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To my surprise, Lorenzo came and sat on the floor of the den with us. “Can I join in?”
“Sure,” I said easily. Usually I did the exercises during the day while he was working, meaning that he didn’t usually take part, although he continued making time to come to the appointments with the therapist.
“What are we doing today?”
“I thought we’d play the game about who we love in the family.” Clemente clapped his hands, and Clara gave her sweet smile. They both loved this game. Although it was one of the early therapy games I’d done with them, and Clara could already master these simple sentences, I still played this game with them sometimes.
“What are the rules?” asked Lorenzo.
“We go around in a circle, and each person makes up a sentence about who loves who. You have to start your sentence with the last name spoken.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “I think I can do that.”
Clemente wanted to start. “Clemente loves Grandma.”
Lorenzo had his turn next. “Grandma loves Clara.”
Clara then had to start the sentence with her own name. “Clara loves Dadda,” she said shyly. Unlike earlier, Lorenzo didn’t even try to hide his reaction. After a stunned moment, he pulled her into his lap and gave her a kiss on her forehead. “Mia preziosa,” he murmured to her, his voice full of emotion, “and I love you—always and forever.” As he spoke, he couldn’t help his voice cracking with emotion.
Clemente wanted to have another turn. “Dadda loves Ma Veneti.” Lorenzo’s face fell at that, and I had to hide a smile.
We carried on, and soon we’d exhausted most members of the family. It was Lorenzo’s turn, and he had to start his sentence with, ‘Dadda loves…’
“Dadda loves…pizza,” he said.
“No Dadda,” said Clara seriously. “You have to say someone in our family.”
“But I’ve used up all the family I can think of,” protested Lorenzo.
She shook her head. “No, you haven’t. You can say, ‘Dadda loves Wilbur’.”
I could see the struggle in Lorenzo’s expression. But seeing Clara’s earnest expression and not wanting to upset her or discourage her speech therapy, he said what she wanted. “Dadda loves Wilbur,” he gritted out, earning him a beaming smile from his little girl, her reaction somewhat mollifying him.
Clemente added another sentence: “Momma loves Clara.” Momma was what they called Rita. I’d heard Clara tell Clemente about their mother, plus he was always interested in looking at the photos of Rita we now had up around the house.
Clara then added, “Clara loves Mom.”
“Mom?” said Clemente with a frown.
Clara pointed at a photo of Rita by the TV. “That’s Momma.” Then she pointed at me. “Anni is Mom.” She turned to me. “Mom, you love us, don’t you?” she asked.
I felt tears well up. They’d never called me anything but Anni, and I’d been perfectly fine with that. But to hear Clara call me Mom made my heart clench with so much emotion that I thought it would burst.
“Yes, I do,” I choked out. “I love you to the moon and back.”
“Mom take us to moon?” asked Clemente hopefully.
“No, silly, the moon is far,” Clara said gently to her brother before I could reply. “We’re going to the zoo tomorrow. No time for the moon.”
“Ok,” replied Clemente. “No moon.”
This made me and Lorenzo laugh, and I surreptitiously wiped away the couple of tears that had spilled over.
Once we finished the game, the children ran off to find Adelina so that they could have a snack, Wilbur following on Clara’s heels.
I snuggled up to Lorenzo on the sofa. “Thanks for joining in.”
“I didn’t think I was going to have to declare my love for the cat,” he grumbled.
