Chapter 123
IT HAD BEEN A YEAR and a half since I’d seen my mother, a fact I could scarcely believe as I rushed into her outstretched arms at the airport in Olbia.
I had gone to pick her up on my own because it was a weekday afternoon and Paul was at work, but I was secretly glad to have some time to catch up, just the two of us, before we introduced Paul into the mix.
“You look incredible,” she said as she held my face in her hands.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I whispered into her neck, which smelled like Pall Malls and Pears soap.
On the drive to Palau, I pointed out the nuraghi and the Madonnelle and all the other roadside novelties I’d begun to take for granted.
“Is it all like this?” she asked, gesturing out the window at the scenery. “So rugged?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
After I’d pulled the car onto the ferry, I told my mother to bundle up, then herded her up the stairs and out onto the deck, where, as fate would have it, we ran smack into Mary Lou, who was trying to use her whole body to protect her lit cigarette from the wind. I introduced her to my mother.
“What an absolute honor,” said Mary Lou. “Eileen has told me so much about you.”
“She has, has she?” said my mother, who seemed to sense, without needing to be told, that Mary Lou was full of hot air.
We talked for a few minutes about Mom’s flight and what Dad was doing while she was gone, but all I wanted was for my mother to pay attention to La Maddalena’s fast approach.
“Are you going to take her to the Christmas market?” Mary Lou asked, and I said that I would. “Oh, and you’ve got to do the live nativity. That’s so much fun.”
“Are you writing this down?” my mother asked in a tone that made clear she was kidding.
Mary Lou didn’t pick up on it. “Unfortunately, you missed the tree lighting.”
“That is unfortunate,” said my mother, and I was so overcome with joy, I had to work hard to stifle a laugh.