me, bringing out two bikes from the corner of the house. “I have a bike for you. I hope it will be okay.”
I head over, my shoes crunching on the gravel, and Vanni appears behind Claudio, holding on to the handles of his own bike. Vanni’s bike is a cruiser which is a lot more my speed, but I guess I’ll have to make do with the bigger bike that Claudio thrusts toward me.
“You can manage?” Claudio asks.
I nod, my smile tight.
“Do I really have to wear my helmet?” Vanni complains, holding it in his hands.
“Yes, you know you do,” Claudio says, placing his palm on top of his son’s head. “Your genius brain needs all the protection it can get, si?”
Vanni doesn’t buy it. “Gio doesn’t have to wear one.”
“How do you know? Can you see Gio right now?”
It takes me a moment to realize they’re talking about Vanni’s alter-ego in another dimension.
“I just know these things. I feel them,” Vanni says. But he reluctantly slides the helmet on and sighs. “This is the darkest timeline.”
We get on our bikes. Mine is a little shaky on the gravel, enough that I can’t get my leg around it.
“You sure you’re okay?” Claudio asks me, brows together in concern.
I give him a dismissive wave. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I’ll get on where it’s flat.”
I walk my bike down the driveway to the smoother pavement of the road, trying to hide the shame. I don’t know the last time I went bike riding, but I’m obviously not very comfortable with it anymore. I hope the old adage “it’s like riding a bike” is true.
Once the bike is on the flat road, it’s much easier to swing my leg around and get on. Though the bike wobbles a bit as I try to peddle through and there’s a terrifying moment where I’m sure I’m about to eat shit, I manage to keep myself upright.
“Maybe she should wear the helmet,” Vanni calls out, happily biking ahead of me.
“I’m fine,” I say again, louder.
With my legs slowly pumping I glide past Claudio and give him a shaky smile. “See. Like riding a bike.”
Claudio pulls his aviator sunglasses down over his eyes and smirks. “You’re going the wrong way.”
Right.
Somehow I manage to do a wide circle on the road, wobbling here and there, and then we’re all riding off in the right direction.
The weather is so beautiful, a continuation of that perfect summer day, that I can’t help but beam as I ride, taking my place between Claudio and Vanni as we head down the country road, passing by rolling hills of tawny grass and grapevines, dotted with towering cypress, sprawling farms, and quaint villas.
I catch Claudio looking over his shoulder at me, and my first instinct is to stop smiling, because I feel like a kid. But he looks amused by me, so I decide to keep smiling instead. The grin he gives me back matches my own.
It’s disarming enough that I turn my eyes down to the road in front of me. If I keep staring at Claudio, I’m going to fall in a spectacular fashion.
Why does that feel like a metaphor for something?
Seven
Grace
Using the back roads, it only takes just over half an hour of biking before we see the old city of Lucca rising before us like a massive fortress, just the tops of the buildings showing beyond the towering walls.
“See those walls,” Claudio says, pointing to the brick ramparts. “They have been there since 1650. That’s where we’ll be biking.”
“Up there?” I ask incredulously. They have to be at least thirty feet high.
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room.”
We cross a busy intersection and then head down a gravel path that takes us to an arched gate. I can see glimpses of ochre buildings and narrow cobblestone streets full of people and restaurants, but we’re heading up a path now to the top of the wall.
“And the linden trees are in full bloom right now,” Claudio says as we reach the top and find ourselves on a wide path lined with benches and trees, people biking or pushing strollers past us. “They have the best smell in the world.”
I’m not sure what linden trees smell like. The trees here on the wall look like old chestnut trees, but the view is stupendous, looking over the grass fields just outside the city, and then into the bustling, colorful streets of Lucca on the other side.