Chapter Eleven Cammie
Chapter Eleven
Cammie
My mother once said to me that the worst part of raising a good kid is missing out on the classic parent-of-rebellious-teen experiences she was promised by popular media.
She never gets to “young lady” me, or order me to my room for talking back, because I don’t.
There’s never been a potential romantic interest for her to strike fear into when they come to pick me up for a date.
I’ve never had a curfew that I could miss.
So I shouldn’t be surprised when she leaps at her first chance to sit in a dark room—the lobby of the residence hall—and dramatically flip on a lamp when West and I enter, arriving home slightly later than the rough estimate I gave her this morning.
But it’d catch me off guard to find anyone creepily sitting in what I thought was a dark, empty room, trying to look intimidating, and I stumble backward into West. He lets out a quiet huff when my back hits his chest, and the sunscreen and saltwater scent of his skin envelops me in warm, happy reminders of this warm, happy day.
Until I remember Mom sitting in the corner. I hurry to right myself, West’s hands coming to rest on my shoulders for only the moment it takes to ensure I’m steady on my feet.
“Uh, hi, Mom,” I say, barely concealing how unserious this spectacle is to me.
“Camilla,” she answers in an imperious tone that I don’t buy for a second. “Welcome back. Same to you, Weston—we’ll see you in the morning, all right?”
For all the time he’s spent with Dr. Alex Lovett, he clearly believes this is a real, terrifying matriarch asserting her authority—in other words, he’s scared shitless.
“Oh, I…sure, yep. Morning. I mean, see you in the morning, but for now, um, good night?”
After a stiff little wave to me, he hauls ass to the stairs, practically leaving a cloud of dust in his wake. When we hear the door slam shut behind him, Mom finally breaks.
“That was amazing,” she whisper-shrieks, slouching in her armchair and letting her head fall back in silent laughter.
“That was mean, Alexandra,” I chide, but I’m struggling not to join her giggle fit as I cross the room to take the chair angled toward hers in her lamplit corner. “He’s going to have nightmares about you, I bet.”
“Next time, I need to draw it out more. Ask about his intentions with my daughter.” She rubs her hands together menacingly.
I roll my eyes and hope there isn’t enough light for her to see the blush on my cheeks. “That’s the last thing you need to do, and there are no ‘intentions’ to question, I assure you.”
Mom leans forward to prop her elbow on an armrest, then her chin in her hand. “Mm-hmm…”
“I’m serious!”
Her eyes narrow with skepticism before she shoots me a wink. “Okay, okay, I trust you—thus why I’ve never gotten to do this spooky lamp thing before.”
I laugh and hope I’m the only one who hears the strain in it. So much for my reliable “good kid” status.
“So what did you two get up to today?”
In my effort to come up with anything to report that isn’t “I met your ex-boyfriend—by the way, is he my dad? Oh, and I think there was a vibe between West and me,” I proceed to ramble for the next twenty minutes about grottoes and blue water and the sunburn I think I feel setting in on my back until finally, Mom can’t suppress her yawn.
“That sounds amazing, Cam—sorry,” she says through another yawn.
“Up past my bedtime, I guess. But I’m so happy you’ve been going out and exploring.
I admit, I was a little worried that it would be hard on you, being here at Villa Russo, and around the field school kids day in and day out, after…
Well, anyway.” She smiles and I return it, despite the pinch of sadness I still feel when I think about my rejection from field school.
“I’m just very glad you’re having fun, even if I selfishly wish I could hoard all your time for myself. ”
I laugh at the faux-devious grin on her face. “Thanks, Mom. And hey, there’s a lot of summer left.” A lot of which I’ll continue to spend out of the villa doing things I can’t be honest about.
“Oh! On that note—can I steal you for a couple hours or so tomorrow? Ilaria is eager to get some time with the two of us chatting, walking through Villa di Bronzo together. If you don’t have other plans already…”
Am I detecting the beginnings of a guilt trip? It’s at least a guilt staycation. “Of course, I’ll be there,” I answer with a smile before we both stand and I step into her arms, letting her soft, lavender essence soothe my troubled conscience.
Mom didn’t raise me with any sort of religion. No weekly services or Sunday school, in any of the forms they take in various faiths.
I was, however, taught more about Greek and Roman mythology than any other kid I knew.
It was always in a scientific or historical way, not a “here are some moral guidelines by which to live your life” way.
But every so often, the stories are a bit too on the nose, too relevant to some situation in our lives, to be anything but Mom trying to impart her version of religious guilt.
“Ceres—or Demeter, as the Greeks called her—was the goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility, and motherly relationships. ‘Mother’ was so much of her identity that nowadays, we rarely hear of Demeter without Persephone, her daughter, who the Romans called Proserpina,” Mom explains to the camera, Ilaria, and the rest of the crew.
She gestures to the fresco we stand beside, a depiction of two women in a garden.
“The most famous myth, of course, one many of us know, has to do with Persephone being kidnapped by Hades, the god of the underworld.
“So often, folks focus on that aspect of the story. But to me, it’s always been more of a portrayal of a mother’s love for her daughter.
She searches tirelessly for Persephone for months, and grieves this separation from her daughter so intensely, until eventually, Zeus has to intervene and bring her home.
But because Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds in the underworld, she had to return for half the year annually, leaving a heartbroken Demeter again and again.
Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that’s why the crops struggled for half the year, through what we know as winter, and it’s only when Persephone returns that everything starts to bloom and grow again.
Demeter is no longer adrift and grieving—with her girl, she’s complete. ”
Catholic guilt, atheist-academic-mom-style.
She looks to me with an unassuming grin and reaches up to run a hand over my hair, left down today and looking not half bad. At least it was, before I got smacked upside the head with myths about motherly sacrifice and thankless devotion to an absentee daughter.
“How fortuitous,” Ilaria says passionately.
She is relishing this story and ostensibly not picking up the less-than-hidden messages Mom is putting down.
“This was one of the first frescoes uncovered in the villa excavations, while you were still carrying Camilla. Do you remember how you felt as it became clear what was pictured? What kind of connections you made, if any, with Demeter and Persephone?”
Mom looks from Ilaria to me and back to the camera, resting her hand on my shoulder casually.
“I don’t think I felt like a mother myself yet, not truly.
I didn’t know what was coming for me in terms of responsibilities, yes, but neither could I have understood the kind of love I would have for this person I’d brought into the world.
And even once she was here, I couldn’t yet relate to Demeter’s experience of loss and learning to let go.
“Cam and I were a package deal, attached at the hip for most of her childhood, and I’m so lucky I had that.
But as she’s gone to college and become her own adult woman, out in the world chasing her own dreams, I’ve had to learn to let go.
To release some of the control and attachment, the right to know all facets of her life.
Every parent has to learn this at some point, get their own sense, I suppose, of Demeter’s experiences. It’s…”
Her gaze goes distant, like she’s examining thoughts she hadn’t known were there until they poured out of her.
“It’s strange timing, being back here this summer and seeing this again with my grown daughter.” When she looks my way, there’s a sheen in her eyes that causes unexpected emotion to rise in my throat. “Strange, but also very special.”
“Beautiful,” Ilaria says softly. “And Cammie, what does this make you feel? Do you relate to Persephone in turn?”
I swallow down the feelings lump, unwilling to make a melodramatic spectacle of myself on camera. “Um, yeah, I don’t know,” I say. “I do really like pomegranate seeds.”
That gets a laugh out of Ilaria, but a weary sigh and warning squeeze of my shoulder from Mom. While I struggle to come up with a more intelligent answer, one of the cameramen says something to Ilaria in Italian, earning her hum of dismay.
“Our batteries are dying, and there’s an issue with the spares,” she says. “So we will take a break for now, okay? But this was perfect. Thank you both for your time.”
The documentary crew talk among themselves and make their way back toward Villa Russo. As their voices fade, Mom and I are left looking at each other. I step back and put my hands on my hips while her hand drops from my shoulder.
“So does this mean you think West Jacobs is the devil?”
Mom laughs. “Of course not.” She pauses, eyeing me with suspicion. “But what’s interesting is you don’t seem to think so, either. That’s a new development.”
My brows come together, as if I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Speaking of devils and other things with horns,” she goes on.
I choke out an “Excuse me, what?” but it’s like Mom doesn’t hear.
“Is that a cornicello necklace I see?”