Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
New York City
T he minute the plane landed at JFK Airport, Alessandra turned on her phone to an onslaught of messages from her mother.
The messages ranged from emotions of anger to sorrow to fear to love and seemed to echo the bizarre nature of their relationship.
Most of all, Alessandra knew the reason her mother texted so incessantly was that she wanted Alessandra to keep her secret safe, a secret that she felt would ruin her if it got out.
It was why Alessandra’s mother had gone to the doctor’s office alone, why she’d been so upset when Alessandra had discovered her there.
The truth was, Alessandra’s mother, Sophia, had cancer, and just like Alessandra, Sophia was keeping it a secret from Marius, her father, along with the rest of the family.
It was because, she said, she didn’t want to worry her husband, her love.
“He has enough going on right now,” Sophia had said in the parking lot outside the clinic, sobbing into Alessandra’s shoulder.
“He’s been so upset since COVID, since we lost so many of our friends.
And of course, we were so worried about you, Alessandra, for so many years.
We thought we were going to lose you, too. ”
At that moment, Alessandra had considered telling her mother that she, too, was hiding her cancer diagnosis, that she was basically on the verge of death. But she didn’t want to overcomplicate things.
What she thought instead, even now on the plane, was I am my mother’s daughter .
It was funny, in a way. She was protecting her mother, who was protecting her father.
How far back did this all go? Was Elena protecting Alessandra from something?
Alessandra guessed she probably was, in her small, teenage way.
She’d probably done some things she wasn’t entirely proud of.
She’d probably been cruel to another child, or snuck out when she shouldn’t have, or broken one of Alessandra and Federico’s rules (not that Alessandra could remember any of the rules she’d set for Elena right now).
It was a child’s duty to try to make their parents’ lives a little less harsh than they had to be, maybe. But everyone got it so very wrong.
Standing in line for customs, Alessandra got another string of messages from her mother.
MOM: I don’t know why you have to go all over the world right now. I need you here.
Here came the guilt trips. Alessandra took a staggered breath and then encountered another jolt of fear.
Although her mother’s cancer was definitely treatable—stage two—she understood how frightened her mother was.
She’d thought she was going to have to do it alone.
But now that Alessandra knew about it, she could accompany her to appointments.
She could hold her hand and coach her through the trauma of it all.
ALESSANDRA: I’ll be gone three days. I love you.
Alessandra went through customs and grabbed her bag full of mural-making supplies, then took a train into Brooklyn.
It was six thirty and frigid, and she pulled her knitted hat low over her ears, conscious that every person on the train knew CAT and therefore knew her. She wanted to keep a low profile.
Alessandra checked into her Airbnb via a system that ensured she didn’t have to see or speak to anyone, one with a lockbox and a code that made her feel as though she belonged in New York City as much as any local.
After that, she showered and rested for a while before heading into the night to walk around and eat some pizza.
At a little corner shop with a slice of greasy New York-style pepperoni, she watched as a teenager and her mother bickered over how tight the teenager’s shirt was.
Alessandra felt a bubble in her throat. All she wanted in the world was to spend forever fighting with Elena about her shirts.
She knew that she and Sophia had had similar fights.
Heck, it felt like they were fighting right now, like they’d spent all their lives fighting.
Was that the way you were supposed to spend the little time you had?
Alessandra knew that her mother knew she was CAT.
She knew that she didn’t approve and never would.
But at the same time, she knew her secret was safe with her mother.
For as long as Alessandra lived, and maybe long after, Sophia would protect her secret.
It was a level of love and respect that went along with the bickering and the guilt trips. Family love never made any sense.
Alessandra decided to hole up with her supplies at a little dive bar not far from where she planned to paint her mural.
There, nursing an IPA beer that was way too strong for her, she overheard Brooklyn locals talk about everything from the weather to local sports to relationships to films they hated or loved.
Now that she knew she was dying, it felt as though she heard everything through a strange funnel, as though she could see how petty all human complaints were.
She listened as, through the span of an hour and a half, a twenty-something couple broke up three times and got back together again. It felt like a performance.
It made her pang with loss, thinking about Federico. She knew it was wrong that she still hadn’t told him about the cancer, about her imminent death. It was the most selfish thing she’d ever done, maybe. Besides being CAT.
She began her mural a little after twelve thirty.
The streets were dead, laughably so, making her think so much for the city that never sleeps !
Even Positano felt more bustling than this at this hour, sometimes.
But it was brilliantly timed, given how much work she had to do and how woozy she often felt due to the jet lag and the medication she was on.
She drank coffee from a canister and worked tirelessly till four thirty in the morning, at which point she very quickly packed up her things and fled.
Her eyes were so tired that everything ran together.
But when she reached the Airbnb and peeled off her clothes and showered, she felt euphoric.
She’d come to another continent all by herself and done what she loved.
It was six in the morning, and gray sunlight filtered through a thick ceiling of clouds.
Over in Italy, it was noon, and Alessandra was wide awake despite not having slept at all since she left.
She went online, searching for some sign of what CAT had done, but she knew it would be another hour or two till the news exploded.
But what if it didn’t “explode”? What if nobody cared about her work any longer?
Maybe there would be a little bit of relief within that. Perhaps it would help her move on.
Because she couldn’t sleep, Alessandra called her mother. Sophia answered on the second ring with a sob in her voice. “Why haven’t you called yet?”
“I’m calling now,” Alessandra pointed out.
“I texted you twenty-five times,” her mother said. “I’m so frightened, Alessandra. I don’t know how to manage any of this.” Implied in what she was saying was that she couldn’t believe Alessandra had ever managed it, that she’d spent years battling it.
“I know, Mama. But it’s going to be okay.
We’re going to do this together,” Alessandra said, lying back on the pillows, her hand stretched across her stomach.
She wished, in a way, that she could see the cancer in her body from the outside.
But the arm and the hand that she saw looked exactly as they always had, if just a little bit older.
“Your father can’t handle it. He won’t be able to,” Sophia went on. “He’s too soft. When you were born, he fainted across the hospital room floor.”
Alessandra burst into giggles. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m telling you now. It was not pretty,” Sophia said.
Suddenly, the two of them were laughing and crying at once. It felt like ages till either of them could get a word in edgewise, and when they did, they shrieked with giggles again. Alessandra felt she was going to burst with love for this woman. She thought she might die right now.
“Your father is watching the news,” Sophia said spontaneously.
“Oh?”
“News about New York,” Sophia said. “News about a certain mural that someone painted last night.”
Alessandra’s smile filled her face. “What are they saying?”
Sophia was quiet as she listened to the news in Italian. “They’re saying it’s her best yet.”
“Is that so?” Alessandra’s voice cracked.
“It is,” Sophia said. “I think it might be, too.”
It was the first time Sophia had acknowledged Alessandra’s work to be anything worthwhile.
Alessandra’s eyes spilled tears. Although she’d promised herself she wouldn’t tell anyone about the diagnosis, she realized that it couldn’t go on like this.
As time passed, she needed someone else to notice the heaviness of her days.
It was a brick lodged next to her heart.
Before she could stop herself, she whispered, “Mama, I need to tell you something.”
Immediately, the air between them sharpened. She heard her mother move from the living room to another one, probably the study, where she closed the door behind her. There was so much her father couldn’t take. “What’s happening, honey?” she asked.
“It’s back, Mama,” Alessandra breathed, and as she said it, the weight was lifted, and it felt like she might float away.
Her mother began as she thought she would, with no-nonsense pursuit of survival.
“Chemotherapy again,” she said, then listed an entire string of foods they were supposed to eat and non-medicinal practices they could pursue and various documentaries she’d read about, documentaries that might guide them to better healing.
“We can do it together,” her mother said, convincing herself, her voice brightening.
She was no longer sorrowful about her own situation.
She’d thrown herself completely into caring for her daughter.
“It won’t work this time, Mama,” Alessandra whispered, feeling a stab of regret.
“Radiation. Hormonal treatments. It’s 2021.
There is bound to be a way forward. Doctors have all kinds of things to do,” Sophia said.
“And I’ll cook for you! Nothing else matters but the way we treat our bodies.
I saw a special about another woman who was given three months to live, and she drank tea with thyme leaves in it every day, three times a day, and… ” Her mother’s voice shook.
Alessandra suppressed another sob.
It was when Alessandra couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond to Sophia’s terrifying list of potential treatments, that Sophia finally realized how serious this really was. “That’s why you were at Dr. Vincento’s that day,” she said finally. “You haven’t told anyone either.”
“You’re the first,” Alessandra whispered.
Her mother sniffed and sniffed. “You should have told me that day.” There was accusation and anger in her voice.
“I didn’t want to put you through any more pain,” Alessandra said.
They were quiet. She could feel her mother’s adrenaline and peril.
She thought of her plane ticket for two days from now, her plans to go to the many world-famous art museums and restaurants during her stay here, her hope to eat several more slices of NY-style pizza.
But now that she’d come here and done what she’d planned to do, now that the mural was on the wall and being discussed in her hometown, she saw no reason to remain here, wasting her time. She had so little of it left.
Her family was in Positano. She needed to be in Positano.
As her mother breathed on the other line, trying not to cry, Alessandra got on the internet and rescheduled her flight for later that day.
She wouldn’t sleep a wink, not in the United States, not when she should be sleeping next to Federico, down the road from her parents’ place. Not without Elena down the hall.