Page 108 of Two Chances With You

And then I just suddenly see red. “I have to see my mother. Now. Right this second. I’m not trying to create an incident. Don’t try to stop me. Please…”

And so I head off, moving fast, trying to get out of there before he can catch me, before he can say or do something that would be justified and right but which, at this moment in time, would seem so terribly wrong to me.

Beds 120, 119. Right and left. So I move through the beds, past lives abandoned on the threshold of a more-or-less happy abyss. A toothless old man gives me the faint echo of a smile. I try to smile back but it doesn’t turn out especially well.

Bed 116. Bed 115. Bed 114. Here it is. I’m almost afraid to step closer. My mother. I see her there, lying between the sheets, pale and small as I’ve never seen her before. My mother seems to have sensed something, a faint noise, but one I certainly hadn’t made. Maybe it was just a slight quickening of my pulse, a racing heartbeat at finding her like this.

She turns to look at me and smiles. She shifts in the bed, raising herself on her elbows, pushing her back up against the bed. But a sudden twinge of pain splashes across her face. And so she flops back, collapsing onto the pillow.

I quickly hurry to her side. I lift her delicately from below her shoulders and move her slowly toward the head of the bed. I help her, taking great care not to get tangled up with any of the tubes hanging down with who knows what medicines, disappearing into her arms. Her face is creased by a grimace, painted with suffering. But it only lasts for a moment. It’s over now.

She smiles at me as I bring over an empty chair from a nearby bed and set it down beside her so that she doesn’t have to raise her voice to make herself heard, to keep from tiring her out, at least no more than she already is.

“Ciao.”

She tries to speak but I tell her, “Shhh,” lifting my finger to my lips. And so we remain in silence for a few seconds.

Then she seems to feel better. “How are you, Stefano?”

It’s absurd. She’s askingmehow I feel. She gives me a delicate smile. She looks at me, seeking an answer.

I try to talk, but the words won’t come out. “Fine.” I manage to get that word out before it happens. A slightly longer word would have cracked between my lips, like a fragile crystal glass. My pain would have shattered into a thousand pieces, into smithereens, like an incredibly thin, brittle mirror carrying a reflection of our entire lives, mine and my mother’s. Our life together. Her words, her stories, her laughter, her little jokes and pranks, her errands and chores, her lectures and dressings down. Her cooking, her makeup, and the way she dressed up.

Now they all slide away, impossible to restrain, like drops of water on the windshield of a speeding car, on the window of an airplane during takeoff, falling unrestrained from a shower at the beach, left running and buffeted by gusts of wind. Mamma.

The way she did so many times with me, growing up, it comes natural to me now, I take her hand. She squeezes mine in response. I can feel her hands, skinnier now, some of her rings turning freely, the skin hanging almost randomly on those tiny bones. I lift her hand to my mouth, and I kiss it.

She laughs softly. “What’s that, the kiss of forgiveness?”

“Shhh.” I don’t want to talk. I can’t bring myself to speak. “Shhh.” I press my cheek against the back of her hand. She lets me rest, untroubled, on that small human pillow, so filled with love. My love, her love? I couldn’t say. I lie there, resting, eyes shut, heart at peace, tears suspended, in silence.

She strokes my head with her other hand and toys a little with my hair. “Did you read the book I gave you?”

I nod my head, moving it lightly against her hand. I feel her smile.

“So now do you understand how it can happen? Your Mamma is a woman, a woman like any other. Maybe more fragile than most.”

I remain silent. I look for some kind of help, anything. I can’t handle this. I bite my lower lip, and I choke back my tears. Who will help me? Mamma mia, help me.

“I made a mistake, it’s true, and the Good Lord chose to have you of all people catch me. But that was too harsh a punishment. To lose my son on account of that mistake.”

I leap to my feet and manage to give her a smile, calm and powerful, the way she wants me, the way she made me, my mamma. “You haven’t lost me. I’m right here.”

She manages to extend her arm and caress me on the cheek. “Then I found you again. I got you back.”

I nod my head.

“And now I’ll lose you again.”

“But why should you lose me? No. You’ll see, everything will turn out all right.”

Mamma shuts her eyes and shakes her head. “No. They told me. I’m going to lose you again.”

She pauses and looks at me. Then, gently and slowly, she smiles. I can see in her face the sheer happiness of having me at her side and then, instead, the pain that comes from inside her. Suddenly. A small grimace. She closes her eyes. A little later, she opens them again, once again serene. The pain has passed.

She looks at me and smiles. “But this time, it won’t be my fault.”

I remain silent. I’d like to find something to say, go back to before, get another chance. Apologize for all that lost time. I wish I’d never gone through that door, never seen her with another man, never intruded on her, never suffered for it. I wish I’d been quicker to understand, to accept, to forgive. But that’s not how it went.

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