down from great-great-great-grand ancestors that your shoe heel doesn’t even click on the marble floors. Echo is immediately absorbed. The tall French doors open onto a huge terrace and front yard where orange trees and concord grapes grow over a pergola. Orange blossom grows in cascades over the stone railings of the terrace, the fragrance hitting you right in the kisser as soon as you enter. I could fall down drunk from that fresh perfume and lulled by the bubble of the fountain every time we enter through that gate, which clicks heavily behind us as we all go inside.
Bud, the golden retriever, has dug holes all over the modest patch of front yard and there’s shit in so many places that have not been cleaned up that I am thinking twice about whether or not I want the kids running around in there with no shoes and no pants, and they always seem to get buck naked within six minutes of arriving anywhere, so I will have to decide quickly. The yard is no longer as charming as it was when I was first here, sitting under the pergola of grapes with Michele, having wine, intoxicated by the scent of honeysuckle, oranges, uva fregola, and each other. We hug and kiss Manuela and Alda hello while Michele’s youngest brother Giulio stands at the periphery of the group, waiting to greet us. He leans forward and offers his cheek to be kissed but not to actually be kissed. This I have also finally learned.
The dining room table is set exactly as always with fresh mozzarella, boiled small zucchini, prosciutto, and melon, cruets of her olive oil and red wine vinegar. There is a pot of pasta water boiling on the old propane stove in the kitchen where Manuela is readying to cook some spaghetti. Bud is running around from room to room and out onto the terrace then back in again, running in and around and over the children, barking with great excitement. Michele yells at Bud and Manuela yells at Michele and within minutes the two of them are fighting about how to discipline the dog. It is one of Michele’s habits to conduct himself as if he is the head of the household in spite of his lack of contribution to it or participation in it year-round. The dog is not his, this house is not his, the daily chores of caring for Giulio as well as caring for Alda who is now eighty-four and starting to fail is not his, and yet within fifteen minutes of entering the house he is scolding the dog and giving Manuela instruction on how to live. This also, is the same as every year. Giovanni, meanwhile, has methodically carried every piece of our heavy luggage from the car up the marble steps and into the foyer of the apartment. He has thrown the ball to Bud a few times, had a small avuncular conversation with Ando, whom Manuela raises alone, and now is seated at the dining room table next to Alda, across from me and the kids, sorting out and portioning her many lunchtime pills.
Oddly, this is where my full isolation sets in: at the dinner table, surrounded by family and good food. Here in the very place and the very moment of the grail I’ve been seeking to recover since my own family evaporated, thirty years ago. Everyone is speaking Italian, which I don’t really speak. My kids are dislocated and shy and so clingy it is impossible to sit at the table for longer than a moment before one or the other or both drag me away from the strange people, the language they don’t quite recognize, the loud and animated quality of the room. Because Michele is deep into reunion with his family, I will be the one who gets up from the table, leaving my plate of food, to attend to the children. The image of the Italian family, dining al fresco around a large table, the children running around in the grape vines or the olive trees, is the most seductive image in the world—a moment that exists in Robert Mondavi vineyard publicity shots in glossy magazines. You are welcome for a plate of spaghetti and a glass of wine—but it is not yours, and it will never belong to you and you will never belong to it.
I spend a lot of time on the terrace with the kids while everyone is inside having lunch