“Okay,” I say softly, even though I can’t imagine eating anything right now.
Of course, when I do get ready for the day, and I head downstairs to the restaurant, my stomach kicks into high gear. Walking past all the opulently set tables, spying all the food, I realize I could eat a horse.
I find Claudio and Vanni at a table in the back. Both of them look dashing in cream colored pants and red shirts, a silky polo for Claudio, a t-shirt for Vanni. Makes me wish I had packed a red dress.
“You guys match,” I tell them as I sit down.
“It wasn’t on purpose,” Vanni grumbles through a bite of toast and Nutella.
“Vanni, don’t talk with your mouth full. Not here, anyway.”
Vanni reaches for a napkin and daintily wipes his lips with it, acting all posh.
I laugh. “Well, you both look great.”
“So do you,” Claudio says, eying me in my yellow and white dress. I know it will always remind him of his art. Perhaps I wore it on purpose today.
“And so does the food,” I say, picking up the menu. I’m drooling over everything, but the first thing I need is a coffee.
It’s when I’m nearly done with my latte that Vanni suddenly cries out, “Mamma!”
He bolts from his chair and we look over to see Jana walking past the restaurant, towing a tiny carry-on bag behind her.
“Vanni!” she cries out, dropping her suitcase and opening her arms and Vanni goes flying into them.
I have to say, it breaks my heart a little.
Not in a bad way, per se. It’s just so sweet. And it makes me realize how much Vanni needs his mother, how much he loves her, and how much Jana cares about him. Even from a distance, it’s not hard to see.
I glance beside me at Claudio and he’s practically beaming as he watches them. It means so much to him too.
Jana picks her suitcase back up, and Vanni grabs her hand and leads her through the restaurant toward us, and she’s waving at us as she comes near.
She looks great, actually. When I met her in London, she was so stern and sharp, but here she already seems relaxed, even though she’s wearing a brown suit and black-framed eyeglasses. Her hair seems brighter and longer too, though still closely cropped.
“Jana,” Claudio says warmly, while the both of us attempt to get up.
“No, no, no,” she says, frantically waving her hands at us. “Don’t get up. Enjoy your food. I’m going to go see if I can get an early check-in and change. They bloody hell better give me one, lord knows I have so many points racked up with this joint.” She waves at Vanni and says. “I’ll be down in a bit.”
Then she hurries off toward reception, and no doubt there will be hell to pay with the clerk if she doesn’t get her early check-in.
“Isn’t this great?” Vanni says to us, smiling as he sits back down.
While Claudio’s smile comes easy to him, it’s rare to see it on Vanni.
He goes on. “This is like all the timelines are colliding into one super timeline.”
Oh boy.
I exchange a look with Claudio. Vanni’s happiness is contagious, but in a way it makes everything else that much harder.
When our food comes and we’ve finished, we leave the restaurant and see Jana waiting on a chair in the lobby. She gets up and comes over to us, heading straight for Claudio.
I step back and watch as they embrace, kiss each other on the cheek.
This is so weird.
It really is. I’ve tried to fit the image of them together in my mind so many times, even after seeing their wedding photos and whatnot, but to see it in the flesh is jarring. They’re both attractive people, but they are soooo different, from their age, to their mannerisms, to their, I don’t know, life essence or something.
But if they seem angry at each other, it doesn’t show. They don’t seem overly affectionate either, it’s just very neutral and pleasant and strange.
Then Jana turns to me. “Grace,” she says, pulling me into a quick, light hug, a few taps on the shoulder. She’s skinny and it feels like I could crush her. “You’re looking well. You’ve got quite the glow.”
I try not to blush and add to that glow, because only Claudio and I know what that glow is really about.
“Okay,” she says. “Before it gets too hot and crowded, let’s go sight-seeing. Did you get to the Duomo yesterday?”
“No,” Vanni says, “and I want to climb to the top and they don’t want to.”
He points accusatorily at us.
“Oh Vanni, no one wants to do that,” she says to him. “They’re spring chickens, but I am far too old. How about we go inside the cathedral for now?”
Jana is obviously exaggerating her age, but I’m not going to argue with her. I’m not going up there.
Vanni at least agrees to that, so we walk back to the Duomo, Jana holding Vanni’s hand the whole way.
The line-up isn’t as long as yesterday, but it’s still an hour’s wait. So the four of us stand in line, and talk about a whole range of stuff, though most of the time it’s Vanni rambling on to his mother about space shit.
A couple of times I take the opportunity to be alone, and volunteer to go get gelatos for everyone. I wish Italy embraced the coffee to-go thing here, but they don’t. So, I have an espresso while standing up at a counter, hoping the coffee will calm my nerves while knowing it’s doing the opposite.
Finally, we finish our gelatos and get inside the cathedral.
It’s absolutely stunning, and I’m taken by the vast gothic interior, feeling spacious even with all the people in it. It’s surprisingly bare, but it adds to the sense of peace and tranquility inside.
We walk slowly toward one of the many circular stained-glass windows, Vanni and Jana ahead of us. They stop and Vanni points up, excitedly telling his mother something about it. It’s probably a portal to another dimension or something.
I glance at Claudio who is standing right next to me, and he gives me a small yet reassuring smile. Briefly, very briefly, his fingers reach out for mine and we grasp the tips of each other’s hand for a moment, before our hands fall away.
Even from that one instance of my skin against his, I feel my body grow heavy and warm and happy. He’s grounded me.
We spend quite a bit of time inside the cathedral because there is a lot to see, and then we head back to where we were last night, a chance to go inside the Santa Croce church where the game was.
Here, Claudio pays his respects to the tomb of Michelangelo, and I feel his reverence for him, while Vanni lingers at the tomb of Galileo. Fittingly, when we leave the church, he wants to go to the Museo Galileo.
I’m tired on my feet though, so we have lunch first.
And this whole time, the topics of conversation have stayed very easy and neutral. A lot of questions on how I’m liking Italy, but Jana doesn’t touch on how it’s been to live with Claudio and vice versa, nor does she ask what I’ve been doing, or how the book is going.
But I know that’s coming. That’s one of the reasons she’s here.
It isn’t until later, when we’re at a nice restaurant for dinner, eating outside in a quaint alleyway, that Jana turns her sights on me for real.
“So, Grace,” she says over a sip of her wine. “Tell me, how is the book coming along?” She catches the expression on my face because she adds, “You knew this was coming.”