One Thing Stolen (11 page)

On a Vespa. With a duffel. He is out there, looking for me.

Lean. You’ll see.

Reach.

Hey, I hear a shout, feel a hand on my shoulder.

Whoa, Nads. It’s Jack, behind me, Dad, too, Mom running from wherever she was, her black hair cinnamon in the sun. You were kinda tipping there.

Sweetie, Dad says. Honey. Didn’t you see?

I feel Katherine’s hand on mine, her cool fingers, her words. I hear her saying that it’s a gorge, that there are rocks beneath those flowers, that it’s steeper than I think; a woman died. Her one hand on my shoulder and her other hand on my hand, and she’s walking me backward, her voice calm, and Dad is telling Jack to give me some room. Mom slips her hand into Dad’s, holds it tight. White knuckles.

I told her to stop, Jack says, to Dad, and Dad says, I know you did. She’s fine. She’s here.

Katherine finds a bench and we sit, her beside me. I lean back, and she’s there, her arms strong inside their yellow sleeves. Count
with me, Nadia, Katherine says. Breathe. She starts and I let her count all the numbers backward. Ninety-seven, ninety-six, ninety-five. I let her start and finally I count, too, seventy-three, seventy-two, and Dad’s face comes in close like a missing-pieces puzzle, his eyebrows tangled up in his lashes. I close my eyes and I can hear Maggie.

I’m right here
, she says.

You’re okay
.

The room is square and polished bright. There are red tiles on the floor and there is music above my head and painted stucco. Two open windows and a wall of glass jars on glass shelves. There’s a girl on a bed beneath a sheet, and she is me. There’s gauze on my left hand, like a glove, a little spot of blood in the white gauze, prick of ruby.

Here you are.

Her fingers on my wrist, counting the pulse. Her cashmere hair floating. Shhh, she says, and I sit up, startled. Nowhere to be, she says. We have time.

There’s a lemon wedge in a glass of seltzer. She gives it to me and tells me to drink—all of it, slow, champagne bubbles in my nose. She asks me how long it’s been since I have slept, since I’ve had a proper meal, and I ask her who she is.

My name is Katherine, she says, but I meant what am I doing here, where’s Mom, where’s Dad? Everybody’s in the room next door, she says. You’ve had a little spell.

Where are—

We’re home, she says. My home. Finish it, she tells me, about the drink. Or maybe the sentence.

She cuffs my arm, pumps me up, looks down, makes notes. She pokes a thermometer into my ear, puts her two fingers on my wrist again and glances away, to count. She has a clipboard and a purple pen. The noise of the pen on the paper like a window being squeaked.

All of it, she insists, gently. You’re dehydrated.

I’m okay.

All of it, she repeats. She takes the glass when I’m done, puts it on the shelf behind her, turns back to me, clink. Two big pots of ferns on the floor. A miniature
David
on the windowsill.

Can we talk a little? she says.

I’m really—

Can you tell me why you’re so tired?

I never—sleep.

Hmmmm, she says. Never?

Not really. Not—

She writes something down. Raises her eyes. Writes again. She waits for me to say more, but that’s it:
Not really
. You came close out there, she says. Too close to the edge.

I’m—sorry.

She lets the pen dangle from its clipboard string. She takes a seat on a simple wooden stool that I didn’t see until now. In this room,
she says, there are no apologies. Ever. You came close to the edge, and we worried. You’re tired, and we want to help you. You hurt your hand. No blame here. No anger. Tell me what you mean by never.

Every word is clear. The room is peaceful, like the cloister was peaceful, like being with Benedetto was peaceful. Benedetto. I straighten, stare out the window, look for him.

I can’t rem—ember.

What can’t you remember?

The last time I really—slept.

Let’s start with last night. Tell me how it was.

I try to tick the hours back in my head; I can’t. I see two turtledoves and a boy on a Vespa. A bright moon. A new nest. Maggie’s red hair. Jack at the Vitales’. Mad.

The Vitales arestillthere, I say. Intheapartment. They left themselves be—hind.

Who are the Vitales?

It’s their flat. They belong. Where we are.

And this makes it hard to sleep? She hasn’t moved. The hem of her hair brushing her shoulders.

I curl into a question mark, try to think. The paper crinkles. A doctor’s bed. She waits.

You’re my father’s—friend?

Your father called me, yes.

And you knew the woman who—died? The one who—fell from the ledgeatBelvedere?

They brought her to me, she says, that’s all she says, and I don’t want to imagine, but I do—a woman on a ledge walking above Florence, a woman falling, a cracked woman on this bed. Katherine sits on the stool and waits, and finally she tells me to rest for now, that we’ll talk later. Still she doesn’t move, stays where she is, her eyes on me, pale and blue, gray at the rims. She touches my gauze-gloved hand with her cool fingers, and I close my eyes.

The egret’s talking, I say now. Do you—hear it?

Yes, she says. I do.

The birds are—everywhere, I say. The birds. Their nests.

She listens. There are more birds, different birds drawing the long notes out of their feathery breasts, then cutting the songs into quick chit-chits.

Do you like them? she asks. The birds?

I nod.

And you’ve always loved birds?

More and more—lately.

Hmmmm, she says. I like them, too. So determined to sing. So fearless. She turns slightly, her ear toward the window now. Can you tell me about your hand?

My hand.

I’ve cleaned it up, it should be fine, but if you could tell me . . .

I couldn’t—help it.

You had a braid of some sort in your hand. A braid of tall grass. Elaborate. Intricate. Do you remember?

I shake my head.

I’ve saved it for you. In an envelope. Remind me, she says. Before you leave. So unusual. Beautiful, really. I don’t know how you did that, with three long blades of grass.

It just hap—pens.

Tell me more.

Sometimes.

Hmmmm, she says. She writes something down, and then looks at me, lays the back of her hand across my forehead, pulls the hair away from my face. She picks up her pen and writes again.

You’re having trouble with words, honey. Aren’t you?

They’re just—

Slow?

I nod. Slow.

In there, but slow?

Not all the time. Not always—there.

Hmmm, she says. Do you know when this began?

Inthespring? Something like—the spring? Or maybe? I don’t know. I can—think, I say. I just can’t—

Speak, she says.

I nod.

Hmmm, she says. Writes something down.

I can’t be—crazy, I say. I can’t be. Jack says—

I said nothing about crazy.

I didn’t mean to get so—close to the—I just wanted to—

You know what I said, Nadia.

No apolo—gies?

That’s right. No apologies. Everything we say to each other is just what we say to each other. No accusations. No crimes. Nothing to be embarrassed about. That’s the rule here. That’s what we’ll live by.

She stands and pulls the stool across the red tile to a place beneath the window. She turns for a moment to watch the sky. I close my eyes and see me high above—a girl on a bed in a room. I see the broken star of the Belvedere wall, the city blinking on and off, the boy out there on his Vespa, Uccello’s birds, cloister silence, a gold chain, my father, my mother, Jack. Katherine walks back across the room, her boots on the floor.

No one’s mad at you, Nadia.

I feel her hands pulling my hair to one side, her fingers on my pulse. I feel her waiting, but I’ve said all I can, my own thoughts coming to me like a dream.

You’ll tell me more when you can, she says. Okay?

I say okay.

Here, she says. I open my eyes and see her reaching up to a glass shelf to retrieve a tiny clay bell with a weathervane top. If you need me. She lays it down beside me, on the crinkle paper on the bed.

Katherine?

Yes?

How do you . . . My dad?

That’s a story for someday.

You’re American, I say. But you—

That happens all the time, she says. People fall in love with Florence. Get some rest, she tells me. I’ll be next door if you need me.

Time is a white cloud.

Time is drifting.

The room is dim. The glass jars on the glass shelves are still and the windows are open and somewhere, closer now, there is the sound of silverware, the smell of carbonara, voices.

I close my eyes and I see Maggie and me in West Philadelphia—someone playing bluegrass and a big fan above our heads motoring the warm air through.
Listen
, Maggie said, and was it summer, do you know, when my best friend was so small and so strong and so lit up inside with all that noise and bluegrass, and when no one knew that something was wrong with me? No one would have guessed it.

I see you’re awake.

It’s Dad in the room on the stool across the way. The window behind him is closed, its panes like a mirror. There are shadows beneath Dad’s eyes, the back of his head reflected in the window, all those glass jars on glass shelves, the birds quiet.

What time is it?

Dad pulls up his sleeve, checks his watch. Just past six.

The whole day’s gone.

You slept, Nadia. You were peaceful. How are you?

I’m—

I try to sit, but I feel dizzy. I try again and now Dad’s at my side, his big hands steadying me, helping me, slowly. Like I don’t have any bones. Like I’m all melt. Steady.

You must be hungry, Dad says.

I don’t—

Can you stand up? Katherine’s been cooking.

I say I’m okay, but the room wobbles. Dad helps me up from the crinkle bed, stands with me until my bare feet are steady on the floor. He slips his arm around me and guides me across the tiles through a door I hadn’t seen, into a large square room, where Katherine sits at a table built for two in a room of white, some gray stones rubbing through the thick walls. Along the wall, carved out of granite, is a sink, a half refrigerator, an old stove. There are three light-wood cabinets hanging above, and through each of the handles is looped an embroidered dish towel—purple, yellow, pink.

You’ve had us worried, Dad says, pulling a chair out for me to sit on, moving the books on the chair to the floor, never taking one arm from me, being sure. He says that Mom and Jack had to leave earlier, that we’ll just have some dinner, that Katherine’s been cooking, that we’re working toward a plan.

You need time with someone who might understand what’s going on, Dad says. Someone who can watch you, talk to you. Your mother and I . . . we don’t have answers. Your mother and I . . . we just . . . Nadia . . . we love you. You know that we do. Katherine is a neurologist. Retired now, but famous. She knows doctors. She can help you.

Katherine serves the carbonara from a single pot as Dad talks. She takes flecks of parsley from a Pyrex dish and sprinkles them on top.

Still warm, she says. Sitting down and letting me take it in, waiting for me to ask questions, maybe, but I have none. I don’t understand, but I do. Katherine is a neurologist. We need answers.

Dad gets up to crank the windows closed. There is a stack of books on the floor, a floral couch, a table of more books—Italian, American—newspapers, a small TV that looks like the first TV ever built. On the windowsill sits a miniature of the
biblioteca
that we pass each day on our way through Santa Croce, and beside that, tipping toward the glass, is a portrait of Michelangelo—small as a postcard, gold-framed.

More? she asks me.

It’s good, I say.

She gets up, fills my plate, rinses a bunch of grapes, and fits them into a tall white bowl—round as miniature Christmas balls and bright as garnets. She carries the bowl and the plate to the table and slips into her seat, and I see how tall Katherine is, even
sitting. They talk without me. They talk the day, and they talk gardens, carbonara, fortress walls, olive trees, tourists, the never-ending restoration of the Uffizi, and every now and then they steal a glance at me, to see, I guess, how I am settling in, to not force too much against me. I let my thoughts go—to the Green Cloister, the pair of birds, the painted stories in red and gray, Benedetto, nests, the ship of steals, Perdita’s chain; yes, Jack, I stole it.