of my head while her hand stroked the bare skin on my arm. Her fingers travelled down to my free hand and she intertwined her fingers through mine. And every few minutes she’d press her lips more firmly against the top of my head, playing with my fingers, almost like the way you’d play with the fingers of a baby, waiting for them to grip your finger back. We sat there, playing that game until the whirring of the machine stopped. And all that time, I couldn’t help wondering whether she’d have to remind her own heart to keep beating if this whole chemo thing turned out to be a complete failure.

  I look up at Luca, who is trying hard to mask the pool of tears fighting to escape. He turns his back to me and faces the horizon, discreetly wiping away the signs of empathy before turning back to face me.

  ‘Amore mio, come here,’ he says, pulling me into his arms. At his touch, a flash of panic surges through me and all I can think of is that I never want him to see me go through what I have just described. This thought brings with it a wave of nausea, and I have a hard time discerning if it’s a sign urging me to stop and listen or simply a physical reaction to recalling what was finally becoming a distant memory.

  EIGHTEEN

  The last drops of after-sun lotion stubbornly slide out of the bottle, forming a pretty flower-like shape on my arm that I admire with curiosity before rubbing it into my thirsty skin, which now smells of coconut and papaya.

  ‘I’ve made some reservations for tonight at a beachfront diner,’ says Luca.

  I take a long sip of my lemonade, which I’ve been drinking copious amounts of since it became my beverage of choice last week.

  ‘You do know I’d be happy eating off paper plates with plastic forks as long as I’m with you, right?’

  He rolls his eyes without wiping away the smile that is doing the most delightful things to his face. ‘I think you better leave the romance to me, Australiana.’

  Laughter spills out of me. ‘It is your specialty.’

  ‘I should let you know that we have to catch dinner ourselves. From a boat.’

  ‘So that’s the catch?’

  He reaches over and tickles me. ‘Oh no, you’re the catch. And a slippery one at that.’ He slips a slice of red-wine-infused peach into his mouth and licks his lips.

  ‘Remind me again why you do that? Your drunken peaches,’ I say.

  He shrugs. ‘Tradition. Here, try.’

  I take a few sips. ‘It’s good.’

  Luca takes a slice of peach and guides it into my mouth. ‘Take mine. I’ll get another.’

  ‘No, I should start getting ready. Don’t want to miss the boat.’

  ‘We’ve got time,’ he says, uncrossing his legs and leaning over for what turns out to be a fruity alcoholic kiss that has me questioning whether it’s him or the wine making me giddy. He glances up at the clock. ‘Actually, enough time to get undressed and dressed again.’

  He nestles his face into the space between my neck and shoulder, and I whisper, ‘It wouldn’t be so bad even if we did miss the boat.’

  Ours is one of many boats, dotted across the stretch of water, all competing for something to bring home for dinner. There’s a deliciously salty breeze sweeping through the air, and the sky is glowing orange and pink, affording us more minutes of sunlight before we need to head back. Luca reels in our second fish and it makes its way into the bucket with a splash.

  ‘Hey, I’ve been think
ing about what you said. How do you feel about learning to scuba dive tomorrow?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘We can get certified, then see if we like it enough to do it on our own.’

  ‘I’d love that.’

  He laughs and pulls me closer. ‘Looks like we’re crossing that one off your bucket list.’

  We make our way out of the boat, where we’re greeted by a man who escorts us to a table on the beach. There’s soft music playing in the background, and while he cleans and cooks our fish for us on a nearby grill, daylight fades completely. For light we rely on the gentle glow from the candles on the table and around us.

  ‘I think we should make this a yearly thing. Thoughts?’

  There’s something permanent about these words that unsettles me and has been bothering me ever since my revelation on our hike back to the apartment from the lemon grove last week. I can’t seem to shake the vision of Luca wiping away his tears.

  He gives me a questioning look. ‘Mia?’

  The wine splashes down my throat so quickly that I can’t hold back a cough. ‘Sorry, I was distracted.’

  ‘I don’t think you were. What’s wrong?’

  Just when I thought our relationship couldn’t go any deeper, these past weeks have given the two of us access to each other’s souls. While it’s clear that I can’t hide my concerns from Luca any longer, it doesn’t stop me from trying to.

  I reach for the wine and his hand closes over mine.

  ‘Mia, don’t you think we’re at the stage where you can be open with me? Are you okay?’ he asks with an element of scepticism in his voice.

  ‘I think so. I’m fine. It’s all fine.’

  ‘Are we okay?’

  ‘Yes. We’re okay.’

  Or at least I think we are.

  The waiter brings out our grilled fish, and I try my hardest not to poke around it with my fork. Despite its mouth-watering flavours, I force down every bite, along with my emotions, so that the evening he’s gone to so much effort to organise isn’t ruined.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he says between our last course and dessert. ‘Well, actually, it’s for the both of us.’ He reaches into his pocket and produces a small box and slides it into the middle of the table. He watches me intently as I pull the ribbon.