Things Impossible - Susan Fanetti Page 0,136
Sometimes they sat beside the lake and remembered. Always, they felt it nearby.
“I didn’t come to call you for movies,” Lia said. “Mamma and the kids are still making snacks. I wanted to give you something.” Even as she said it, her arms squeezed more tightly around the thing she had clasped to her chest.
Papa smiled as his eyes shifted from hers to the slim binder in her arms. “What is it?”
“Just something I’ve been writing. It started out as a journal, and then it became a play, and now it’s … I don’t know. A short story, maybe? Or a novella?” It was more like a memoir, but all of the names had been changed, to protect the innocent and the guilty and those who felt like they were. She’d always known it would never be anything she could publish or stage or show beyond the borders of her family, and that was fine. Its purpose wasn’t in publication.
Over the long months since she’d started writing, this thing had taken on many different shapes, but it had always been the same thing at its heart: her truth about this family. Who they were, what they wanted, what they’d lost, what they had.
At that heart stood her father, always. In good and bad, weakness and strength, happiness and sorrow, they were the family he had made. Papa called Mamma his sun, and no doubt that was true for him. But for the family itself, he was the sun. The center of their universe, around which they all orbited.
Once, Alex had asked her what it was like to be her, a Pagano, the daughter of the don. She’d told him it was easy, and hard, and just her life. It was the best answer she’d had, because, while she sometimes felt obsessed with her family and how much or little she mattered in it, she’d never really thought about what her family was, what being a part of it meant.
Inside this binder was the result of her journey to understand—a journey she’d taken only because her sister had been killed and she’d been flailing, trying to catch onto something that would keep her afloat.
What she’d caught was this.
She held the binder out. Now that she was offering to her father to read, she felt silly having printed out a title sheet to slide under the clear plastic on the front cover. The whole thing felt silly now, in fact, and when he reached for it, she almost pulled it back. No one had read this, not even Alex, though she’d talked to him about many of the things she’d written about.
Her father took the binder from her and read the title. “’There Was Only Ever One.’” His eyes came up to hers. “One what?”
She’d kind of hoped he’d guess it right off the bat, but it was okay that he hadn’t. “You’ll have to read it to know. But not now—wait until after we leave tomorrow, okay? Promise me you won’t even open the cover until after we leave.”
With an indulgent look, he slid open a drawer in his desk and set the binder inside. “There. I won’t open it until tomorrow evening. Good enough?”
“Perfect. Thank you, Papa. You’ll be the first person who’s ever read it, besides me.”
“Really? That’s an honor, thank you. Do you want notes? Is this something you want to try to get published? I can call your Uncle Theo—”
“No, Papa. It’s not like that. It’s just for us. First it was for me, and now it’s for you. That’s it. Maybe Mamma, too, if you read it and think she’d want to.”
“Of course she’ll want to, gattina.”
She thought her mother probably would, but there was some raw stuff in there maybe Mamma wasn’t ready to experience again, through Lia’s eyes. Papa, she knew, could take it. “Read it first. Then, if you think so, give it to Mamma.”
He considered the binder sitting in the open drawer before he looked up at her again. “You’re being very cryptic, Lia. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is good, Papa. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. What did I do?”
“Be my father. I’m lucky. This is a good family, and I love you.”
Her father stood then and came around from behind his desk. When he opened his arms, Lia slipped into that familiar, warm, beloved embrace.
“I love you, Lia. More than I could ever say.”
He didn’t have to say. His love was all around her.
~oOo~
The next day, the whole family, including Alex’s mom, moved them to Providence. Rather than the little studio Lia had briefly had—and loved—her parents bought a one-bedroom apartment in a cute old building still in the College Hill area but a couple blocks farther from campus.
Lia was well aware how privileged she was, to have parents send her to a pricey Ivy League school and buy her an apartment to live in with her boyfriend. In the spectrum of students at Brown she wasn’t all that unusual in financial terms, but she understood how skewed that scale was. She was lucky, and she knew it.
The building was old, but the apartments were recently remodeled. Alex goggled at the modern kitchen and the gleaming wood floors, the bay windows in their living room and bedroom, and the huge walk-in shower in the bathroom.
They pushed their family out after lunch. There wasn’t much unpacking to do—movers had brought the furniture and most of the boxes a few days earlier, and Lia, Alex, and their moms had spent the day after that hanging things on the walls and arranging things on the shelves. All they had now, really, was closets and drawers to fill.
Alex went to the bay window in the living room. They’d made a cute study nook there, with two identical desks facing each other, framed by the tall, paned windows. He looked down at the street, and Lia knew he was watching their family drive away. She went to him and slid her hand in his and watched as the small caravan of their family pulled onto the street.
Again, Lia had that momentous feeling. They weren’t far from home at all, people made this trip for a daily commute, they could go home for dinner and be back in time to study, yet it felt as if she were leaving something behind.
All at once, she realized what it was. This—this little apartment her parents had paid for, among all the things they’d bought for her and Alex—this was her first home of her own. Not the dorm her first year, or the studio she’d been called away from. But this apartment, right here.
It had nothing to do with who’d paid for it, or how far from the Cove she was. It had nothing—or, not much—to do with whom she was living with. It was her, how she felt, that made this her first home of her own. The dorm, the studio, they’d been annexes of the house in Quiet Cove, because she hadn’t felt distinct, not from or family or in her family, or even in the world. She’d tried to be what other people wanted, tried to make herself small, to stay out of the way.
She’d never claimed anything of her own, or of herself. Even her acting was a way to disappear.
Comprehension sent a thrill up her spine, and she shivered. Attuned to her as ever, Alex turned to her.
He was the first thing she’d claimed for herself. The most important thing.
This little apartment they shared was the place Lia would start her life.
The life she wanted, with the man she wanted with her.
In the past year, so much had been lost, so many things had seemed impossible. But here they were, hand in hand. Alex had this great new chance to chase his dreams, and so did she. All the things, every one of them, that had happened in their lives had brought them here, to this place, at this time, together.
They would build something new, and it would be theirs.
Maybe it would be in the Cove.
Or maybe it wouldn’t.
It wouldn’t be easy, or without pain. No life lived fully could be. But it would be theirs, and it would be wonderful.
“Are you cold, babe?” Alex asked, pulling Lia into his arms.
“No,” she said and held him close. “I’m happy.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Fanetti is a Midwestern native transplanted to Northern California, where she lives with her husband, youngest son, and assorted cats.
Susan’s website: www.susanfanetti.com
Susan’s Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/authorsusanfanetti
‘Susan’s FANetties’ reader group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/871235502925756/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susan_fanetti/
Twitter: @sfanetti
Pagano Brothers Pinterest Board: https://www.pinterest.com/laughingwarrior/the-pagano-brothers-series/