I don't know if it's her words or the warmth that flows through me where she holds me. I don't know if it's the dim light or my still weakened body. But I no longer want to resist.
Since I returned here, it has become increasingly difficult for me to maintain the protective barrier within me. I want to try if there's a chance—even if it's minuscule—to leave the pain behind.
With bated breath, I open the cover. My parents smile at me from a scratched photo. Father wears a suit, and Mother wears a white dress.
"They got married on the fifth of August. No one does that; it's too hot, and it was a Wednesday. But that was their special day." As soon as I speak the words, I clear my throat. "My father always said that so many miracles happened on that day thatno other date could have been suitable to celebrate the greatest miracle of all."
Their love.
Hanna doesn't respond; she simply continues holding my arm, giving me the time I need.
Page by page, I look through the pictures. I discover photos of the estate before the barn was built, my parents together with their grandparents during the olive harvest, and my mother at the olive press. Just a few pages later, I burst into laughter. "This is me." My goodness, how old-fashioned that baby outfit is. The onesie looks like it was hand-knitted. I tap the photo. "Would you have recognized me?"
She leans over the album. "Those eyes, I would recognize them among thousands," she says with a grin. "Your parents look incredibly proud."
And they were. "We children were everything to them."
I keep flipping through the album, glimpsing pictures of my sisters in pretty dresses, our rare family vacations in the Dolomites, and my mother lovingly repairing cracks in the exterior wall of the estate. I see all the beauty we once had. I see the bond that carried our family through difficult times, and I see the love for our homeland in our eyes.
I see everything we lost. And it hurts even worse than I ever imagined.
On one picture, Mother holds my high school diploma from Liceo Artistico with a beaming smile for the camera. She was already sick back then. But no one knew.
She looks healthy. And happy.
"She wanted me to pursue my education even though it was always clear that…" My voice fails me. I can't say it; it's too much.
"That one day you would inherit the estate," Hanna finishes my sentence.
With tightly pressed lips, I nod. That's how it was. Until I turned twenty-three, I would have never imagined that I wouldn't become part of the family tradition. "But things turned out differently," I say bitterly and continue flipping through the album.
Hanna's breath suddenly becomes shallow, and I too feel as if I'm lacking oxygen. I feel the urge to close the album, but Hanna stops me.
Her index finger glides over the picture of my emaciated and bald mother, who, despite her illness, smiles into the camera as if it were the happiest day of her life. "What type of cancer did she have?"
I swallow hard. "A brain tumor." My words echo in the silence between us. For seconds, neither of us says anything. Hanna doesn't pressure me. I’m the one who suddenly wants to share more. "At first, she was just absentminded. Nothing more. She would forget to buy milk or call her friend and not remember why."
"It got worse, didn't it?" Hanna says as if she knows exactly how insidious such an illness can be.
"Once she bought a new car because she had forgotten she already had one." My God, the way she looked at Father when he explained to her that she didn't need it. Disbelieving. Shocked. And then, when she realized what she had done, she burst into tears. "We were only able to return it because we could convince the seller that she wasn't mentally fit to make the purchase. We even had to draft a formal document to confirm it."
"You had to declare her legally incompetent?" Hanna presses her hand to her mouth, staring at me with wide eyes.
"And that was just the beginning." In the end, she couldn't do anything on her own.
Absolutely nothing.
Images of her on her deathbed pop up inside me. And about how she smiled powerfully at me despite her weakening body. "Father fought for them. He left no stone unturned to save her. He didn't care about the incomprehension of the villagers. He ignored the urgent warnings of the doctors to prepare for the worst."
I know what Hanna is thinking right now. It's no wonder that he hasn't been able to cope with her death until today. And she's probably right about that.
"And you? Did you ignore it too?" she asks.
How could I ever have done that? Her impending end was ever-present. We knew it was coming. We all knew.
I clear my throat to release the tightness and continue flipping through the album. Once again, I come across a photo from the fifth of August. Their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Despite the chemotherapy having drained all her strength, she insisted on celebrating. She wanted sparklers and balloons, a three-tiered cake, and the finest regional antipasti, even though it was clear she wouldn't be able to eat any of it. Tenderly, I trace my finger over her determined face in the picture, which suddenly blurs before my eyes.
I can't bear to see the white summer dress fluttering on her bony shoulders. And how she smiles at the family as if she wanted to give us all courage even though it should have been our duty to be strong for her. Quickly, I turn the pages, but what I see on the next ones is even worse than before.
They are empty.
Our family died with my mother.
I bury my face in my hands. Hanna scoots closer to me and wraps her arm around me. "It will get better, I promise. And one day, you'll be able to look back at the past and the future with a light heart."
I wouldn't believe that from anyone else. But I believe it from her. Not because she also lost a parent and went through something similar herself. It's more because of the way she says the words. With such certainty and hope for the future that I once again feel like I'm discovering a completely new side of her.
And she makes me feel something I've been reluctant to acknowledge for a long time. That I will never be able to fill the void inside me with adrenaline.
