Three Light-Years: A Novel (35 page)

*   *   *

The next day, when Luca came to relieve her, they stood talking in the doctors’ lounge and she told him the result of the tests they’d done that morning, going on at length with various reassuring details. For once things were looking good and it wasn’t enough to say “everything is fine.” She exaggerated to store up a little good news, provisions in case things got worse.

Suddenly Luca stopped her and said: “There’s something I have to confess, I thought about it yesterday, but I’d had it on my mind for who knows how long … our son scares me. Not always, I’m not saying I’m
always
afraid to be with him, or that the thought of being with him scares me, but sometimes, when we’re together, I’m afraid of what he thinks of me and of what he could do.”

Cecilia smiled. “What could he do?”

Returning the smile, to lessen the absurdity or the sting of what he was about to say, Luca said: “Don’t you think that someday, maybe when he’s grown, when he’s old, he might decide to make me pay for it?”

Encouraged by his smile, determined not to take him seriously, she said: “No, I don’t think that. Make you pay for what?”

Luca went on smiling, no, he wasn’t serious, just a little: “Okay, he won’t make me pay for it, but still, I’m afraid of him, of what he thinks, of what he feels…”

“Me, too, he scares me, too,” Cecilia said to comfort him.

Sharing that fear lifted her spirits. Driving home, she found that she could think about the matter of Silvia and Viberti more calmly, curiously examining her jealousy toward Silvia. She thought: I’ve never been jealous of her and I never thought I’d have reason to be, especially over Viberti. But she wasn’t telling the truth.

True, she had never been jealous of Silvia as an adult and true, she had never felt jealous of her because of a man. The men Silvia liked usually got on her nerves. She had, however, been jealous of her sister when they were children. Being jealous of a sister was a predictable, commonplace thing, inevitable, infantile, and self-centered. Overcoming that kind of feeling was part of becoming an adult.

Still, she remembered clearly, as if it were that very moment, how she’d felt as a child when Silvia entered the room, screaming and laughing, and a spark lit up her father’s eyes. She remembered the satisfaction of watching her mother scold her, whenever Silvia was punished. But over time she had trained herself not to be jealous anymore, to feel important and more
grown-up
since she had to protect her. She’d stopped feeling jealous of the special bond that Silvia had with their father, she was sure of that, and Silvia’s constant bickering with their mother didn’t concern her. Or else she had learned to deceive herself almost entirely.

And she was sure she could never talk to her about it. She could never call Silvia and tell her about her relationship with Viberti. Never, ever. She had to try to resolve the matter with him. That morning, while she was taking Mattia from the CT scan in Radiology to Pediatrics, she’d gotten three calls from the internist, which she hadn’t answered because she didn’t feel ready yet. But she had to talk to him and ask him what his intentions were, and also ask him for a favor: not to ever say anything about them to Silvia. The thought that Silvia might feel threatened by her terrified her.

After sleeping very little or not at all, she nearly fell asleep in the shower, sitting with her legs drawn up and her forehead resting on her knees, the spray of water hitting the back of her neck. She’d thought all night about Silvia and Viberti and ultimately imagined them making love, imagining Viberti making love as he had with her and imagining Silvia making love in a way that she, Cecilia, had never been able to: imagining her more practiced and more skilled, imagining Viberti rapt in ecstasy and overcome by desire. Viberti, who maybe for a moment, as he was making love with Silvia, had thought about how strange life was, to fall in love with a woman and worship her for two years only to discover that she was concealing a more delightful, more passionate version of herself (more
compact
).

So she wouldn’t start thinking about it again, she got out of the shower and went into the kitchen to look for something to eat. There was a bowl of leftover rice salad, she lifted the plastic wrap and ate a few forkfuls standing in front of the open refrigerator, its chill encircling her. She caught herself picking out the tastiest toppings without eating the rice, a thing she always scolded the children for. She put the fork in the sink and took some water from the fridge; the frosty bottle reminded her of one of her first deaths, one that had the uncanny ability to summarize them all, because afterward she’d learned to forget them. She could take her time, but if she stopped she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get moving again. So she hung the robe in the bathroom, walked down the hall naked and, seeing herself in the full-length mirror in the bedroom, felt a sharp pang of desire for Viberti, the bastard.

*   *   *

In Pediatrics, Lorenzi told her that the internist had stopped by during the lunch break to see the boy.

Cecilia hadn’t imagined he would show up in the ward without being asked, as if he now considered himself part of the family, as if he weren’t at all concerned about her reaction—or more likely didn’t yet know she knew—and thought he could act as if nothing had happened, believed he could put on an act in front of her when she knew him so well. He’d come by, but Lorenzi didn’t know what he’d done. He must have spoken with Luca. And with the child, of course. What had the boy said to him, had he recognized him, had he remembered him? She pictured the internist’s pleasure, but she no longer felt the tenderness that her son’s friendship with that solitary, childless man had once aroused in her. At least trying to imagine him with the child kept her from imagining him with Silvia.

Once they left the hospital, the boy cheerful and in good health, and got to his grandmother’s house, thinking was no longer an issue: Michela had two days’ worth of stories saved up, and was eager and excited to see her brother again. In the car she’d started talking at breakneck speed; twice she used the expression “we were so worried,” turning to look at Mattia, who sat quietly and contentedly in the backseat.

Cecilia cut her short: “Everything’s fine, it happens, Mattia is growing.” She was the doctor and people believed her, even when she spoke in clichés, indeed, when she spoke in clichés they believed her all the more because they
understood
what she was saying. Michela went on chattering, and to shut her up Cecilia announced that they would be allowed to eat in front of the TV to celebrate the homecoming.

At the end of the meal, however, when she got up from the couch to clean up, Michela followed her into the kitchen, shuffling along in the turtle slippers her aunt had given her. She began talking about a classmate who pestered her by acting like a jerk and about how relieved she was that school was almost over and she wouldn’t have to see him for a few months.

“What does he do to pester you?”

“He gives me really ugly presents.”

“Presents?”

“He gives me little toys from Kinder Surprise eggs, he gives me old stickers, you know, for those albums where you have to put together a scene with a few pictures, and sometimes he gives me sets that don’t match, I don’t stick them on anyway, but…”

“I don’t think he’s doing anything wrong.”

“Because you’ve never seen him, he’s an idiot.”

“I’ll tell you a secret, the best thing is to ignore him.”

“But I do ignore him.”

“How were things between you before he started acting that way, were you friends?”

“No, not friends, but he does so badly in school, he’s terrible, he never studies, he says he doesn’t have time because he has to work in his parents’ store, so I felt sorry for him and a couple of times last year I went over his science and history lessons with him, and he got decent grades and was very happy.”

“That’s so nice, Michi, you never told me that. That’s a lovely thing you did, helping him like that. So it’s understandable that he’s taken a liking to you, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“But it’s not my idea, it’s the teacher who teams us up.”

“Oh, yes, teamwork, I think it’s a good idea.”

Michela wasn’t at all convinced and lingered in the kitchen to talk until Cecilia returned to the living room where Mattia was still watching
Harry Potter.

Now she had to call Viberti, she couldn’t put it off any longer, if she didn’t call him she’d spend another sleepless night, though she might still spend a sleepless night even if she did call him, unless venting her anger allowed her to recover her peace of mind and get to sleep. She decided to mentally recap what she wanted to say to him and prepare a list of topics so she wouldn’t sound like she was a raving lunatic. The only words that came to her, clear and conclusive, were “Was there something between us?” but she couldn’t figure out when to say it. Beginning that way didn’t seem possible, not for her, anyway. It would come up as they spoke. And maybe she could put it off, maybe she shouldn’t impose on the half hour before the kids went to sleep. She could call Viberti after ten. She might find the cell phone turned off, though, she might not find anyone home. She stood up, torn by anxiety. She wanted to call him immediately and settle the matter. The children were stretched out in front of the TV, they wouldn’t follow her.

She locked herself in the bedroom. She phoned Viberti. As soon as she heard his voice she felt like crying. She tried to stay calm and talked about the children in sober tones. Then, rather quickly, the phone call fell apart, nothing that was said made sense anymore, it was as if they were competing to see who was more unhappy. She started crying. The questions formulated themselves and were one single question that she managed to voice after several attempts: Had he slept with Silvia? The answers weren’t answers, Viberti was in a panic, Cecilia sensed it and understood and in the end she was ashamed of having asked so insistently, as if that were the point. That wasn’t the point, and she resurrected the only question that she remembered having prepared: “Was there something between us?” But she didn’t want to punish him anymore, she just wanted to end the call. She didn’t understand his stammered apologies, if they were apologies, she didn’t understand anything anymore, she sobbed into the cell phone, crouched on the floor with her back against the bed, her head nearly under the nightstand so the children wouldn’t hear her. She wanted the call to end immediately, she hung up and turned the phone off.

On her knees beside the bed, as if preparing to say her evening prayers, she buried her face in the pillow to wipe her tears and took a deep breath; before going back to the children she wanted to go to the bathroom and wash her face.

As soon as she opened the bedroom door, she saw Michela’s shadow, standing in the dark hallway for who knows how long, sneaking around, eavesdropping, maybe alerted by her crying.

“What’s wrong?” Cecilia asked, more frightened than irritated.

Michela didn’t answer and Cecilia realized that she, too, was crying.

She took her in her arms and whispered, “What is it?”

She hugged her.

The girl was crying.

Cecilia took her into the bedroom, hoping that Mattia was still watching the movie, that he hadn’t been affected by their grief; she closed the door, a watertight compartment preventing the deluge from flooding the whole house.

She led Michela to the bed. “Are you crying because of your classmate who pesters you?” Her daughter was crying like a little girl, she was a little girl. They lay down on the bed, their backs against the raised cushions, Cecilia made her rest her head on her breast. She asked again, “What’s wrong, Michi?”

Michela didn’t answer right away, but after a while, when her mother was about to ask a second time if she was still upset because of that stupid kid who was infatuated with her, the girl spoke: “It’s not my fault, I swear, it’s not my fault.”

“What’s not your fault? What are you talking about?”

“If Mattia isn’t well it’s not my fault.”

“But Mattia is fine.”

“I heard you crying, I could hear that you were crying.”

“Because I’m so worn out, and I had a scare, but the tests went well and Mattia is healthy as a horse. Do you believe me?”

Michela didn’t answer.

“And I don’t think it’s your fault, it’s not a matter of fault, it’s no one’s fault.”

She went on comforting and reassuring her, losing track of time, hugging her daughter, who hugged her back, exhausted. She remembered a ridiculous phone call from Silvia, she couldn’t say when, five or six years ago. Her friend Stefania had been in a panic because her cat had been diagnosed with feline hepatic lipidosis and was in danger of dying. The cat was obese and hadn’t eaten in two days. “The cat is consuming himself,” Silvia had screamed into the phone, “don’t you see? He’s devouring himself!” That was her sister. And she never told anyone to go to hell.

She must have closed her eyes at some point, because only when she sensed his presence beside the bed did she realize that Mattia was standing there.

He was watching them curiously. “The movie is over,” he announced in his bored, solemn tone.

*   *   *

After the phone call she felt better, bruised but still intact, or rather, the more bruised she was, the more intact. She didn’t see Viberti for almost two weeks.

Silvia brought him up only once, at the end of a long, complicated story about her work, saying it was a difficult time, that she was facing a lot of problems, not personal problems, though, because the situation she had mentioned to her had ended quickly and she wasn’t sorry about it. Had she caused her any trouble?

“No, I already told you,” Cecilia replied.

“Do you still see him?”

“Sure, every so often I run into him,” she lied.

“And he hasn’t said anything to you?”

“Of course not.”

She was very composed. She didn’t try to figure out where that composure was coming from.