Home to Italy (8 page)

Angie opened the mailbox
and pulled out the stack of mail piled inside. She flipped the box cover closed and headed back to the house, sifting through the assortment of bills and catalogs and credit card offers as she went. Most of it looked like junk mail, but then she saw the envelope from Italy.

“Finalmente,”
she sighed in relief.

Angie hurried back inside, tossed the junk mail in the trash, and sat down at the kitchen table. She ripped open the envelope and took out the letter.

“Hey, Carmine!” she called to her husband. “Come downstairs, we have a letter from Peppi.”

By the time Carmine made it to the kitchen, Angie had already finished reading the letter. She motioned for him to sit down while she read it a second time. Dressed in his bathrobe and slippers, Carmine stood there scratching his side.

“What's he say?” he asked with a yawn.

“Shh! I'm almost through.”

Carmine sat across from her and drummed his fingers on the table. He turned hopeful eyes to the coffeemaker on the counter, but to his disappointment he observed that it stood empty. “What's this?” he said, picking up the folded sheet of paper next to the envelope.

Angie reached out and snatched it from his hand. “That's not for you,” she said testily.

“Then who's it for!” exclaimed Carmine, throwing up his hands.

“It's for his friends at the barber shop, Mister Nosy,” she snipped.

“What, he's got something to tell his friends that he can't tell us?”

“No,” said Angie with a grumble of irritation, “he says just about all the same things as he does in this letter.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I read it. How do you think?”

Carmine rolled his eyes.

“Come on,” he said, tugging her arm, “let me see what Peppi has to say for himself.”

Angie finally gave him the letter. While he read, she got up and went to the telephone to call Delores. The line was busy, though, so she hung up the phone and waited to try again.

Carmine looked up at her.

“The mulino was destroyed?” he said in disbelief. “I thought you said the thing was built like a fortress.”

“That's what they told me when I was a little girl!” cried Angie. “I never even saw the thing. Besides, even fortresses don't last forever.”

“Geez, must have been a shock for him,” said Carmine, turning his attention back to the letter. “To go all that way for nothing.”

“Maybe now he'll come to his senses and come back home where he belongs,” said Angie.

“I don't know,” said Carmine thoughtfully. “I wouldn't bet on it. From what he writes, I'd say he's settling in there for good.”

“What are you talking about?” said his wife, picking up the receiver. “You think he's going to spend the rest of his life cooped up in a little apartment out in the middle of nowhere?”

Carmine shrugged and went back to reading the letter while Angie dialed Delores's number again. Annoyingly, the line was still busy. She stood there by the telephone, waiting to try once more.

“Coffee would be nice,” suggested Carmine from behind the letter.

 

Later, at the barber shop, Tony tried to read aloud the letter from Peppi that Carmine had dropped off. Doing so was no easy task given the constant interruptions from the others.

“So what else does he say?” asked Ralph eagerly. “Come on, Tony, keep reading!”

“Yeah, come on,” agreed Gino and Sal.

“All right, all right,” said Tony, waving his hand at them. “Gimme a chance here.” He held up the letter to the light. “Okay, where was I? Here I am. He says, ‘I met up with Luca on my first Sunday here just like I told you I would.'”

“How about that!” exclaimed Gino, laughing along with the others. “After how many years?”

Tony continued reading. “‘We went on a nice long ride with a big group of riders,' he says. ‘I'm a little out of shape, but Luca and the others took it easy on me. Things have changed since I left, but the region is still as beautiful as I remembered.'”

“What about the mulino?” said Ralph.

“Hold on, let's see what he says,” replied Tony. “Blah, blah, blah. Okay, here we go. ‘I had dinner with Luca and his family that night,' he says. ‘The next day we went out to see the mulino.'”

“I bet it was just like he remembered,” said Ralph.

“Nah,” said Sal. “The house you grew up in never looks the same when you go back and see it after you've grown up. It always looks way smaller. When I was a kid I thought our house in the old neighborhood was a castle. Now, when I drive by it sometimes, it looks like a little shack to me. I can't believe we all fit in it.”

“Well, you certainly couldn't fit into it now with that gut of yours,” said Gino.

“Are you guys gonna let me finish this letter or what?” said Tony.

“Go on, go on,” said Ralph. “Keep reading.”

“All right,” Tony continued. “‘We rode our bikes out of the village but down a road I knew didn't lead to the mulino. Luca told me he just wanted to go for a longer ride, that we'd end up there later. All the while he kept saying that maybe we should go out to the mulino some other day. I couldn't figure out what was making him so anxious. It wasn't until we finally arrived there that I understood.'”

Tony paused, put the letter down, and rubbed his eyes.

“What is it?” said Sal. “What's the matter?”

“Come on,” added Gino. “Let's hear the rest of it.”

“If you say so,” said Tony with a grim expression. He picked the letter back up. “‘The mulino had been destroyed by an earthquake,'” he read. “‘So now my home that I came all the way back to across the ocean is nothing but a pile of rocks.'”

Stunned by the news, they all sat there without speaking.

“Che cozz'!”
cried Gino, breaking the silence. “All that friggin' way for nothing!”

“Can you believe it?” muttered Sal.

“But I don't understand,” said Ralph. “How could something like this happen?”

The three of them carried on about the whole thing while Tony finished reading the letter to himself. When he was done, he folded it and tossed it into a drawer in the little desk he kept in the corner of the shop.

“But what's he going to do?” said Ralph. “Where's he going to live?”

“He says he's gonna stay with Luca for now,” Tony replied. “Other than that, I guess he's gonna wait and see.”

“Wait and see what?” said Gino. “He should get back on a plane and come home. What's to keep him there?”

“That's probably what he wants to wait and see,” said Tony.

At that they all sat back once more and sulked in silence. The bell on the door jingled and a customer walked in for a haircut. Tony put on a smile and welcomed the gentleman. As he went to work, the others went back to reading the morning newspapers.

“The mulino,” said Ralph, scanning the obituaries. “Destroyed. Can you believe it?”

“I can believe it,” said Gino, opening up the sports section. “That's just Peppi's luck.”

“Yeah,” muttered Sal. “But you know what the worst part is?”

The other two looked at him and shrugged. Sal shook his head and picked up the front page.

“No polenta”—he sighed as he began to read—“with the
sausicc'…
and the rabes.”

Sal looked up just in time to get hit in the face with the towel Tony had flung at him.

In the dream,
Peppi saw Anna. Dressed all in white, she was standing far away from him across a great body of water. Despite the distance, Peppi felt that she was near to him in that way that's only possible in a dream. Happy, he waved and called to her.

A fierce gale was blowing now and the wind whipped the spray off the tops of the waves. Anna, her hair tossed wildly across her face, waved and called back to him. He could see that she was trying to tell him something, but try as he might, Peppi could not hear what she was saying. The waves swelled up, forcing Peppi to climb higher, but slowly Anna disappeared from sight.

When Peppi opened his eyes he found himself looking at the picture of Anna he kept on the table by the bed. He reached out to it and let his finger trace the outline of her face. His touch lingered there for a time before he finally sat up and looked over to the window where a soft warm breeze was nudging the drapes. The first rays of the morning sun splashed intermittently across the room. Slowly Peppi rose out of bed and walked across the floor. He pushed the drapes aside and opened the window.

Up the hill behind Luca's house, the rooster was making his usual morning commotion. Peppi yawned and gazed down below at the little courtyard behind the building. In the middle was a stone bench beneath an old arbor strangled by a sprawl of dry, withered grapevines that had been left untended for years. They would not stay withered for long, however, as it was obvious that the first hints of spring were in the air. Soon they would start growing again with renewed, if haphazard vigor.

Peppi let his gaze fall over the gardens that bordered the courtyard. Like the grapevines, they too lay in tangled disarray, the result of long neglect. Peppi understood how things had been allowed to degenerate into their present state. Gardens required much time and attention, both of which he knew were in short supply in Luca's busy life. Luca might easily have hired someone to take care of it all for him, but Peppi also understood that Luca was one of those men who felt that if life conspired to prevent them from doing certain things, then perhaps those things were best left undone altogether.

As Peppi looked over the scene it occurred to him how much the courtyard and gardens reminded him of his own backyard in America. He felt a familiar longing tugging at his heart. The early spring had always been a time when Peppi itched to get outside, to clean away the dead remnants of winter and make way for new life to appear. He loved to plunge his hands into the soft earth, to feel its cool richness as it ran through his fingers. He loved the feel of the warm sun on his shoulders as he planted and pruned and fussed over every detail of his garden. It was his chance to make things grow, to play for a little while at being the Creator.

Peppi longed to play that role again. He took a deep breath and let the morning's warmth fill him. Gazing at the gardens, a plan began to form in his head. In his mind he could see new bushes blossoming along the walls on the perimeter of the courtyard; he could see the grapes hanging neatly down from the arbor over the bench; he could see the flower beds bursting forth in their rightful splendor.

Peppi scratched his chin as he mulled it all over. He knew where all the gardening tools were stored. Whatever else he needed he could buy in town. Luca, however, would be a problem. He was sure to protest if Peppi asked his permission to take over the gardening duties on his behalf. That being the case, Peppi decided not to bother asking.

As eager as Peppi was to get to work on the gardens, however, he was equally anxious to get out on his bike and take a quick training ride. It was far too beautiful a morning to waste the opportunity, so he dressed quickly, filled his water bottles, and hurried downstairs with his Colnago.

The village was just coming to life as Peppi rolled along at a gentle pace past the bakery and across the piazza. The baker, as always, had already been at work for hours and the warm smell of freshly baked bread was everywhere. It blended pleasantly with the aroma of hot coffee wafting from the cafes and bars. Further along the shopkeepers were out in force, sweeping the sidewalks in front of their stores while the restaurant and trattoria owners set out their tables and chairs in anticipation of the rush of lunchtime patrons who would no doubt be eager to dine
al fresco
that afternoon. All around car engines were grumbling to life as commuters prepared to head off to work.

As Peppi neared the opposite side of the village, a motorist came up from behind and gave a friendly toot on the horn to let him know that the car was overtaking him. The driver swerved to the left to avoid Peppi as they approached the hill that descended from the piazza. To the right, the road hugged the narrow strip of sidewalk that bordered the houses. To the left, however, the ragged edge of the road gave way to a steep embankment that plunged down to the banks of the little stream below. The car skidded on the crumbling pavement, but the driver righted it in time to keep from tumbling over the edge.

Peppi shook his head as he watched the car speed away. Such brushes with fate were, he well knew, part of the daily routine of Italian drivers. The brief thrill of a near miss always provided the required rush of adrenaline that often got them through the day, or at least until their next cup of espresso.

As he coasted down the hill, Peppi drifted over to the left to take a closer look at the pavement near the edge of the road. Given its state of disrepair, it was only a matter of time before someone had an accident. He made a mental note to mention it to Luca. Then he pedalled off down the road, thinking all the way about Anna and his dream and how happy it had made him for a few sleepy moments. He looked up at the sun beaming down on the countryside. It was such a beautiful morning that he decided to stay out for a longer ride than he had originally planned, perhaps even take a spin past the mulino. What was the hurry? He had all day and the gardens would still be there when he returned.

Lucrezia looked out
the window as she massaged the sides of her forehead. It had been a busy, hectic day; she had been on the run from the moment she rolled out of bed early that morning. First there was a meeting in Sulmona with one of the company's vendors. Later, she had to drive to Ancona to meet with one of the distributors. Next came a stop in Pescara to talk with a church group that was interested in taking some of the incorrectly boxed candies off the company's hands. That meeting took longer than expected, putting her behind schedule. She practically flew home along the roads through the mountains back to Villa San Giuseppe for a marketing meeting that afternoon in her office at the factory. Punctuality was a point of honor with Lucrezia. She demanded it of others as well as herself and she had been determined to arrive on time lest she lose face with her staff.

To no one's surprise, she made it with time to spare.

It was midafternoon now. The meeting had ended a few minutes earlier, but Lucrezia still had not found a free moment to eat or drink a thing all day. Her head was splitting.

Out in the courtyard, she saw a man on his knees, toiling away in the gardens. It had turned surprisingly warm that afternoon and the man had removed his shirt. Despite her headache, Lucrezia strained to see who it was, but the man's head was hidden from view in the bushes where he was working. It didn't matter, for what had really caught her eye was the way the rivulets of sweat rolling off his skin made his well-muscled back and shoulders glisten in the sun. For a moment she lost herself in a daydream as she stared at him. Distracted as she was, she didn't hear Filomena come into her office.

“You should go have something to eat,” she said abruptly, interrupting her daughter's reverie.

Embarrassed, Lucrezia whirled away from the window, knocking a stack of files and other assorted papers from her desk onto the floor. Hurriedly, she stooped down to pick them up.

“You look terrible,” her mother continued, standing over her. “You're too skinny, and see this mess, you're turning into a real
zolla
from not feeding your brain.”

“Please, Mama,” Lucrezia pleaded with a sigh. “I've had such a day today.”

“Why? Where were you running around to today?” said Filomena.

“Sulmona, then Ancona, then later back to Pescara before I came back here,” explained her daughter as she restored the stack of files and papers to their former spot on the desk. “I got stuck behind a pack of cyclists on the way and almost didn't make it back on time for my afternoon meeting. The bastards were spread across the road and wouldn't let me by for almost fifteen minutes. They drive me crazy sometimes.”

“Mmm,” purred Filomena. “They drive me crazy sometimes too, the way they look in those skin-tight suits they wear these days.”

“Mama!” cried Lucrezia.

“What,” scoffed her mother, “I'm supposed to be like you and pretend that I don't notice when men look good? What do you think it was that first attracted me to your father, his intelligence and charm?”

“The way you talk sometimes,” said Lucrezia with a shake of her head and an exasperated sigh. The truth of the matter, though, was that Lucrezia
did
notice men, but whenever she gave even a passing glance to one she found attractive, she was immediately beset by the anguished feeling that somehow she was betraying Francesco. Just that morning, she had lingered in bed, as she often did, remembering her husband. His touch. His smell. The feel of his body against hers. Even after almost ten years, it was all still so vivid in her mind.

Just the same, Lucrezia could not help admiring the sleek body of a very fit-looking cyclist she happened to pass a little while later as she zoomed across the piazza on the way to her first meeting of the day. Her eyes instinctively roamed across the outline of his back and shoulders, his well-rounded backside and the hard, sinewy legs that turned over the pedals with power and grace. As she passed the man, Lucrezia found herself trying to catch a glimpse of his face instead of watching the road. To her chagrin she inadvertently swerved too far to the left and came within inches of skidding off the embankment. The close call shook her awake and Lucrezia sped away from the village, tormented with guilt and self-loathing at the indiscretion. It was a terrible start to her day.

Now, those same guilty feelings had returned to haunt her as she glanced back out the window at the gardener. He was still half-concealed by the bushes, but she could see his strong arms and hands working away at the soil. Lucrezia sat down in her chair and tried to focus attention on her work.

“You need a man,” said Filomena. “I'm your mother and it's my job to tell you these things. You have to let go of Francesco and start to live your life again. There, I've said it.”

“I don't want to talk about this,” said Lucrezia, refusing to look up at her mother. She shuffled the papers around on her desk, pretending to be busy.

“Well, you have to talk about it,” Filomena persisted. “You're still young now, but if you're not careful, someday you're going to wake up and realize that you've become an old woman with no one to share your life with. There's no need for you to live your life all alone. It's not natural and it's certainly not necessary. It's time to put away the black dress and start all over again.”

Lucrezia made no reply but continued to look down at her desk, acting as though she was still working. Filomena folded her arms and scowled at her daughter. Exasperated, she threw up her hands and turned to go.

“Who did Papa hire to tend the gardens?” Lucrezia asked suddenly.

Filomena stopped and turned back around. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“The gardener out back in the courtyard,” said Lucrezia without looking up, “when did Papa hire him? He said nothing to me about it.”

Filomena stepped up to the window. “That's because he didn't hire anyone,” she said, gazing out.

“Then who is that in the garden?”

“It's Peppi.” Her mother laughed. “Who did you think it was?”

“Peppi?”
said Lucrezia. She whirled around and looked out the window in time to see Peppi stand and pull on his shirt. Having finished for the day, he began to pick up his gardening tools and toss them one by one into the wheelbarrow. As he was preparing to leave, he looked up and noticed the two women watching him from the window. With a smile, he tipped his cap to them and walked away, pushing the wheelbarrow ahead of him. Lucrezia gave a feeble wave in return.

“He certainly likes to keep busy,” said Filomena. “I think it helps keep his mind off his wife. He's a lot like you in that respect.”

Lucrezia rose and stood next to her mother. She continued to gaze out the window even after Peppi had disappeared around the corner.

“How old did you say he is?” she asked.