by Fabio Volo
A couple weeks after her funeral, my mother and I began to go through her things. Luckily, my mother and my aunt got along very well and didn’t try to steal things from each other, as is often the case in these situations. The elderly lady that lived by my mother ended up in the hospital one day. She was in critical condition. The doctors, seeing as she was eighty-nine years old, assumed the worst and called her family to tell them she wouldn’t have made it. Strangely enough, two days later, she had recuperated, and when she went back home, her daughters had already ransacked the house. I didn’t want to believe this story, but unfortunately it’s true.
The fact that I was in close proximity to my mother while going through my grandma’s things made me very nervous. Plus, I felt like I was invading grandma’s privacy every time I opened a drawer. It’s not like grandma had any secrets, but if it had happened to me and I had suddenly died, I wonder what my mother would think when she found porno movies, vibrators, vaginal beads, blindfolds, and a condom filled with ice in the freezer. I also have a video of me making love to Monica. I’ve always hoped not to die a sudden death. And not just for these reasons, of course. That’s why, in the past, whenever I masturbated in bed, I would throw away the toilet paper I had used to clean myself before falling asleep. I never left it on the nightstand because I was afraid that if I had suddenly died during the night, they would have found traces of my spanking the monkey. On the evenings I was particularly tired, I would examine the paper on the nightstand and try to decide if it looked like I had used it to blow my nose, hoping I wouldn’t have to get out of bed. Maybe it was because of the little trauma I had experienced in my adolescence when one evening, after masturbating, I hid the paper between the mattress and the box spring. As I walked to school the next morning I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to throw it away. When I went back home the sheets had been changed and the paper wasn’t there anymore. Nobody ever said anything about it, but for a few days I couldn’t masturbate because I thought that my mother had found out.
Opening the drawers now that grandma was dead felt very different than it did before. All the objects I had seen for years in that house had always remained in the same place, and now they seemed different. I opened a drawer full of underwear and bras. Everything was huge. All my grandma’s bras had a small rose sewn in the middle. Those things went straight into the donation pile, no question about it. Underneath it, in another drawer, I found the box with her earrings in it.
I asked my mother if I could keep them.
“If you want, of course.”
The box also contained my grandpa’s wedding band, his watch, and the brush he used for shaving.
My mother didn’t shed a single tear those days, not even at the funeral. She must have used them all up when I was a child. She didn’t even want me to help her. I had to insist and tell her that I was doing it for grandma and not for her.
We took down the paintings and boxed up the dishes, glasses, silverware, and everything else. I emptied the curio cabinet where she kept coffee cups she never used, a couple of pictures of grandpa, and the keepsakes from various weddings and first communions. Mine was there too, the one from my first communion: a boy with a puppy.
“Mom, I’m making some coffee. Would you like some?”
Strangely, she said yes. But she immediately added, “I’ll make it. You keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t worry.” My mother.
A little later we were both in the kitchen drinking coffee. I was sitting down and she was standing up.
“You could keep the coffee cups, they’re practically new,” I told her.
“I don’t think I’ll keep anything, my house is already full of stuff. Plus, I’m redoing the kitchen and I’ve already bought everything I need. But you, don’t you want to keep anything else besides the earrings? I spoke to your aunt the other day and she told me she only wants the painting in the hallway. The rest we can keep or throw away.
“I don’t want anything but the earrings. How come you’re redoing the kitchen? You don’t like it anymore?”
“Yes, I liked it, but it was old and it was time to change it.”
Silence. A noisy silence.
It’s difficult to understand the loneliness of other people, but I think I can say that while it made me stronger, it had a detrimental effect on my mother’s life. Despite the fact she had found another man. Although it must have been hard for her to overcome the trauma of losing my father, I also know, with absolute certainty, that most of our problems were caused by my mother’s character, by the way she reacted to the situation.
“Mom… Can you sit down for a second?”
“One moment, I want to finish these dishes…”
“Please, you can do that later.”
She stopped, looked at me for a second, and then she tried to forget the dishes and sat down. I looked at my mother in front of me and I understood it was time to bury the hatchet. Clearly it didn’t happen all at once, in that very moment. I had been thinking about it for a while, since my conversation with Silvia that night in the emergency room. I was only waiting for the right moment to tell her. That seemed like the perfect one.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, mom, I’m really sorry.”
“I know. Me too… But at her age, sooner or later, we should have seen it coming.”
“I’m not talking about grandma, I’m talking about us, you and me.”
She remained silent. We looked each other in the eye for a few seconds, straight without blinking. I hadn’t looked at my mother like that in many years. Actually, I had never looked at her that way. She had changed a lot.
“I’m sorry for the way things went, for the kind of life you had… And me too. We deserved better.”
“Oh well, there’s no need to talk about that stuff… I’m sorry too, but sometimes that’s the way things go. I know I have been a horrible mother, Giacomo.”
“Don’t say that, mom. Don’t hide behind those words again.”
“Hide?”
“Yes, when you say stuff like that you run away and hide. You haven’t been a horrible mother. I don’t want you to apologize. I just wanted to tell you that things went the way they did, but that now, little by little…”
I wanted to end the sentence with, “Little by little, I would like to begin getting closer to you,” but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. She understood me anyway.
There was a moment of silence. We both took a sip of coffee. Then, after she had put her cup down, she said, “Do you know what grandma told me the other day? ‘You’ve never learned to relax.’”
We smiled.
“I’m sorry that, in order to survive, I had to distance myself from the person I loved the most. Without you, mom, I would have died. And the same would have happened if I had stayed with you.”
“You did the right thing. I understood that, you know? Imagine, even I understood that, which says a lot.”
“I had to survive. What you and dad taught me, he first and you later, was that tying yourself to someone is to suffer. This is why, for years, I haven’t been able to live with a woman.”
“Do you think it’s been easy for me? I found myself alone. I did what I could.”
“Nobody needs to apologize. I can only tell you I’m sorry I left and I’m sorry I couldn’t make you understand why I did it. I’m sorry I disappointed and hurt you. I’m sorry I couldn’t really help you. Lately, I’ve understood many things. My life back then has become a lot clearer. Now more than ever. I often thought about what I’ve been missing. You were so concerned with giving me everything I needed that in the end I couldn’t breathe and there was no room for mistakes. And even though we had to grow distant, I wanted to tell you that over the last few weeks I have been in love. I learned how to love, and I want you to know of this love I have inside me. That’s all.”
As I was speaking my mother was crying quietly. I spoke without interruption and started crying too. She tried to
say something, but she couldn’t. Her whole life she refused to look inside herself. I already knew what she wanted to tell me. She would sob, cry, and then remain silent. I told her she could say what she wanted to say another time. And that’s exactly what happened. Over the last few months, little by little, we have become closer. Enough tears. She even bought me a clothes dryer.
Before leaving that house, she wanted to tell me that the chat we had just had must have been grandma’s doing. I told her I thought the same thing.
“I’m going to go. Bye, mom.”
“Bye.”
Making peace with someone you have been fighting with is something truly powerful. It also happens between people who have just met. You immediately become a better person. Before leaving I said, “Say hello to Fausto.”
Fausto was her partner, and that was the first time I called him by name.
Overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of having made peace with my mother I went for a walk and I entered a toy store. I bought a present, asked them to wrap it, and then bought the same item for me, too.
I went to where Andrea works. He wasn’t in the office, so I left the package on his desk with a note, “Sorry. See you soon… I hope.” Then I went home and, before heading up, I spent some time playing with my remote-control car in the courtyard, the one I had just bought for myself. I was happy I had finally given the car to the boy I used to be and returned the other to the boy I made cry so long ago. I didn’t think I was a particularly good person for having done what I did back then, and what I just did didn’t make much of a difference. But I felt a little lighter, that’s for sure.
26
A Chat with Silvia
During that time Silvia was always by my side. We had a lot of things to talk about. She looked like she’d lost weight. I, on the other hand, had come back from New York a few pounds heavier. During my time with Michela I think I ate food from all over the world: Indian, Japanese, Thai, Venezuelan, Mexican, Russian. One day, while Silvia and I were having coffee, she told me, “My dad was in a car accident.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Is he alright?”
“He broke his shoulder and banged his head. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. They took him to the emergency room and kept him there to run some tests. They should release him today or tomorrow.”
“Was he shaken up?”
“I think so. But I am completely upset.”
“Oh, come on, he’ll be better soon. If the head trauma had been serious they would have told you immediately.”
“I’m not upset because of the accident.”
“Why then, because of the car?”
“He wasn’t alone. He was with a woman. She didn’t get hurt at all. She’s his mistress.”
“The fact that he was in the car with a woman doesn’t necessarily mean she’s his mistress.”
“They have been together for about three years.”
“And who exactly told you that?
“My mother.”
“What do you mean your mother?”
“Can you believe it? My father, sixty-five years old, has had a mistress for over two years and my mother knows about it. And she didn’t tell me anything.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Do you know what my mother has been telling me since I confessed I don’t love Carlo and want to leave him, and what my dad said when I told him that Giulia was divorcing her husband? Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember. Your mother said you had to put up with it and make sacrifices, you father said that Giulia was a whore. Is that what’s upsetting you?”
“I’m not upset, I’m beside myself, furious. With both of them. My mother is sixty and has nothing to show for it. And she doesn’t say anything about it because she gave up. But what really pisses me off is that instead of telling me these things and helping me avoid ending up the way she did, she talks about sacrifice and patience. How did she get that way? I’m her daughter!She would have me end up exactly like her, as if to prove there’s no alternative. I’m beside myself. And my father, who has spent his entire life pointing his finger and criticizing other people’s morals… Then I find out he doesn’t spend his afternoons playing cards with friends, but goes to see his mistress.”
“Have you spoken to him lately?”
“I went to see him and to ask how he was doing. I told him his friend was okay and that he could sleep soundly. And then I left. I don’t know what’ll happen next, but I decided to start looking for a house to rent, a small one, for Margherita and me. I can’t stay at home with Carlo any longer. I’m exhausted. I tried to get my parents on my side, to have their blessing. Now I don’t think that matters anymore. Let’s change the subject… I’m curious to hear about you and Michela. Have you talked to her since you got back, or are you doing what you said you would: ‘No matter what we’ll break up?’”
“Why would we stay in touch? She lives in New York and I live here. What am I going to do, drop everything and move there? What would happen then? It’s one thing to be together for a few days, but a serious relationship is entirely different. If we kept in touch, the distance would feel even worse, so we don’t do it. Although, I would love to, I really would. You know, I would have even had a baby with her.”
“A baby? Are you crazy?”
“I know, but that’s the way it is. We even talked about it, and if I hadn’t come back so suddenly and in such a rush, we might have even made one…”
“You, a child! You get orchitis at the mere talk of engagement. You left saying you couldn’t spend a whole weekend with a woman and two weeks later you want to become a father? It figures. I always thought you would have had a child just like that, without thinking too much about it…”
“When I’m with her I feel free. It was different. Oh God, I sound like everyone else… ‘Things between us are different.’ But it really was that way, or at least different from what I had experienced before. I’ve never been the way I was with her with anyone else. Of course, ten days in New York has nothing to do with a real relationship, even I know that, but I like her for the way she thinks, the way she reasons, the way she dreams, and what she dreams about.”
“Look, sometimes these kind of things happen.”
“One day, as we were jokingly talking about children, she told me something that I haven’t quite understood, something about the fact that it is more important for the father of her children to be a courageous man, rather than to be in love. Something about her having babies not because of how she felt about us, but rather because of what she thought about me. A lunatic.”
“But she’s right. Look at me. If Carlo was more of a man and more courageous, I wouldn’t have to face everything by myself.”
“Is he still pretending everything is fine?”
“Worse. He pretends everything is fine and he’s started blaming me for stuff. He says that if I leave, I have to accept responsibility for Margherita’s suffering. I’m afraid he’s telling her it’s all my fault and he’s turning her against me.”
“What an asshole. Is he blackmailing you now?”
“Yes. And he doesn’t realize that the more he does it the more I’m convinced that I can’t spend another minute with someone like him.”
“There’s a famous quote that says: ‘if you really want to know the person you married, divorce them.’”
We left the café and Silvia gave me a ride home.
The days went by and I was slowly getting over my story with Michela. Crawling out of it. Like when the ATM looks like it’s about to eat your card and it spits it out little by little. That’s the way I felt. After taking the tram to work a few mornings, I decided I’d rather take my bike. I couldn’t stand that emptiness any longer. I could feel it a lot more than I did after she first left. On the tram, without her, my gaze would stumble and fall over nothing. Summer was around the corner, so the bike was the solution to my problems.
Ours had bee
n only a chunk of life we shared, filled with emotions. In the mornings when I’d wake up, I’d imagine her sleeping in bed, still wrapped in the night of a different time zone. On the other side of the world. When I thought about her in that bed I would always see a body of shiny light. To me, Michela looked just like that. In her, I had found so much of myself that it would have truly been a shame if I hadn’t gone to New York. Those days had been a break from all the worries in my life. I started going out with other women to forget Michela. The famous ‘fight fire with fire.’ I immediately discovered, however, that it didn’t work and it actually had the opposite effect, and that’s when I started to get worried. The more I went out with other women, the more I thought about her. All the others left me with a sense of emptiness inside. With the others, I couldn’t go where I had been with her. They might have been beautiful, friendly, intelligent, but with them, I couldn’t go back to where I’d been with her, a place that belonged only to the two of us.
With Michela there was something that made everything easy, with her I didn’t have to… I just didn’t have to. That’s exactly it, with her I didn’t have to. Period. It’s hard to explain. I even thought about suggesting a temporary engagement to one of them, but somehow, I’m not sure why, it felt like cheating. As if that game belonged only to Michela and me. But the opposite was true, what she had taught me could have been applied to life in general. I thought about all my friends who had been seeing people for months or even years, and in the end all they do is fuck and nothing else. It’s better to have short, intense and exciting flings: mini-engagements with a clean break at the end. But after I did it with Michela, I couldn’t do it with anyone else. I was at a sort of impasse. I couldn’t be with her and I couldn’t be with anyone else. Like that time when I was little and went to the pool: I climbed to the top of the diving platform but I was too scared to dive and couldn't climb down because other kids were on the ladder. Everyone was waiting me for me to jump. Heeeeeeelp!