“Thanks,” I mutter, stepping out of the car.
I hear a shriek of delight and turn to find a short, portly woman rushing out of the house, straight for Giovanni. She looks older than my mom, maybe close to seventy. As she wraps him in a hug, I soak in the familial resemblance. While his height must’ve come from his father, everything else—the shape of his nose, the thick, curly sable hair—mirrors his mother’s features.
“Tesoro! Ci sei mancato! Ti voglio bene,” she says affectionately against his chest, tightly closing her eyes.
“Ti voglio bene anch’io, Mamma.” Giovanni speaks with a level of emotion in his voice I’ve never heard before. He bends his knees and lifts her off the ground, drawing a laugh as her feet dangle in the air.
A reflexive smile sets up camp on my face at their reunion. Giovanni gently sets her down after one more peck on the cheek. His mom rubs her eyes and looks him up and down. She starts to seemingly interrogate him in Italian with an accusatory look, gesturing to his body like it deeply offends her.
Giovanni rolls his eyes with a grin. He glances down at his white button-down shirt and beige linen pants. “Mamma, I’m not too skinny.”
I bite my lip to stifle a laugh.
His mom turns toward me with a huge smile on her face. “And this must be Tessa. Molto bella, Gio, no?”
Inferring enough, my face heats.
“Sì. She is very beautiful,” Giovanni agrees, nodding like a good pretend boyfriend. The way he’s looking at me almost has me convinced he actually believes it.
I smooth down the floral blue and white dress I’m wearing, a fit and flare that stops above my knee.
As if Giovanni’s remembering I’m his, he grasps my hand and laces his fingers with mine. I try to ignore the current that hums beneath my skin at his confident touch.
“This is Tessa, my girlfriend. Tessa, this is my mom, Maria.”
“It’s good to meet you,” I say warmly, holding my other hand out to shake hers. “Grazie, um, per l’ospitalità.” As I thank her for having me, Giovanni whips his head around, apparently shocked that I know how to use a language learning app. I show off another phrase I memorized: “La sua casa è davvero bellissima, Signora Cattaneo.”
Giovanni gently rubs the side of my thumb with his, like he’s pleased with me. I wonder if he knows he’s doing that. But there’s no time to dwell as I’m swept up by his mother, who squeezes me so hard my empty stomach feels full. My right hand awkwardly hangs down, still intertwined with Giovanni’s.
“Welcome to the family, Tessa. And please, call me Maria,” she whispers into my ear. Her kindness casts a happy glow over me, and I squeeze her back. To my untrained ears, her accent is thicker than Giovanni’s, but perfectly understandable. Giovanni mentioned that his parents went to a global university where they learned English.
“Mamma, Mamma, okay,” Giovanni protests, dropping my hand and tugging on her arms to release me.
“Always so grumpy. So serious,” Maria chastises. “Molte grazie for putting up with my Gio. It cannot be easy.”
Giovanni rolls his eyes as mine light up.
“Every day is a battle, but I persist,” I joke.
“I like her, Gio.” Maria chuckles, walking toward the house, gesturing for us both to follow.
“If you could both stop insulting me, that’d be great,” he says dryly, grabbing our luggage from the car.
Maria picks up her pace, completely ignoring him. I, on the other hand, whisper gleefully, “I love your mom. This is going so well.”
She pushes the arched wooden door open, and I feel like I’ve stepped into a quaint European movie set. I take my shoes off and admire the charming interior of their home. The inside is beautifully rustic, with exposed wooden beams on the ceiling, arched hallways, and open shelving. The tile feels cool beneath my feet.
We follow her into the kitchen, where copper-bottomed pots and pans hang from hooks on the wall. She yells at someone through the cracked window above the sink.
“Roberto, come inside! Ma guarda chi c'è!"
After a moment of silence, Maria sighs. “Let’s go out then, you know your papa’s hearing is awful.”
When we make our way to the garden, I’m shocked to find Giovanni’s dad bending down and setting little ravioli on the stone steps. A very fat pigeon pecks at the pasta.
“Papa! Stop feeding the ravioli to the pigeon. How many times do we have to tell you? It’s not good for birds,” Giovanni chastises.
Not even glancing up, Roberto continues placing the ravioli on the ground. He must be at least 6’5”, so it looks like he’s folding his body into thirds every time he bends down. The longer, curly, pepper-and-salt hair on his head flops in front of his face, and he blows it out of his eyes.
