“That’s a … ” Teddy says louder. The spry asshole isn’t even winded. “Spicy meat-a-ball!”
I groan. While Teddy’s no-nonsense energy kept me from fear-spiraling all day, I don’t know what I’ll find waiting for us at Nonna’s house. Dad, listless in a chair? The aunts, uncles, and cousins I barely know all in black and silently weeping? What if Nonna’s body is in there? Do Italians perform wakes? I’m ashamed of how little I know about my culture, and worse, how little I know my family.
“This the place?” Teddy asks as I stop in front of a house with red shutters. I stare at it for a long minute, trying to reconcile it against a memory of my Nonna’s house, but … there’s nothing there. I glance down at the instructions on my phone, but the notes I took read like abstract poetry.
“I, um. I—” I try to clear the feelings out of my throat, but the words warble in there, stuck.
“Hey, look at me.” Teddy grabs me by both shoulders, forcing my attention on him. “You’re freaking out, but remember—you’re not alonehere, and our to-do list for tonight is very short: find your family’s house, pee, be there for your dad. Okay?”
I swallow and try to breathe. “Okay.”
Teddy nods curtly, then snatches my phone from my hand. “Now let me figure out where the hell we are, you’re absolutelydumbwith grief.”
Teddy leads the way down the lane, and I follow gladly behind, dissociating into the sights of this small, medieval city. Its walls are the color of Chardonnay, but beneath the sunset sky, everything’s turned a coppery rosé. I drink it in, this place where generations of my father’s family lived, worked, loved, and died. It’s a strange feeling to be reunited with a place where your roots grow so deep, yet you know so little. Like the confusion you feel when a stranger calls your name, looking expectantly at you, asking with their eyes,do you remember me?
But you don’t. You really, really wish you did, but you don’t, and the embarrassed disappointment flows between you both.
Finally, Teddy stops in front of a low garden gate, the peach-colored stone house beyond hugged by ivy. An arched green door sits at its middle, half open.
Teddy gives me a bracing smile. “Okay, this is it, and even if it isn’t, I’m peeing here, anyway.” He pushes me forward. “You first, bambino.”
“Bambin-a.”
“Bambin-x.”
Fair enough. I take a deep breath and open the gate. Images of my father at his worst in the days after Mom’s death flash through my mind. When I found him passed out drunk on our kitchen floor, and I screamed because I thought he was dead. Standing in front of our bathroom mirror before the funeral, a long cut on his cheek from shaving bleeding freely into our sink. Lying in bed, clutching her pillow and crying so hard he threw up. Even worse, the silence that followed allthat outward despair, that lingered for years. The interminable quiet of our home.
“Hello?” With an uncertain hand, I push the door open all the way.
This home, however, isnotquiet.
“Qualcuno ha visto Fredo?” A woman in a black Britney Spears sweatshirt barrels down the staircase directly in front of the door. “Fredo?! Where is that little shit!”
“Lucia,relax!” comes a thoroughly unconcerned voice above the general din, speaking Italian, English, and even a bit of French. “He’ll turn up by suppertime.”
“He stole my cell phone again, so I willnotrelax!” Only then does Lucia, one of my many cousins, clock me standing there on the threshold. Her angry face transforms into a wide grin, and it’s shocking how much we look alike.
“Dio mio!Zoe’s here, Zio Paolo!” Lucia envelops me in a big, perfumed hug, then thrusts me away almost as fast. “Haveyouseen little Fredo?”
I blink. “Ah, nope.”
“That littleshit.” Lucia stomps past me, pausing only to eye Teddy and his bags. “Ooh,bello, I love your luggage!”
“Why, thank you!” Teddy says, hand pressed coyly to his chest. He leans in. “If I see Fredo, I’m getting your phone back. I got you, baby.”
Lucia nods, satisfied, an alliance formed between them quicker than you can sayprego. Then she’s out the door and screaming for Fredo down the lane.
Uncle Paolo appears, tall and handsome as ever. “Zoe Nicoletta!” He kisses me on both cheeks. “I am so glad you are here.”
“Me too.” He smells like leather and the newest Hugo Boss cologne, the familiarity like solid ground. “Where’s Dad?”
Uncle Paolo pushes me back gently, eyes flickering over my face with a sad, tender smile. “He’s in the kitchen, where else? I’ll take you to him.But first tell me, who is your friend?” Paolo lifts an eyebrow as he takes in Teddy’s Nike tracksuit, matching sneakers, and suite of bags lining the walkway. “I thought you were for the ladies, Zoe?”
“Ugh, please! I am her very dearfriendwho is for thegentlemen.” Teddy brushes off his shoulders as if to get rid of Uncle Paolo’s misplaced heterosexual assumptions. “I’m Teddy.”
“Un altro omosessuale!” Aunt Cecilia says as she bustles past, arms full of blankets. “It’s Club Europa in here!”
Uncle Paolo rolls his eyes and grins, then steps aside to let us in. “Welcome to Club Europa, eh?”
