Chapter 24
Vico
I press my hand against my stomach.
Not again. Please. Not again.
But my stomach doesn't care. It cramps so hard that I curl up in pain on the mattress of my van.
Oh.
My.
God.
When it finally subsides, I reach for the bedsheet. I have no strength left, but that's no surprise. This has been going on for half the night already. With effort, I pull the sheet up to my nose.
"Hey, sleepyhead," Hanna's soft voice reaches my ear. "We were supposed to meet for departure an hour ago. Where are you?"
Sleepyhead, my foot. I let out a whimper, as that's all I can manage.
Suddenly, the mattress sinks behind me. A moment later, her face hovers over me, a crease forming between her eyes. "What happened?" she asks, resting the back of her hand against my sweaty forehead. "You have a fever."
Oh no, the opposite is true. I'm freezing! "Mm-hmm," I reply anyway, lacking the energy for a retort.
"Where does it hurt?" Her gaze travels down my body to where I'm pressing my forearms against my stomach. "Could it be that the fish yesterday tasted strange?"
"I don't know. It was so heavily spiced that I…" Another cramp builds up in my body. "Oh God."
Her hand gently touches my back. "I'll get help."
"Not necessary," I reply, but without strength.
"Hold on," she says, caring. "I'll be right back."
Before I understand what's happening, she's gone. I close my eyes and try to breathe evenly until she returns. Why did I order the fish? Hanna had even warned me not to eat something in an empty restaurant that might have been sitting in the fridge for days due to lack of guests. I thought she was crazy. And now I pay the price for it.
"We need to get him inside the house," Hanna says, climbing into the van and gripping my shoulders. Behind her, the concerned face of Pietro appears. "Can you walk, Vico?"
I nod, and with Hanna's help, I manage to sit up. As soon as we leave the camper, Pietro takes over. Leaning on him, I drag myself to Camilla's bungalow.
"Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" I ask my brother-in-law. "Or at the workshop?"
He shakes his head with a smile. "Don't worry, I'll be gone in a moment. Camilla and the little ones are allowed to go home today, and of course, I'll pick them up."
"How wonderful!" Hanna says with that delighted tone in her voice she had when she first saw my nieces. "Can I prepare something for them?"
"I think it's enough if you take care of our patient here," Pietro directs me toward the house.
Once inside, I sink onto the sofa bed in the guest room and close my eyes, utterly exhausted. I've only covered a few yards, but they have drained all my strength. I feel something cool on my forehead and wrists. Then I fall into a blissful twilight sleep.
***
A soft voice hums a gentle melody, and a feeling of comfort envelops me.
"It will be okay," says the voice now. A hand brushes back my hair, and a gentle breeze grazes my skin. Then the humming starts again.
A sigh escapes my lips. The knot in my stomach feels looser, and I no longer shiver.
"He had bad fish. But by now, he's probably overcome the worst," says the voice later. It must be Hanna's voice.
"Hopefully." Something heavy and warm rests on my upper arm. "He looks pale." Is that Alessia speaking?
"It will be fine. I'll take care of him, no problem."
No problem. How lovely.
"Go and see the babies. They are adorable."
Yes, they are. Adorable little beings with even more adorable tiny fingers. I can picture one in front of me, opening its eyes.
Their eyes are sea green.
Now I hear footsteps. They sound muffled and hollow. "Call me if you need me." A door is opened.
"I will, Alessia. Thank you." A chair squeaks softly as it's moved, then creaks. The humming returns.
So melodic. So pleasant.
Could it be Hanna singing? I lift my eyelids, just for a moment.
Indeed, she's sitting right next to me, looking at aerial photographs of our estate on the wall. She appears content. The image fades to black, but I won't allow it. I open my eyes again.
There's that fascinating twinkle in her eyes. It's so serene that it makes me forget my pain. I turn to get a better view of her, and the sofa squeaks.
Immediately, she turns her head toward me. Even in my dazed state, I see her pinch her own hand.
She shouldn't do that. Why does she constantly punish herself for getting lost in her imagination?
"Good morning," she says softly, leaning over me. "How do you feel?"
My mouth is dry. "Thirsty," I croak.
As if she already anticipated it, she reaches for a prepared cup with a straw and holds it to my mouth, allowing me to sip from it with my lips. "Just a small sip for now."
Filled with a wave of gratitude, I nod. Then I take a sip from the straw. Just her presence alone makes me feel better. I swallow the liquid. "Thank you," I say, and at the same time, I realize it's not enough.
She didn't have to do this. She could have been angry with me for not showing up and gone on the excursion alone. She could have seen me lying in my van, considered me lazy, and turned back. She could have left me to my fate, and no one would have blamed her.
But she didn't.
I glance at the window. The incoming light carries a warm hue. "What time is it?"
She glances at her phone. "Just after six in the evening."
"Have you been here the whole time?" I ask cautiously.
"Of course," she answers with an obvious tone, which makes me smile. "I would never have left you in this condition."
That's… so selfless… "Thank you." I want to say more, but the words fail me.
It seems like she doesn't want to hear more either. With a caring expression, she leans over me. "How does the drink feel in your stomach?"
I listen to my body. "No more cramps." Thank God.
Her lips curl upward in delight. "Tomorrow, you'll be almost back to normal. Do you want to rest a little more?"
No. I want to be with her. I quickly shake my head. "Tell me something about yourself," I impulsively ask.
She looks at me with a furrowed brow. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything," I reply, and I mean it. I'm interested in every detail of her life. I want to know what she likes to eat, where she went to school, who her friends are, and why she speaks Italian so well.
"Everything?" She raises an eyebrow.
I nod. "From birth until today."
For a moment, she smirks to herself, then she begins to recount. It's already dark by the time she tells me about her brother.
"With Elina, he found the love of his life," she says thoughtfully. "If perhaps true love does exist, then the two have found it."
It does exist. I know it, but I don't say it out loud. Listening to her is like listening to an enchanting melody. And the fact that she didn't mention Florian makes it even more beautiful. It's as if he doesn't exist. Not in her thoughts, and maybe not even in her heart.
Not that it would change anything. It's just… beautiful.
With each passing hour, I feel better, and eventually, I dare to sit up on the sofa. I no longer feel like a freezer, and my stomach is only slightly queasy. But that changes abruptly when my gaze falls on the bookshelf opposite.
"How did this get here?" I ask, not realizing at first that I've spoken my thoughts aloud.
Hanna gets up and walks to the shelf. "You mean this?" She carefully pulls out the album, holding it in her hands like a treasure. "I didn't want it to be lost, so I brought it to Camilla."
Just the way she says the last sentence makes me swallow hard. She didn't want it to be lost. Well, it's already too late for that. "Put it back." My voice has taken on a panicked tone, and I can hear it clearly. And so can she.
Looking directly at me, she holds the album close to her chest. "But why? I'm sure it's filled with beautiful memories."
Yes, it is.
And that's exactly the problem.
She approaches me. "Shall we look at it together?"
Oh God, no! "Why?" To feel the pain I escaped from through my new life all over again? Certainly not.
Unfazed, she sits down beside me on the sofa. "My father died young too," she says softly. "At first, it was difficult, but today I carry the good memories of him in my heart." She smiles at me wistfully. "I wouldn't want to give them up for anything in the world."
I can't imagine that. It doesn't make sense. "Why?"
Her lips curve upward. "Because I don't want to miss out on all the beautiful memories. I don't want to forget them; I want them to remain alive within me."
"But the pain…" I shouldn't have said that.
Now she knows.
She knows that nothing frightens me more than the agony that came with losing my mother. For me, for my sisters, and especially for my father. Her death shattered everything. How could I ever reminisce about the good times without despairing over the fact that they died with her?
Instead of condemning me for my cowardice, she smiles warmly at me. "Do you feel it?"
"Every day," I admit without hesitation. It’s there whenever silence creeps into me. Only when adrenaline rushes through my veins am I truly free from it. I've never told anyone about it. Only Hanna is allowed to know.
"You've tried to shake it off. But it’s still there," she says gently. Then she places the album on my lap with a meaningful look. "Sometimes, you have to leave old paths to grow into the new ones."
I lower my gaze to the leather cover and trace the outer edge of the album with my index finger. Even if a part of me no longer desires it, a voice in my head warns me loudly. "Everything could get worse," I say, voicing what dominates my thoughts.
"That's possible," she reaches for my forearm and squeezes it gently. "But the exact opposite could happen too."
Carefully, I slide my hand under the cover, my fingers trembling.
"I'm here," Hanna whispers.
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 that no 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.