“Bambini, per favore!” Giulio exclaimed. “They’re little monsters.”
Squeezing my glass tight, I asked him, “Do you have any children?”
“Me? No!” He responded as if the mere idea were insane. “I’m not made to be a father.”
“How do you know?”
“You just do, don’t you agree?”
I asked if he didn’t like children.
“I love children, I adore my nephews. But I don’t have any need to be a father. It’s an impulse I’ve just never felt. The idea of beingresponsible for another person, someone needing me for the rest of their life, and especially the idea that I might not be up to it… All that scares me. It’s too big a commitment for me. Why, do you have kids?”
“No.”
“Of course not. You’re too young.” He took another sip of wine and licked his lips. “Do you want them, though?”
I thought about it. I tried to imagine myself with a big belly like Monica’s. Holding a baby, taking care of it… It was terrifying. Not because I didn’t want to be a mother. I just thought of that baby growing up and being someone like me. I didn’t want to make another person unhappy the way others had with me. Bring someone into the world only to hurt them.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
Looking down into the purple liquid in my glass, I felt the pain of the knowledge that Giulio didn’t want to be a father, had never wanted it. I knew it shouldn’t hurt, but it did.
And there I was, without certainty.
Without the truth.
Without proof.
Giulio raised his hand and looked off in the direction of a man in his mid-thirties who walked over to us. He was tall and thin, with long, curly hair somewhere between light brown and red, pulled up in a man bun with a few stray hairs hanging down from it. Giulio embraced him. Then the other man cupped Giulio’s face in his and kissed him on the lips. Deeply. Both men closed their eyes. They giggled, whispered, gave each other a few more pecks, then held hands as they walked over to me.
“Vieni, voglio presentarti la nuova vicina,” Giulio said. Still in shock, I stood up straight and forced myself to smile. “Dante, this is Maya,” he continued.
“Ciao, Maya, piacere di conoscerti.”
“Grazie. I don’t speak much Italian.”
“I’m still learning Spanish, but we’ll understand each other,” Dante said. “Giulio told me how you met.”
OK, now I was embarrassed. The idea that my panties were a topic of discussion around here made me want to hide my head in the sand like an ostrich.
Giulio elbowed him in the ribs and shook his head, and Dante smirked apologetically.
“Dante’s my husband,” Giulio said.
Husband?
I managed to tell them what a precious couple they made, and to ask how long they’d been together, despite my astonishment.
Dante looked pensively at Giulio and said, “Twelve years, I think…”
“Thirteen,” Giulio corrected him.
“Right. Thirteen. But we’ve only been married for four.”
“Wow, that’s like forever,” I said.
“It’s symbolic; gay marriage isn’t allowed in Italy,” Giulio informed me. “We don’t care, though. We don’t need anybody’s permission.”
