Thirty-Three
“You should really eat some vegetables,” Penelope said, looking disapprovingly at the steamed broccoli Valerio had left behind on his plate. “You need vitamins if you want to recover properly.”
“He’s saving them for later,” Gemma said with an impish grin. She smoothed down the blanket, tucking the edges around him. “Aren’t you, Babbo?”
She’d scooted her chair close to where he lay on the sofa, and kept reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder, as if checking that he was still there.
“Your broccoli is disgusting, Penny,” Orlanda contributed. “You’ll never convert Valerio to eating plants if you feed him those.”
Leonora plucked the drooping vegetable between her fingers. “We aren’t rabbits. It needs butter and cheese.”
Penny frowned, looking disappointed. She’d created the menu from her new diet, a decision that was not generally appreciated.
—
Everyone was eating dinner in the living room of his mother’s apartment—plates balanced on their knees—in order to be with him. Valerio was stretched across the sagging brown sofa, swathed in bandages and ministered to by his sisters, mother, and daughter. Two of Penny’s boys had come along, too, but they weren’t the ministering type. They, along with Davide, tromped in and out of the apartment at random intervals, door banging behind them, letting in the chill December air.
The mood was good—almost festive, tiny lights on the Christmas tree reflecting back in their eyes. Even Giorgia, when she’d stopped by for a few minutes, behaved herself.
—
It had been more than a week since Nikki and Federico had dragged him out of Errichiello’s compound. Days that passed alternately in moments of forgetfulness and discomfort due to multiple surgeries and the pills he took several times each day for the distracting pain.
Valerio was trying to wean himself off the pain medicines. They made him slow. They also induced a sense of timelessness and restless dreams, which felt too similar to the hours he’d spent in the dark and stinking prison.
He was still terrified of losing consciousness. He slept with the light on so that, in the disorienting moments after waking, he could rapidly identify where he was. Yet some part of him felt as though he’d never really escaped, that this return to normalcy was the illusion.
—
After his discharge from the hospital two days ago, Valerio had wanted to recover in his own apartment, but was overruled by everyone—with their clamor of reasons why this was a bad idea.
“You’re crazy,” Maurizio told him, joining his voice with Leonora’s and his sisters’. “How are you going to get out of bed to piss?”
They’d brought him to his mother’s apartment, and Leonora had insisted that he use her bedroom, while she slept on one of the bunks usually reserved for the kids. When he protested, she tutted and scolded and refused to hear any argument.
The duvet on his mother’s bed was unfamiliar—a cheap IKEA cotton in blue and white that she’d no doubt gotten on discount. But the rest of the room was as it had always been: the place where, as a child, he’d come for comfort after nightmares. It smelled of baby powder and lilac perfume.
Across from the bed was his mother’s dressing table, with framed pictures of her children and grandchildren. On the wall above, a crucifix, an icon of the haloed Immacolata in a blue robe, and, in an ornate gold frame, a photograph of Costanzo. Leonora used to tell Valerio how much he looked like his father. But the Costanzo in the faded photograph with the thickly knotted tie and oversize lapels wasso young and hopeful—nothing like the weary man Valerio saw in the mirror.
—
Dinner was wrapping up when Davide slammed the front door open and announced, “Nikki’s here!”
“Clear out,” Orlanda shouted to everyone. “Let’s give them some privacy. Who wants dessert?”
Then she reached over and, squeezing Valerio’s toe, smiled.
—
Leonora greeted Nikki first, with tight embraces and kissing both cheeks. Then she kissed Nikki’s hands.
“The angel who saved my son. Bless you, bella. Bless you! I will pray for you every day until my death, and in the afterworld will continue to pray for your soul. May the Virgin watch over you always and minister to you.”
Penny, in tears, stepped in next.
Nikki, who Valerio knew didn’t like to be touched, endured this with good grace. Only Orlanda seemed to sense Nikki’s discomfort and avoided the ritual.
—
