Page 115 of Two Chances With You

Paolo is right behind her. “Sorry, Step, I couldn’t stop her. She came running into the house like a slingshot and then—”

I raise my hand. Paolo understands. He stops. He just stands there, motionless in the doorway while Gin walks into my room. She looks at me but her gaze seems to penetrate right through me. Her eyes are sad. Glistening. Beautiful. And I feel a pang in my heart. “Gin…I…”

“Shhh,” she says to me. She lifts her forefinger to her lips, like a sweet little girl. She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “Don’t say anything, please.” She takes back her diaries, one after another, and puts them in her bag. And she leaves, without looking back, in silence.

Chapter 51

Achurch. Bare walls, unadorned. A hundred or so mourners. Some standing, others seated, some of them leaning against those massive, ancient columns, withstanding the passage of time, the many prayers overhead, the wishes invoked, the grief suffered. By them. By the many. By others.

And then there’s my own grief. The sorrow of not having known how to be the protagonist of my own life, not fully, of having just wasted the time that was given to me. And to do what with it? I just judged my mother. And I can’t seem to figure out how I failed to understand it at the time.

Only now do I clearly see how badly I failed in my simplest, most straightforward task. No one wanted anything more from me, literally nothing, but my silence. Just to refrain from opening my mouth. But instead, stubborn, muleheaded, egotistical, blind, I insisted on raising myself up as judge.

And then the thing that’s even worse. Not merely arrogate to oneself the right to forgive, but then to fail to know how to do it. Fail to forgive. There, that’s the thing.

I look around. My father, my brother, their girlfriends. Even Pallina, Lucone, Balestri, and my other friends. There are some faces I don’t see, names that are missing. There are others who really shouldn’t be here at all. But I hardly feel like thinking about it. Not today.

All around me, so many people whose names I don’t even know. Distant relatives, cousins, uncles, and aunts. People I remember only from faded photographs, confused memories of parties, of various moments in the past, variously happy or less so, from who knows when, how many years ago.

A priest reads out a portion of scripture. Now he’s saying something. He’s trying to make me understand how everything that is happening right now is a positive good for us all. But I can’t follow his line of thought. No, I’m lost right now. My grief is overwhelming. I can’t think, understand, accept, or agree. He says things, he tells stories, he makes promises, but he can’t convince me. There’s only one thing of which I’m certain. My mother is no longer here among us. And that’s all I need to know.

Or actually, it’s not enough for me at all. Mamma, I miss you. I miss the time I wanted to live with you again, to be able to tell you what I now understand. And I utter it inwardly, in silence. But still, you hear me.

An organ starts to play. From the back of the church, I see Gin arrive. She’s dressed in black, and she proceeds down the arcades, staying out of the line of sight of most, but not out ofmyline of sight. Then she gently places a wreath at the foot of the altar and looks at me. From a distance. She makes no gesture, no signal of any kind. Not a smile, nor a scowl. Nothing. A gaze as clear and clean as only hers could be.

A last glance. Then I see her leave, heading out to the far end of the church. A short while later, it’s all over. At the entrance, I look around for her, but she’s gone now. I’ve lost her. People cluster around me, hug me, say things to me, clasp my hand. But I can’t seem to hear them, to understand. I try to smile, to thank them, to keep from weeping.

Yes, more than anything else, I try to keep from weeping. But I fail. And I’m not ashamed of that. Mamma, I’m crying now. It’s a venting, a liberation, it’s the desire to be a child again, to be loved, to go back in time, to refuse to grow up, the abiding need for your pure love.

Someone embraces me, puts her arm around my shoulders, hugs me. But that’s not you, Mamma. That can’t be you. And I lean against the wall, folding over slightly. I conceal my face and my tears. And I wish it hadn’t all come so late. Mamma, forgive me.

Chapter 52

Afew days later, I don’t even know how many because that sorrow and pain fills you. The grief, and you can’t even figure out where it’s coming from. It tumbles you over, knocks you down like a huge wave you never saw coming, that caught you from behind, that cartwheels you under, taking your breath away, scraping you along the wet sand, back over those steps that seemed so almighty certain in your life. But, instead, no. They weren’t certain at all. Or they aren’t anymore.

I’ve been going past Gin’s front door for days now. I’ve been watching her come out that door for days now, looking so many different ways. Pretty. Beautiful. Messy, tangled, fancy. Hair pulled back, hair loose in the breeze, hanging down, crazed, ungovernable. Tied into two ponytails. In a flowered dress, in overalls, with one strap undone, in an impeccable skirt suit, in a light blue blouse with the collar turned up and a navy-blue skirt beneath it. Wearing light blue jeans, or capri shorts, or distressed denim jeans with heavy stitching in a different, clashing, eye-catching color. The powerful imagination that allows her to reinvent her look every day. It’s just the way she is.

Gin emerges constantly from that apartment building entrance, every time looking different. But there’s one thing I’ve seen every time that never changes. Her eyes. Her expression. Like a beautiful dream cut in half by a brutal shaft of sunlight from a raised curtain. Like the persistent sound of a cell phone mistakenly left turned on and allowed to go on ringing by someone calling the wrong number. Like a car alarm set off by an inept would-be car thief who’s already made his escape into the night. A distracted teeming world of life out there has inadvertently slammed its elbow into her happiness. And that elbow belonged to me. I can’t hide. I have no excuse. I can only hope somehow to win her forgiveness.

There she is. I see Gin come out the door. I watch her go by. She’s in her car. And for the first time after so many days, hiding in the shadows, I take a step forward and lock gazes with her for a moment. And tenderly and awkwardly, I smile. With my eyes, I speak and explain and recount and do my best to keep her from turning and leaving. All with a glance.

And her eyes seem to listen in silence, nod, grasp, and seriously accept everything. Then, that silence made up of a thousand words, intense like never before, is snapped off. Gin looks down. In search of something. When she looks up and back at me again, she gently shakes her head. Her cheek dimples slightly; a faint grimace appears on her face, trending almost into a smile, perhaps a hint of possibility. As if to say,No, not yet, it’s too soon. At least that’s what I choose to read into it.

And so she heads off, in what direction and with what destination I have no way of knowing, toward the life that’s waiting for her. Perhaps toward a new dream, certainly a better one than the dream that I’ve just robbed her of.

And she’s right. She deserves better. So I stand there in silence. I light a cigarette. I take just a couple of drags and then flick it away. I don’t want anything. Then I realize that’s not true. So I reach into my motorcycle’s red box and pull out what I need.

***

Far, far away in that same city, cars are on the move, horns honking. Rina, the Gervasi family housekeeper, walks out of the Stellari apartment complex. She waves a greeting to the receptionist with her usual smile, and she continues briskly and without hesitation toward the dumpster. She lifts the lid, pushing down hard with one foot on the metal pedal. With a perfect arching throw, better than a basketball player lofting a three-pointer, she tosses in the black trash bag. The dumpster shuts its maw, like an ax lopping off a head, wielded by an indifferent executioner. But the lid can’t complete its trajectory entirely. It’s thwarted by a rolled-up poster sticking out of a corner of the bag. On it is a blown-up photo of Step and Babi astride a motorcycle popping a wheelie. The rebel yell of that fleeting moment of happiness, of that love long since dissolved by the passage of time. It’s all past now. And as so often happens, it has now been tossed onto the ash heap of history.

***

Pallina goes running out her front door. Cheerful and determined, elegant like never before, she gets into his car and kisses Dema, laughing. She wants to take back control of her life. “Well, where are we going?”

“Anywhere you want.”

Pallina looks at him and smiles. She’s decided to plunge back into the swim of things. And he’s the right person to swim with. “All right then, you decide. We can just go random places for one night out.”

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