by Liska Jacobs
“I already texted her.” He grins. “She’s going to meet us.”
“Oh.” I shift my weight in my chair. “Do you know Hannah’s girlfriends too, I think their names are Trish and Tina?”
“Yes, and Gabriel and Leo and Silvia and Cristiano. You’ll meet everyone.”
“You hang out together?”
He takes out another cigarette and lights it. He reclines in his chair, shrugging his shoulders a little. “Sì, but Hannah is so much younger than the rest of us.”
It suddenly occurs to me that he’s trying hard to impress me. He wants me to like him, to think of him as an adult. A giddy laugh bubbles out of me.
“Donato,” I say, delighted because I can tell he doesn’t like being laughed at. “You are both very young.”
The waitress with the dyed hair has brought out a caprese salad. She lingers for a moment, asking if she can get us anything else.
He’s rude to her now, stubbing his cigarette out and swatting the air between them for her to go away. The waitress looks genuinely hurt, turning to clear a nearby table’s empty prosecco glasses, shoulders slumped. I frown at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.
We eat in silence, slicing the underripe tomatoes, smearing them in the salty oil, the dripping, tender cheese. I watch an ant crawl along the table’s edge. I can make out its dark body, the bulbous head, its tiny legs. Donato blows on it, hard enough to make it hunch down, turn, and go the other way.
“Not as young as her,” he says, and squishes the ant with his finger.
When Hannah arrives, she sneaks up behind him. Shhh, she motions to me with a finger over her lips. “Doe-nat-oh!” she cries, messing up his hair.
“Basta,” he says, pulling away from her.
She sticks her tongue out at him and drops into the empty chair beside me. “Oh, Auntie, I couldn’t concentrate all day. I can’t wait to show you everything. Have you two been having fun? Did you see the water clock in the park? That’s my favorite.”
“Cilla, just Cilla,” I remind her. “We had an espresso and a salad. Donato offered to be my tour guide.”
When the waitress brings the bill Donato and I both reach for it. “My treat,” I say, snatching it from him and smiling. He pushes back from the table, the chair screeching.
Hannah shouts after him. He yells something over his shoulder.
“Where is he off to?”
“The bathroom, I guess,” Hannah says, watching him walk away.
The waitress gives me a sour look when she takes my card. It’s a look that says, Your son, lady, is a spoiled brat.
Hannah grabs my hand. “Are you guys getting along?”
“I don’t think he’s used to American women.” I try to hide that I, too, am anxious that he like me.
“You have to get along,” she says, frowning. She must have reapplied the bright blue eye shadow, because it’s just as startling as it was this morning. She’s added liquid black eyeliner that goes go up at the corners of each eye like tiny wings. I remember when Emily did her makeup like that—could Hannah have seen photos? How thin my sister was; barely an adult and going to parties in the Hollywood Hills, living with a boyfriend I didn’t like. I can hear her saying it, Stop mothering me, just stop! If I were to trace back, chart the moments that shifted our relationship, those words would be somewhere at the beginning.
I squeeze Hannah’s hand. “I’ll be nice, I promise.”
She wants to show me the Pincian Hill—Il Pincio, as Donato said when he returned from the bathroom. It has the best views of the piazza.
And it does. The park gives way, the city too, and there beneath us is a large piazza, an obelisk at the center. In the distance, Rome stretches out—all domed roofs, and aged stone and brick. Hannah wants me to take her picture with Donato and leaves me with the dog. She angles herself across him, her arm around his neck.
“Should I kiss her?” he asks me but doesn’t wait for an answer. A quick peck on the lips, not brazen, not like the couple at the Forum, but Hannah is instantly a giggling mess, blushing in his arms. Tourists admiring the view have paused, costumed Roman gladiators stop hustling for photos—everyone watches them, this beautiful young couple, who look to be falling in love.
I’m tempted to delete the photo.
“Now a picture with Zia Cilla.” Donato pushes Hannah toward me.
“No, no,” I say.
But Hannah is delirious now. She is nearly hiccupping. “Pose, you two. Pose.”
He puts his arm around my waist, mimics my rigid stance. He is smiling that mischievous smile again. I imagine those same tourists and costumed gladiators, who smiled and cooed at the sight of my niece and Donato, are watching us perplexed. The way she is standing, one of them must be thinking. Not his mother, nor his sister. Maybe an old nanny …
Donato says something in Italian to Hannah, which makes her dissolve into giggles again. “Relax,” he says to me. “Relax.”
He smells like whatever brand of cigarettes he smokes, which is unlike American cigarettes—all violet and spice. Both of his hands are on my hips now, those long knobby fingers applying pressure. Relax. He breathes near my ear. Liquid heat pools at the center of me, and I worry Hannah will see it in the photograph. Something mysterious in the smile, a forbidden pulsing behind those dark irises.
“One, two,” Hannah counts. On three, he kisses me on the lips. It’s quick and chaste, but I feel it everywhere.
“Friends?” he says to me as we walk down to the piazza, into the herds of people. “I will take you to my favorite bar if you let me buy the drinks.”
I know I should say no—that I should take Hannah home, and in a few hours ring my mom to see how she is doing. “I’m very hot,” I tell him, hoping this might be excuse enough.
“Negronis have a cooling effect,” he says. He takes one hand, Hannah the other, and they steer me through the crowd.
Someone is playing the violin, there is an opera singer belting, and on the far side of the square, a dancing troupe blasting pop music from a boom box. The heat is oppressive, the sun blazing. But something about Donato’s graceful charge, the ease with which he pulls us forward, flashing that carefree grin over his shoulder—I’m reminded again of that woman at the box office. He radiates it too: Do not worry, Cilla.
I lick my lips. “Okay, just one.”
* * *
I forget where I am, why I’m in a twin bed instead of my California king. Where is the musty smell of old wood beams? The sound of surf crashing? And that acrid scent that Dad emitted as he grew sicker and sicker? You can still sometimes smell it in parts of our house when it’s humid.
Instead I’m in a cramped rectangular room, swimming in sweat, my legs slick, my armpits, face, and scalp—hair twisted and matted. The A/C unit is rattling, but no cool air is coming out. I shut it off and reset it. I feel around until my eyes adjust, until I realize there is a moon, big and yellow. It is not actually that dark. I can make out the daisies in their turquoise vase, the dresser, the writing desk with my laptop setup. It is bright enough to see the far wall, to make out the photograph Hannah has taken and Paul has framed. The Ponte Sisto at night, buzzing silver and gold.
I can taste the gin still, the Campari and sweet vermouth. Donato had taken us to an art deco hotel, situated on a quiet street near the Piazza del Popolo. A favorite haunt of his. Isn’t it beautiful? Hannah had said as we were seated in the courtyard, among blooming wisteria and potted ferns. Wrought iron and arched doorways. I had meant to drink only one cocktail, but it came and went so fast. I had barely cooled off. Only one more, I reasoned. Hannah wanted to order an Aperol spritz. It isn’t like America, Donato said, sensing my hesitation. Here we have bars in our cafés because there is no law that says this is when you are old enough to drink. Besides, didn’t Mom used to let me have Bellinis at Hannah’s age? After I gave in, that was when we relaxed. Talking about the hotel’s old Hollywood history—Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford once stayed there, the
menu had claimed. I’ve worked at what used to be their studios, I told them. It’s now called the Lot. Laughing about the tourists in the piazza, the other patrons at the hotel, trying to guess whether they were Swedish or German or American by how they dressed.
It was flattering to see Hannah watch me, studying how I ordered the next round or sent something back if I wasn’t satisfied. Donato watched too. Was this when I ordered a bottle of prosecco? Yes, because he had finally stopped trying to charm and embarrass me as if I were a granny. And because I liked the way he slouched into his chair, one arm outstretched over the back of mine, another button undone on his shirt so I could peek at the skin beneath, the smattering of springy dark hair at its center. He is so sinewy and long. Like a wild animal, like a well-exercised show horse.
His toothy grin said it, those flashing eyes said it too—I know what you’re thinking. It humored him, gave him pleasure. And I didn’t mind giving in, letting him know that I admired his profile. And Hannah seemed pleased to share his attention with me—the kind of satisfaction one gets from ordering correctly from the menu.
After the bottle of prosecco she wanted to hear stories about when her mother and I were young—about those long-ago parties.
Mom and Cilla were hanging out with famous writers and actors before they were old enough to walk, she bragged to Donato.
I told them how Mom’s actress friends would do our makeup, how Dad’s writer friends would read early drafts of their work to us at our bedtime. I once corrected Guy’s pronunciation of the word façade. I was seven.
It was intoxicating to be in control of a room. I can’t remember the last time I felt that way. When the waiter came with the bill I waved Donato off. This, I think, impressed Hannah most—I could tell that a woman denying Donato something does not happen often.
Hannah sat up taller, her smile became slightly haughty.
But then she was saying something about Guy.
It was scandalous, Cilla was only eighteen when they started dating, Guy was forty.
Thirty-three, I corrected her. Almost thirty-four. I had a headache from the prosecco. I could hear those bangles, see those delicate wrists. Eighteen is the official story. The one I told my parents, our friends. I’ve recited it so many times that it could almost be true. But I’m surprised Emily hadn’t told Hannah the truth. She knew Guy and I had been together long before I was eighteen. She had been disgusted by it and told me so. I remember how I made her swear not to tell anyone, and how afterward she was cold to Guy. Mom and Dad asking, What’s wrong? Why won’t you let him kiss you hello?
Another thing Hannah had done, as we stood outside waiting for a cab, was she asked for a cigarette from Donato. Don’t smoke, Emily—I mean, Hannah. It had been a reflex. Our mom preferred Nat Shermans, a habit my sister took up. It was something that had irked me at the time, as if Emily had started smoking just so they could have something else to exclude me from.
The cab ride to the apartment was a blur. I remember Hannah falling asleep between us, Rome looking ethereal in the dark. Somehow Donato managed to help Hannah up the stairs. She slept while he cooked for me. I repay you for lunch, he said, grinning that cocky grin. Paul was working late, I remember thinking. Do not worry.
I can still smell the pasta water and chili and roasted eggplant, it’s no wonder Paul thought I had cooked when he finally got home. I did not correct him.
* * *
It’s nearly dark. Cool air pumps from the air-conditioning, but I have the window open too. That dank scent has grown on me, and if I have to call my mother I want to be able to smell the city while doing it. I’ve spread out my postcard souvenirs across my lap: Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, St. Peter’s Square, Circus Maximus. Donato has been an attentive tour guide. Each afternoon he is at the park, ready to show Hannah and me his city.
At the Colosseum he acted out famous gladiators who fought animals to the death. Hannah was enraptured. When a gladiator died, he said, gesturing with his hands, his arms, attendants dressed as Charon, the ferryman, and carried his body away.
That’s so gruesome, Hannah had said, which made Donato laugh that openmouthed, throaty boy laugh.
There is great beauty in death, he said, putting his arm around her.
Or when he took us to Trajan’s Market and we followed him through the halls and up steep stairs until we reached a balcony overlooking the city center. Donato pointed out the Capitoline Hill, the forums of Caesar and Augustus, and the Altare della Patria, which he thought was ugly. They destroyed a medieval neighborhood to build that, he said, making a face.
Hannah practiced her Italian with him, thinking it hilarious that I couldn’t understand a word.
I didn’t come all this way to be a third wheel, I scolded her. She looked crestfallen, a little nervous as if I might leave and head back to the apartment—it reminded me so much of when Emily scolded her at that dinner, I regretted it immediately.
Oh, Cilla, she said, putting her head on my shoulder. I’m sorry, please don’t be mad. We’ll speak in English, won’t we, Donato?
I carefully stack the postcards and put them on my bedside table, where my phone is blinking with another voice mail from my mom. Gone five days and you’ve forgotten all about me. You’ve turned me into Dad, calling you to say how much I hate this place.
Well, I do hate it. Call your mother back, for Christ’s sake.
A warm balmy breeze blows in from the bedroom window; I breathe in that beguiling earthy smell. Musty, like a greenhouse or a cemetery. I pull the comforter up and put the earbuds in to call.
“She’s eating lunch,” the nurse says when I phone. “Let me see.”
“Pricilla,” comes Mom’s raspy voice on the other end. “Pricilla, hello?”
“Hi, Mom, are they taking good care of you? How’s lunch?”
“Never mind this hellhole. You must be having a grand time, you haven’t called.”
“I did, we just keep missing each other.”
At first, she is bitter, withdrawn, but I know how to appease her. I ask about her doctor appointments, about physical therapy, until she launches into a story about a male orderly who she suspects is undocumented, and somehow this transitions into an episode with the Russian night nurse, who she’s convinced keeps turning down her oxygen. As if I don’t know how much oxygen to give myself. She needs someone to listen, so I do. But it’s hard now, hearing her voice is like being hit with a weight.
I tune out just a little, just for self-preservation. I swipe through photos I took of Donato and Hannah at the Capitoline Hill. He is leaning against a banister, Hannah in front of him, his arms wrapped around her waist. They are posing on the stairs, monkeying around in the piazza. I want to tell my mom about when Donato wanted to photograph Hannah and me at the museum’s café. The first one was of us together, then he posed us separately. Hannah with a sprig of rosemary, the city stretching out behind her. How pretty she looked, how well the light agreed with her. Emily had head shots done around Hannah’s age, and I promised Hannah that I’d find them when I got home.
Now, Zia, Donato had said. And I played along, mostly because we had shared a split of prosecco with lunch, but also because I felt a lightness I hadn’t felt in years.
Like this, Donato directed, angling my chin downward and pulling out my hair clip.
You look gorgeous like that! Hannah was in a fit of giggles.
It’s no use, I said. Photos of me do not turn out.
Donato sent Hannah to ask for another split of prosecco.
It’s that cardigan, he said after she’d gone. It is for an old lady. Take it off.
I hesitated; he had that teasing look about him again. But that heat at the center tempted me. We are playing a game, I told myself.
Bellissimo. Bellissimo. He took the photo.
I hurried to put the cardigan back on before my niece returned.
Let me see, I said.
He held his phone to his chest. For my eyes only. He would no
t even show Hannah.
“Mom,” I interrupt. “I’m sending out postcards tomorrow. Do you want one with religious images, or a fountain?”
The sounds of the nursing home invade my room.
“I’d rather have a picture of my granddaughter. You haven’t sent me one. How is she? How’s Paul?”
I get up to close the window, the blanket wrapped around me. “He’s been very welcoming. He’s giving me a tour of the university tomorrow.”
“Give him my love. And Hannah? Does she look like Emily?”
“Very much so.” There is an ache right behind my eye. I open the window again.
“She’s been very sweet,” I manage to add. “I think it’s good that I came.”
My mom is silent. There is only the oxygen concentrator’s raspy beating. A death rattle sounds similar. That last haggard breath Dad took, big and gasping. Like a rake over gravel.
“I’ll text your iPad a picture after we hang up.”
“Your poor sister,” she starts.
“Don’t upset yourself,” but I can tell she’s already crying. “Did the psychiatrist ever prescribe you something to help you sleep?”
She isn’t listening, though; I hear her ask the nurse for a box of tissues.
I’m remembering now that Hannah had said something to Donato this afternoon, while we were trying on clothes at an expensive shop near the Piazza di Spagna, on the crowded Via Condotti. The saleswoman knew Donato well, taking his hands in hers. She picked out outfits for each of us to try on, and I remember being in one of the fitting rooms, deciding if a silk crepe dress could make me look sultry or not, when I heard Hannah tell Donato, My mom and Cilla did not get along.
How much could a child know? She was so young during those first few incidents, and then there was a period where we just didn’t see each other. Cards and presents were mailed, always on time. There were a handful of get-togethers for Mom’s birthday, Emily and I were civil to each other by then. Strangers, sure. But perfectly civil.
What had Emily said to Hannah about me, about Guy, about our dad’s final days?