The disappointment was a boulder suddenly on his chest. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to see and touch them, how precious it was to hold them in his arms.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
At last, he said, “You need to call them and make them come back home. Leave town for a few days. Don’t fly. Take the train or drive. Go north. Rome or Siena. Or drive up into France.”
She brushed this aside. “You know we can’t afford to go anywhere. Where would we stay? What would we eat?”
Valerio had emptied his savings—745 euros that he gave to Giorgia now.
“This is what I have. Try to make it last as long as possible.”
She thumbed through the bills. Realization slowly emerged, and her face filled with rage.
“Fuck you, Valerio. What did you do?”
“It’s a police matter. I need to make sure you and the kids are safe until it blows over.”
“Isn’t there police protection?” she demanded. “If it’s that serious, there should be some sort of protection.”
“Not this time.”
“It’s the middle of the school week.”
“Tell their teachers there’s an emergency…a death in the family. Will you do as I say, and just leave?”
She fought him for a few more minutes, but it felt to Valerio that this was from habit, or perhaps a need to exert control over her shock. But he could see that understanding was gradually taking hold. He saw the moment Giorgia’s fear and self-preservation made up her mind.
“Fine! We’ll go!” she snapped.
“Tonight,” said Valerio. “Leave as soon as possible. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going—not even your boyfriend.”
—
He went next to his mother’s apartment and let himself in with the key.
He was met by the sounds of the television blasting. Leonora was going deaf, and always watched with the volume up.
The smell here was familiar—a comfortable, lived-in mixture of cooked food and cleaning products, and the perfume his mother had worn since he was a child.
Out of habit, he crossed into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. At the sound, Orlanda’s voice called out, “Valerio, is that you?”
“It’s me,” he shouted back.
He scanned the contents of the fridge, peeling back the foil covers of dishes to see what looked good.
He wasn’t really hungry. The lunchtime pizza had been greasy and filling and, besides, he’d been eating too much lately.
But he wanted food. Something to shove down this desperation surging through him.
He grabbed a fork and peeled the tinfoil off a ceramic dish with noodles and sauce, eating it cold as he strode into the living room, where Leonora and Orlanda were watching a documentary. His mother was crocheting—fingers moving automatically across the edge of a red yarn quilt, hardly looking down to check her stitches. A small Christmas tree was on a table in the corner, glowing with colored lights, and covered with the handmade ornaments Leonora had collected from her children and grandchildren over the decades.
“Mamma,” he said, “I need to talk to you.”
Leonora didn’t look up. She motioned at the screen.
“That man thinks the Vatican had something to do with it,” she shouted with an expansive gesture. “It isn’t possible!”
The two of them sitting there together like that, the Christmas tree, and the half-finished blanket in his mother’s lap, reminded Valerio of another winter’s evening long ago—when his father had gone out “to pick up a few things” and never returned.
