Chapter Three Cammie
Chapter Three
Cammie
The power of a Mom Hug is frightening.
I want to hold on to my anger. As soon as West is out of earshot, I’m ready to turn it on the deceptive little sneak who gave me life, to rage at her for luring me into this trap.
But when she stands and wraps her arms around me, I’m enveloped in the comforting scent of her lavender soap, the familiar feel of her body, both softness and strength, and everything else fades away.
It doesn’t matter where in the world we find ourselves; when my mom hugs me, I’m home.
“Welcome back, kid,” she whispers, breath rustling the hair atop my head.
I murmur my response into her T-shirt, feeling like I can’t lift my head from its resting spot on her shoulder. “It’s pretty annoying how I can’t stay mad at you.”
A soft chuckle vibrates through her, her voice taking on a breathy, feigned innocence. “Why ever would you be mad at your dear mother?”
“I can’t remember anymore,” I grumble. “Did you spritz yourself with a sedative perfume or something?”
“I think that’s just your post-travel, post-Weston adrenaline crash hitting,” she says, rubbing a soothing circle on my back. “Why don’t we find you someplace more comfortable to take a load off ?”
She gives me one last, tight squeeze before pulling back.
I don’t even have time to process her suggestion before she’s turned on a heel and started toward the villa.
It’s a comforting normal for the two of us, Mom blazing a path with her blinders on, five steps ahead mentally and physically while I do my best to keep up.
As we walk, she peppers me with questions about the almost-twenty-four hours since I began the journey here.
I do my best to comb through my sluggish brain for details, from lucking out with a row to myself on my flight across the ocean, to grabbing a pretzel on my short layover in Munich, then the saga of my taxi ride.
“After all that, I was so flustered to see him answering the door, I just dumped all my stuff on the front stoop before trying to find you,” I say when we’ve nearly retraced my steps back to the villa entrance.
“It seems like a lot of effort for a luggage thief to get here, but if they did, they hit the jack—”
I come up short on the foyer’s tile floor when I spot my bags safely tucked against the wall beside a vase.
“…pot. Or not?”
Mom bends to sling my backpack over one shoulder.
“Someone must have brought them in for you,” she says, shooting an isn’t that lucky grin my way.
I nod distractedly, feeling this itch start up at the back of my brain. I don’t scratch the itch, don’t let myself speculate who was responsible for the safekeeping of my worldly possessions, lest I get any wacky ideas about West Jacobs giving a shit about me.
When Mom picks up everything but my small cross-body purse and starts down another corridor like a red-haired pack mule, I have to wonder if she’s trying to compensate for the unpleasant Jacobs-shaped surprise.
My tired body isn’t mad about it, though.
We make our way down the long, white-walled hallway lined with windows that overlook a sprawling courtyard on one side and numbered doors on the other.
Mom explains more about the space along the way.
“The first floor is where I am, along with Dr. Danny, most of the documentary crew, and the field school directors. The biggest difference between our floor and the students’ is that ours has private bathrooms, while yours are communal.
” She shoots me a grimace over her shoulder with that news.
“I figured you’d rather be with folks your age than room with your mom, but you let me know if I’m wrong about that, okay?
And you can always come use my shower if the shared ones aren’t great, or my toilet if you need some privacy, or—”
“Cool, thanks,” I interrupt, because I cringe to think how many of my peers can hear through the walls as my mother loudly muses about my hypothetical bathroom needs. Fortunately, she stops a moment later in front of one of the bright Mediterranean-blue doors.
“This is you,” she announces with a smile.
Letting go of my suitcase, she digs in her jeans pocket for a minute before producing an antiquated metal key.
The lock releases with a much gentler click than the sturdy dead bolt on the apocalypse-proof door to my dorm room at school, and Mom pushes the door wide, gesturing me in first.
The room is what a Realtor would describe as “cozy.” Bright, too, with a glass door to a tiny balcony on the far wall that lets sunlight stream in.
The walls are the same bright white of the hallway outside with a single piece of artwork hanging on one, a picture of the Bay of Naples.
Underneath that is a twin bed, tidily made up with a white duvet over a blue fitted sheet and pillow.
A dark wooden writing desk, chair, and chest of drawers fill the rest of the space.
“Ooh, looks like you’ve got a bigger closet than I do,” Mom gushes, and I turn to see her standing by an open narrow door, revealing a modest space with a rod and hangers for my clothes.
“You’ve got a shower you can use without shoes on,” I reply with a shrug.
Her answer is a musical laugh that never fails to make me smile.
I cross the small room toward the balcony, and it takes me a moment to figure out the handle on the door.
It can be turned up to open the top only, letting in some airflow, but when I turn it down, the whole thing pushes open and I step out into the balmy afternoon air.
The balcony isn’t getting direct sunlight at this time of day, but the metal railing is still warm under my palms when I rest them there.
It grounds me as the view nearly takes my breath away—Villa di Bronzo, right before my eyes.
I’ve seen so many pictures of the ancient structure over the years, I wasn’t sure if the real deal would be a letdown. But pictures don’t do it justice.
Stretched out before me is the palatial home of a seriously wealthy ancient Roman citizen.
What remains of that home, anyway, after two thousand years buried under volcanic matter.
From this vantage point, it’s almost like a dollhouse with the roof lifted off—a maze of rooms and walkways and courtyards.
Half-crumbled stone walls enclose long-ago living spaces.
Columns stand sentry in long, straight lines, still majestic even if the loads they once supported have caved in.
Pops of blurry color where I know that frescoes have been carefully revealed and restored, and intricate mosaics in the floors form patterns I can’t make out from afar but will soon reach out and touch.
I’ve always thought the word ruins feels unfair.
It emphasizes what was lost, whether to catastrophic events or the more gradual effects of time, rather than the incredible things that remain.
Sites like Villa di Bronzo aren’t just scraps of once-great structures, or symbols of devastation and destruction.
They represent a persistence that’s hard to wrap our heads around, this combination of strong engineering and all-natural preservation that offers us an invaluable connection to the past, if we’re lucky enough to find them.
Villa di Bronzo is less ruin, more treasure. And I can’t believe it’s practically under my feet.
“Bring back any memories?”
Mom’s voice startles me out of my spell, the two of us only barely fitting side by side as she joins me on the balcony.
I blink, then shake my head quickly to try to clear it before giving the site another sweeping perusal.
Then another, like maybe I’m just not focusing hard enough to make a memory surface.
“Not one,” I finally admit, even though it’s not my fault the toddler brain doesn’t store anything long-term. “Does it for you?”
I turn to see Mom’s lips purse, her stare going distant. “Oh, absolutely. Too many, maybe.” She mumbles this last bit, like she doesn’t really mean to say it out loud, and seems to snap out of whatever path her mind started wandering down. “More to come this summer, huh?”
Her excitement shows on every inch of her face. It’s in the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes that deepen with the smile she’s almost holding back, the knowing twitch of her lips that says, This is gonna be a good one, Cam, I can feel it, just like she has said countless times before.
Guilt squeezes my heart. It’s always been her and me against the world. And most of the time, that’s felt like enough. It certainly has to her; she always tells me she loves me enough for three parents, let alone the standard two.
It makes me feel greedy, or maybe ungrateful, for what I’m trying to do now. Because unbeknownst to my mother, I’m on the hunt for that second parent I’ve never known.
A shiver rolls down my spine as I realize that at this very moment, I could be closer to my biological father than I’ve ever been.
I don’t know that he’s still in Italy, of course, but twenty years ago, he was.
He met a young archaeologist named Alex, they had a short-term fling, and he opted out of the very long-term commitment of raising the tiny human they accidentally created.
That accidental tiny human grew up to be less tiny, with a relentless need to know everything and a lot of free time on her—my—hands for summer break, time that’s happened to coincide with her first chance to come back to the place her parents met.
It’s a complicated feeling, this urge to find a dad who, as far as I know, didn’t want me. I worry that I’m betraying the parent who stayed, telling her she hasn’t been everything I’ve needed and more. I couldn’t stand to hurt Mom that way.
But I want to find out more about myself, and right now, it feels like that starts with this—with him.
So I really need to get better at lying.
“Definitely,” I belatedly answer Mom’s question, and then in the hopes of sounding more convincing, tack on, “Can’t wait!”