And then my heart stops beating. My half-eaten breadstick hangs from the corner of my mouth, then gives up its purchase and falls to my feet.
There’s an acrylic painting of Urbino at sunset hanging before me. Just another landscape to most. Albeit an enchanting one. I run my hand along the wide brushstroke of coral that forms the walls of Urbino—mimicking the flick of the wrist I’d seen her make a thousand times—that stroke more familiar to me than my own reflection.
“Ava, cara. Are you alright?”
Franco has appeared beside me, arms laden with wine bottles that clink together like wind chimes as he balances the tiny mug of espresso in his hand. The scent of it grounds me a little.
I nod, my finger now tracing the signature at the bottom right-hand corner. I’d tried so hard when I was little to make my cursive look just like that, practicing over and over in those old composition books the teachers gave us.
“You know the artist?” Franco asks, his tone more somber.
I nod again and hear my voice from somewhere very far away.
“She was my mother.”
UNDICI
James
Dinner should have been a relaxing break with Ava markedly absent. Conversation about our first day of summer semester should have bounced freely across the table. And Nina should have been scolding Zio about his foolish placement of our guest as my TA.
But even Verga is anxious, pacing back and forth out on the front porch like a hungry lion.
Nina has her phone at the table. Of all the things she’s whacked me for, this is the one that makes me rub my head now in memory. Massimo is watching his mother with wide eyes, shocked by her blatant negligence of her own rules as she taps away with her right thumb like she’s stamping her fingerprint over and over. At this rate, she may have a text message composed within the month.
“Do you worry about me like this when I go into town?” I ask. Though I can’t believe I’m admitting this, I only made it throughthe antipasti before the pit in my stomach could not be pawned off as hunger.
“Sì,” my Zio says just as Nina says, “No.”
Nina gives him the malocchio but continues stamping her phone screen while she explains, “Gi, you have been here far too long to make me fret like this. She is new. And she looks the way she does—”
“She does look the way she does,” Massimo says with a wide smile. Head smack from his left. Zio’s never sting like Nina’s. They feel more like encouragement.
“I’m sure she’s fine, Zia. Are you saying she’s better looking than me?”
This time everyone says “Sì” at the same time.
“As if you haven’t noticed,” Max shoots.
“Vero, Gi. We have noticed you noticing,” my uncle adds.
E tu, Zio? E tu?
I choose to focus on the bread I’m balling between my fingers and transplant myself back into this afternoon, when I was at ease driving through the country, stopping only to capture something when it demanded to be captured. Cool as a cucumber. Breeze in my hair. Snapping blissfully away.
“Ahhh. Bene. She’s at Vincenzo’s with Franco,” Nina tells us, leaning back in her chair with a hand over her chest.
“Alas, the lost treasure has been found,” I murmur, ignoring the flash flood of annoying relief in my own chest. “Can we have dessert now?”
Nina clucks.
“I need you to pick her up,” she says, topping off her wine glass. She takes a long sip, and I notice my Zio doing the same out of the corner of my eye. She motions between them across the long table. “We’ve had a bit to drink. These curves can be dangerous—”
“The only danger is you two and your devious nonsense.” I stand and toss my napkin at Massimo. It bounces off his forehead. “You wanna come?” Be my chaperone?
My Zia shakes her head. “No. No. Maso, you have things to do—”
“No I don’t.”
