52. MAGDALEN
52
MAGDALEN
‘Papa?’ I knock on the office door at the museum. ‘You here?’
I hear scuffling and an inarticulate noise that I know to be my father when he’s eating something he shouldn’t be. I push the door open to see him, thinning grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses, furiously wiping crumbs off his sweater vest.
‘ Cara mia ! ’ He stands up and more crumbs fall down his torso. ‘My baby is back!’
He hops from one foot to the other while I walk around the desk; I can’t help but laugh at his childish excitement to see me after only two days away.
‘You’re eating suspiciously.’ I narrow my eyes at the trail of crumbs from his desk to his vest. He ignores me, waving the question away before squeezing me to his chest. I close my eyes, wrapped in the smell of faint cologne and firewood that stays on his clothes even in the hottest month of the year. Burying my face in the itchy fabric of his sweater, I swallow the growing lump in my throat when I think about how much I love him and feel ashamed for accepting anything less than this.
‘How was the trip?’ he asks as he releases me.
I pretend to look around his desk, playing with the embossed leather handle of a letter opener he got on a trip in Madagascar. I cast my eyes down, knowing that if I look at him, the tears will follow instantly.
‘Good, good,’ I say to the desk. ‘Lucia...’ I see the broken wine bottle underneath her legs. His stupid hand. I grip the handle of the letter opener tight, feeling the hard edges of where the leather is sewn together press into my skin. ‘Lucia and Maio looked very happy.’
‘That’s wonderful.’ My father sits back down at his desk and opens the drawer in front of him to reveal the half-eaten cornetto resting on a napkin. We look at each other and I raise my pinkie to him, and he follows, wrapping his pinkie around mine. ‘Your secret is safe with me.’
‘How was your trip?’ he asks again, not letting go of my hand.
‘I just told you.’ I frown. Does he not remember just asking me that?
‘You told me how the trip was for Lucia.’
I stare at him, unable to think of anything to say. I’m in love. I gave him all I could offer and it still wasn’t enough.
‘Fine. Fun,’ I manage to say. ‘You know Anika always makes everything exciting.’
‘Good. I’m happy you have Anika.’ He pats my hand, giving me a small smile before picking up his cornetto again.
‘How was everything at home?’ I ask. ‘Mother ban sweets again?’
‘Your mamma doesn’t understand that sweets are the reason our marriage has been successful for thirty years. She’s never known me without my sweets!’
I laugh, happy he’s found a way to his cornetto. ‘Did you do anything with the Sinclairs?’
Chewing slowly, he picks up the handkerchief on his desk to clean the cornetto left on his beard, and swallows.
‘We see the Sinclairs less and less.’ My father shrugs. ‘Since most of you left, we have no reason to get together any more.’
‘But you’re best friends. How can you say you don’t have a reason to get together?’
‘Listen, I respect Dexter professionally. He’s a hard worker and extremely intelligent. But, amore , he was never my friend. I never liked the way he treated his children, never understood the recreational activities. And I hear the rumours,’ – he looks at me knowingly and my skin prickles – ‘about the women.’ He sighs. ‘But your mother and Cinzia are inseparable, have been since college. Who was I to ruin that?’
I stand there completely baffled. To think of my father as someone separate from my mother, as someone with a before , someone with hidden feelings and things that keep him up at night, is difficult to process. Has he sacrificed his friendships, his Saturday nights, for the sake of our family? It feels like someone has gone into my memories and erased the best parts. My entire life, our families were stitched together like a quilt, catching me whenever I fell. You couldn’t tell where the Sinclairs ended and the Savoys began; we were a singular unit.
‘But we did everything with them growing up. You always went off to the side and talked and drank the grappa and, hello? The museum!’ I smack my head in dismay. ‘You run the museum together!’
My father’s deep green eyes stare into mine. ‘It was fate that we were both passionate about the same things.’
‘How can you call it fate when it made you unhappy?’
‘Because she took it as fate. And she’s who I listen to.’ She , meaning my mother.
I smack my lips together, instantly angry that she’s found a way into this conversation without being here.
‘You can’t always treat her like she’s God, Papa. She’s not perfect.’
‘Oh, but she’s perfect for me. You’ll understand when you find your person.’
My stomach flips, acidic rage burning at my father’s naiveté when it comes to her. My papa’s brilliance shines through every corner of the world. We could be walking through the desert, flying in a cloud bank, ankle-deep in the Ganges river, and he would know something about it. My mother is the one thing he’ll never fully understand. And he fucking loves the chase.
‘We both know that will never happen.’
He stops chewing the cornetto and looks up at me, the surprise evident even behind his glasses. ‘Magdalen.’ Shock and disappointment run through every letter of my name.
‘You know it, Papa. Mother thinks it, too. Dante, Lucia. I see the way you all look at me. It’s like...’ The words feel thick and rotten in my mouth. ‘I feel like I’ve been running my whole life just to look up and see I’ve been in the same spot the whole time.’ Tears blur my vision, and I try to blink them away before he notices. I ran away just to come back to this same town and be used again.
‘Ah.’ He sits back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arm piece and nodding his head, calculating my problems to formulate the correct response. Even now that I’m twenty years old, my papa can unravel my problems and give them back to me tied with a neat bow.
‘You sound scared.’ He smiles. Only he could smile while it feels like my heart has been hollowed out.
‘Why would I be scared?’
‘Don’t cringe when I say it...’ He shakes his finger at me and I concede by sitting on the corner of his desk, hands tucked underneath my legs to prevent any cringing. He smiles again and strokes his beard twice before speaking. ‘I think you may have found your person.’
‘Papa...’
‘No,’ he interrupts before I have time to even blush. ‘I have had the privilege of watching you stretch tall through growing pains. I have watched you dance in the hallway with awful bangs flopping across your forehead and watched proudly when you wobbled down the hill on a tricycle. Jo, Lucia, Dante – I love them more than words. Of course. But the day you were born, I swear – you were a beacon of light. Like it was inside your skin, glowing so brightly it had to come out through you somehow. I told your mamma, God captured starlight and swaddled you with it. I was blessed. I am blessed. ’ His eyes glisten with unspent tears and I know mine look the same. Taking a long, shaky breath, Papa rolls his chair closer to me.
‘But as the years went on, there were times when it felt like I had lost you. Moments that this beautiful face – it was still you, still my too-tall Magdalen, but you became empty.’
My chest hurts, pain and embarrassment striking my body when I think about my father watching me grow up. You’re so concerned with becoming an adult on your own that you forget others are also concerned. That papas will always worry. Here I was thinking I was the unproblematic child. The one who braided her own hair, remembered to turn the lights off when leaving a room.
‘I’m sorry,’ I croak. ‘I never wanted you to worry about me.’
He shakes his head. ‘You could be swaddled in bubble wrap and I’d still find a way to worry. But this summer, watching you glow, it’s like you’re not afraid to laugh any more. Not afraid to snort!’
I smile broadly, untucking my hand from my lap to reach out and hold his hand.
‘Should I tell you who it is?’ He raises his eyebrow, shaking my hands playfully.
‘Shouldn’t I be the one telling you who it is?’ I ask, feeling lighter after talking to him. Who cares if Theo doesn’t like me any more? At least I had him for a weekend.
‘Ah, but you know I am a good guesser.’
‘Fine, guess away, il dottore .’
He smiles, the lines around his eyes branching out towards his temple as he does so. ‘I think it’s a boy I once knew.’
‘Interesting assumption.’
‘I think he’s trying to be a man but cannot even face his reflection without wincing.’
‘Are you defending him? How do you know he even messed up in the first place?’
‘Magdalen, do you forget that you are half of me? Half of all your pain is felt by my whole heart. I know when you’re upset, angry, scared, in love. I get a tug right here.’ He points to his heart, rubbing his chest in a circle like he can feel my pain as we speak. ‘And I know that you love him, so don’t try to deny it. I am a doctor, remember! But I also know that Theo will fight to avoid feeling anything at all, in case those feelings turn him into Dexter.’
I lean forward, pressing my palms into my eyes until the urge to cry mellows.
‘And if I get hurt in the process of this fight with himself? Is that fair, Papa?’
‘Well, that’s for you to decide. You can teach him there are other ways to patch up his pain. Tell him it’s okay to ache. To hurt and sob, to stomp around, and kiss, yes! Kiss it better! But you tell him that you do it together. Sit knee by knee and you hurt with his heart and stomp with your foot and kiss together, equally. You show him it’s okay to ache with you. And, in turn, you can share your hopes with him.’
‘That sounds lovely. But I think it’s too late for us. I...’ The words struggle to come to the surface.
My father looks at me, love pouring out of him so that I instantly feel better, because I know I’ve done something right if Claudio Savoy loves me. He adjusts himself in the big leather chair, clearing his throat and stroking his beard one final time before answering.
‘Theo Sinclair is scared by how much you consume him.’
I thought I’d spent this summer learning everything I could about Theo. The pattern that his curls form when touched by salt water. The sweetness of the skin across his chest, painted with the ankh symbol. That Sir Gawain and the Green Knight comforted the child in him.
But what I hadn’t known was that he’d been confiding in my father. Sneaking to the museum early in the mornings, telling him about us. About his confusion. His pain. His desire to learn just a little bit more about me. Should I be angry? Embarrassed? Upset that he spent hours with my papa, the man who saw through gap teeth and teenage posters on the wall, talking about me?
Ever loyal, my father refused to confess any secrets. But I sat on the train back to Chivasso with his voice in my head.
Theo Sinclair is scared by how much you consume him .
My father’s use of the word consume makes Theo’s feelings seem archaic, like loving me is rooted in an ancient and immovable tradition, like it’s beyond him. I watch the blur of deep green rolling hills through the window, thinking about that night in Alassio. The faint trace of salt water still left on his skin, the taste of him in my mouth, how he sighs right before he falls asleep. How perfect a moment can be until you notice a loose thread and soon its unravelling is the only thing you can focus on. My stop is announced, and the memories of Theo fade away with the faint sound of the train horn. Rubbing my eyes tiredly, I drag my feet as I exit the station, something my mother would scold me for, but I have no energy to care. Right as I’m about to begin my ascent of the hill, I freeze.
Theo leans against the wooden fence of a house near the station. He doesn’t see me, so I take a few selfish moments to just stare. To forget about Lucia, about confronting him and hating myself for loving him. I love him. Denying it is so exhausting. But admitting it is piteous! Because he hurt me and I still pine for him. Desperately.
Wearing a white T-shirt again, and those light blue jeans that are torn near the ankle. Red Adidas sneakers. He is the type of beautiful that people write songs about. His beauty could start wars, I think.
A dog barks from a backyard behind me and Theo turns his head towards the noise, to find me instead. His eyes widen and immediately, he hops off the fence and runs his hands over the front of his jeans and then waves. Waves! My hand betrays me. I wave back. He then shoves his hands in his pockets and gestures with his head for me to walk to him. So I do.
‘I haven’t seen you,’ he says when I’m close enough.
‘Why are you here?’ I try walking up the hill but he immediately reaches for my arm, stopping me. Even this, his fingers around my wrist, is enough to make me want to close my eyes and bathe in his touch.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Really?’ My voice comes out surprisingly angry. Good! I should be yelling. ‘Nothing you want to tell me?’
Theo searches my eyes, confusion clear in his gaze. ‘If there’s something I did, just tell me, Magdalen,’ he says roughly, letting go of my hand. How dare he be angry with me? When it’s been him throwing darts at me the entire game.
‘Fine, if you want to play it that way,’ I breathe out. ‘ Lucia ? ’
He stills, and it’s enough of a reaction to know my suspicion was right. I blink away the tears and take another deep breath, my father’s voice giving me strength.
‘You were with Lucia in the middle of the night, drinking wine on the stairs.’ It’s all I can say without feeling the familiar lump in my throat. Unable to look at him, I begin walking again, leaving him standing there behind me. ‘And you’ve been talking to my father,’ I add. Might as well get everything out in the open.
‘Magdalen,’ he calls out, and I walk faster, his footsteps chasing after me. ‘Maggie, I promise you, I wasn’t trying to do anything behind your back.’
The audacity of men! Hands all over my engaged sister and he has the nerve to speak. I whirl around. ‘So, when you were touching my sister just after we fucked, you were thinking of me?’
‘I was not touching your sister .’ He rolls his eyes as he says the last words, like I made it all up.
I start walking again. ‘I watched.’
‘Well, you watched wrong.’
‘Don’t tell me how I watched!’
‘We were talking about you, Magdalen!’ Theo appears in front of me, his chest moving rapidly as he blocks my path. ‘Don’t you realize that I only ever want to talk about you? With Lucia and your father, it’s always just you.’
‘I’m supposed to believe you were talking about me with my ethereal-looking sister at four a.m. with a bottle of wine in hand?’
‘Yes, because it’s fucking true. I couldn’t sleep, but you looked so fucking peaceful that I just stepped outside instead to get your scarf from the garden.’ He looks at me like I’m the dumbest person alive. ‘And then I found your sister on the steps, with the wine.’
‘With the wine,’ I repeat.
‘She was upset because of how your conversation ended.’
‘Oh.’ A pang of regret for how I acted. Another person I have given a sleepless night.
‘She kept saying she was scared for you.’
‘Oh,’ I repeat, unable to process Lucia speaking to Theo about me, about my secrets. My skin prickles and that compulsion, the one that screams to divert the conversation, rings violently in my head.
‘Why is she scared for you, Magdalen?’
‘What was the crashing noise?’ I ask, needing time to think of a response. Accepting that I’m in love with this stupid boy makes it so much harder to keep things from him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be weak with someone, to ache together .
‘My big foot knocked over the bottle.’ Theo taps his sneaker against my sandal and I stare at our feet touching, still unable to look at him.
‘Why couldn’t you sleep?’
‘Come with me.’ He holds my hand, bringing it to his lips, and kisses me before tucking it into his elbow. ‘I need to tell you something.’