6. Lucia
6
LUCIA
W henever I flew back home, my parents were always at the airport to pick me up, even though I could get on the Alilaguna perfectly well on my own. My dad would take my backpack from me against my protests and hoist it on his strong shoulders, and my mother would wrap me in her arms, enveloping me in an aroma of tomato sauce, freshly baked bread, and love.
Until that last time. That last time, I was alone.
I retrieve my suitcase from baggage claim and head outside. Valentina and Angelica are waiting for me there. “Aunt Lucia,” Angelica shrieks, running toward me at full speed and throwing her arms around my hips. “You’re here!”
I hug her back, a lump in my throat. Valentina has been really busy at work, and I wasn’t expecting them to be here to meet me. “Hey, kid. How’s the new school? Are you liking it?”
She thinks about my question carefully before she replies. “Yes,” she says. “My teachers are very nice, and I have a new friend. Her name is Mabel.”
I bite back my smile. “Already? Wow, that’s great. Is she nice?”
“Yes. Mabel has a puppy and a kitten.”
Valentina laughs and hugs me tight. “And you begin to see the real attraction,” she quips. “Come on, we have a boat waiting.” She reaches for my suitcase. “Let me give you a hand with that; otherwise, we’ll be here all day.”
“We will not,” I say indignantly. Squabbling with my best friend is easier than walking down this achingly familiar pathway toward the waiting water taxis. “For the record, I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than you.”
She rolls her eyes in reply. I blink in confusion as she skips the Alilaguna and makes her way to the private docks. “Crap, you rented a taxi? I’m so sorry; I should have warned you I didn’t have much luggage.”
“I didn’t rent a taxi,” she replies. “This boat belongs to a friend.”
The boat she stops at isn’t a water taxi or your run-of-the-mill speedboat; it’s a beautifully sleek, twenty-five-meter boat that’s practically a yacht. The winged lion of San Marco—the symbol of Venice—is painted on the side, just above the boat’s name, Invictus. I don’t remember much of the Latin I was forced to learn in school, but I absorbed enough to translate the name. Invictus means unconquered.
“Nice,” I say appreciatively. The speedboat looks brand-new and expensive. As we approach, a man emerges from the wheelhouse and comes down the stairs to take the suitcase from Valentina. “Is that the owner?” I ask her in a whisper. “Is he your boyfriend?”
She turns red. “No,” she says through clenched teeth. “Dante is not my boyfriend, and he doesn’t own the boat either. He’s just here to pilot it.”
She doesn’t introduce me to him. Instead, she leads the way into the main deck saloon and sinks onto a plush gray couch. Angelica doesn’t join us inside. She attaches herself to Dante, following him back up to the wheelhouse. A minute later, the boat gets underway, the hum of the motor a quiet throb that’s more felt than heard. The dock recedes from us, and the bright, vivid blue of the lagoon is everywhere.
My palms are suddenly clammy. My breath is too short, too shallow, and a feeling of dread intensifies in my stomach. The last time I crossed this lagoon was to bury my parents. I can’t be here—what was I thinking? How could I have fooled myself into believing that this would be okay?
My best friend is instantly at my side. “Deep breaths,” she says. “Come on. In and out, that’s it.” She watches worriedly as I gulp down air, and then she hands me a bottle of sparkling water. “Drink that. Did you eat anything on the plane?”
I shake my head, and she gets up and returns with a packet of salty roasted almonds. I eat them in silence. “I’m fine,” I say when there’s nothing left. “I just had a momentary wobble, that’s all.”
She does me the kindness of not calling me a liar to my face. “You shouldn’t stay at their apartment,” she says instead. “Do you even have furniture, or are you planning on sleeping on the floor? You should move in with Angelica and me. We always have room for you.”
Now, it’s her who’s stretching the truth. Valentina lives in a small two-bedroom apartment in Dorsoduro that I have no idea how she can afford as a freelance web designer. She has one bedroom and Angelica has the other, and if I went to stay with them, I’d be disrupting their lives.
“I’ll be fine,” I say again. “I ordered a blowup mattress and bedding online, and it’s already been delivered.”
“I could have gotten you proper furniture.”
“Don’t waste your money,” I tell her. “My parents’ stuff is still in storage, so I’ll just get whatever I need from there.” That’s another lie; I have no intention of going anywhere near that storage unit. Why would I stick a knife into my wound just to watch myself bleed?
We’re nearing the island. The boat slows down, and familiar landmarks come into view. I catch a glimpse of the Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto, and then we’re heading west and turning into the Grand Canal.
And I’m home.
A fourteenth-century poet described Venice as a pearl set in the vast blue of the Adriatic. But as the boat docks, my heart sinks.
Coming back was a mistake.
* * *
Valentina takes me to her apartment over my protests and feeds me until I can’t move, and for a while, I almost forget I’m back in Venice. But eventually, it’s time for me to leave. Angelica has school tomorrow morning, and I can’t stay here all night, no matter what my best friend might say. Dante has already brought my suitcase to my parents’ apartment with an extra key I have, so I don’t even have to wrestle with my luggage.
So at nine, I get to my feet, hug her goodbye, and walk half an hour to the apartment. I’ve made this trip a thousand times growing up, and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t been home in ten years; my feet know the way.
I climb the four flights of stairs and unlock the front door.
And then I’m all alone in the apartment where my mother died of cancer. Where my father looked at the prospect of life without his beloved wife and chose instead to end his life.
The blood is gone, of course, but the images in my head haven’t gone anywhere.
I take a deep, shaky breath, assemble my air mattress, and go to bed. All night long, no matter how high I crank up the heat and no matter how tightly I wrap my blankets around me, I can’t stop shivering.
I lie awake most of the night. Before I know it, the alarm on my phone goes off, and it’s time to get up for the first day of my new job.
I show up at the Palazzo Ducale at nine on the dot. Dottore Garzolo gives me the behind-the-scenes tour, introduces me to my coworkers, and takes me to lunch. After that, he drops me off at my office and leaves me alone to familiarize myself with the work.
All week, I do everything possible to lose myself in the nitty gritty of digitizing the collection. Valentina texts me every day to check on me, but she’s in deadline mode, so she doesn’t have time to hang out.
Staying at my parents’ apartment doesn’t get easier, so I avoid it as much as I can. I get to the museum at seven in the morning, and I don’t leave until it’s time for the security guards to lock up. After work, I go to a bar and nurse a glass of wine until the bartender eyes me askance. I eat out every night even though I can’t really afford it, I go home and fall asleep, and then I wake up the next morning and do it all again.
Then, on Friday, when I’m ready to give up, admit failure, and run the hell away from Venice, I find a fake Titian tucked away in a storage room in a dusty corner of the museum.