In the background, I hear Giovanni shrieking and wailing, bleating for his Master like a little lost lamb.
“Do what you can for him,” I tell Anthony. “Put him in the box if you must, but do not leave him alone and watch out for sharp objects. I’m heading home now.”
I cancel my meetings for the rest of the afternoon and reschedule the walk-through of my bottling plant for next week. We have a health and safety inspection coming up, and I want to make sure we are more than prepared to pass it. However, these concerns fade from my mind as I grip the cold metal railing of the ferry back to Ischia and mentally will the boat to move faster. That settles it. I will use some of my inheritance to purchase a speedboat. The ferry and my sailboat are too slow. This wait is torture.
I blow into the house two hours later. Ma is in the kitchen, fretting over a pot on the stove and gesturing toward the master bedroom. There, Anthony sits on the edge of my bed, keeping watch.
“He’s in there.” Anthony motions to the closet. The door is open to reveal Giovanni huddled in a corner, sobbing in a pile of Valentin’s rumpled suits.
“What happened?” I ask Anthony, knowing I’ll get a more accurate report from him than I will from Gio.
“He woke up this morning agitated. You know how he sometimes gets, wouldn’t eat his breakfast, didn’t want to swim laps, started climbing the walls around noontime. I called your mother, thinking she might be able to help. She has a way with him, you know?”
“Yes, she does. Then what?”
“She tried to get him to play a game ofScopa, but he couldn’t sit still, wouldn’t pay attention. Then he came in here, started wailing. You know the rest.”
“Do you have any idea what might have started it?”
“No, but he keeps saying he’s lost Master. Maybe the reality is finally kicking in?”
“Maybe.”
Giovanni spent weeks after Valentin’s death in a listless fog, not eating or sleeping, cutting himself when no one was watching, then guiltily showing me the gashes in his arms as he would have with Valentin. This seems different from that depression, more volatile, more acute.
“Anything else?” I ask and Anthony shakes his head. “Can you keep Ma company for a little while, maybe eat some of what she’s preparing for us, then take her home? Tell her I’ll call her later when everything’s calmed down.”
“You got it, Boss.”
He exits the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. I toss my jacket onto the bed and remove my tie, then decide to take off my dress shirt and slacks too, since I want to be able to hold my boy without the encumbrance of fussy clothing. I squat at the entrance of the closet, more or less at his level. “Hello, princess.”
His eyes are so swollen from crying that they are just two puffy slits, and his cheeks are stained with tears. My poor baby. He blinks and searches my face as if looking for someone, Valentin perhaps, and then his sobs begin anew. I crawl over and gingerly pull him into my arms so that my legs are astride his and I’m cradling him from behind.
“Shhh, shhh, shhh, my beautiful baby.” We rock together on the floor and I hum him a little lullaby while petting his tangled hair, until his cries eventually subside. “Tell your Sir what has upset you so.”
“I can’t find him. I can’t find Master.” His utterance breaks on a wail, one that I feel in my bones. His pain is so fresh, as if Valentin’s passing was just yesterday. I feel guilty that I don’t have the same profound grief over the loss of my brother, but his suffering was so great at the end. Part of me was relieved when he passed.
“Where did you go looking for him?” I ask.
“I used to be able to smell him in here.” Giovanni raises the dress shirt wrinkled in his fists and inhales deeply. “But he’s gone now. He’s gone, and I don’t know where to find him.”
He starts crying again, softer this time but still broken.
“What can I do for you, princess? How can I make this better?”
“Just hold me. Don’t leave me alone, Silvio. Please?”
“I won’t. We’ll stay right here until you’re ready to come out.”
I glance at my brother’s portrait, at a loss. How can you bring a man back from the dead?
Eventually,I persuade Giovanni to come and have a shower. There I gently wipe the tear stains from his face and wash the sweat from his body. I shampoo and detangle his hair, then use a hair dryer and comb to style it. I started doing this for him when his grief made him unable to care for himself. Now as then, it is soothing to us both.
In the kitchen, I feed him canned soup, some American brand that Valentin kept stocked in the pantry for him. We cuddle on the couch with the television playing in the background while he dozes. Eventually, I take him to bed where he clings to me still, and in the morning, after our other rituals, I ask him to tell me more about what happened.
“I had an episode,” he says in a very straightforward way. He stares at me as if waiting for me to argue, but I only nod for him to continue. “According to Rebekah, it’s to be expected. She told me there are many stages of grief, and even if it seems as though I’ve processed one stage and felt all my feelings, I may still have moments where I feel worse.”
Some part of Giovanni is still in denial. That is my non-expert opinion. As gently as I can, I ask, “Do you believe your Master will come back to you, Giovanni?”
