How was he going to get through this day? He moaned aloud at the image of himself in the bar, with the acrid coffee and cigarette smells, the relentless chatter of the customers, and the infernal binging of the register, and the relentless sound of jackhammers slamming into the piazza’s concrete.
Please, please, start working, he begged the pain reliever.
This wasn’t his first hangover, but he couldn’t remember a worse one.
What was he doing?
This wasn’t living, this was procrastinating.
It scared him that last night was so hazy. He couldn’t remember who he danced with, what chest his fingers lingered over in the dark, who he kissed. There was someone, that he knew. He had a clear memory of lips pressed against his in the darkness, a tongue searching his mouth as the music pounded. But the eyes connected to those lips? The body? It was a mystery. A hollow, scorched-out, iridescent mystery.
The more he tried to remember what happened after the club, the more his memory became pockmarked. A haze of driving home, like a flip book with pages missing. The car crumpled against a wall more solid than anything he ever imagined. The white balloon around his face, the smell of asphalt against his nose, the sudden blackness, the relief at finding his phone in his pocket, his shuddering fingers as he called his aunt.
Chiara.
Oh, God, what would she think of him now? She’d probably kick him out. No good, he was never any good.
He wondered what shape his life would take if he were a worthy person.
It seemed he wasn’t ever to know.
His future wasn’t the wide open door he’d imagined as a child. Rather his unceasing string of tomorrows was rumpled, dingy. The days and years ahead filled with emptiness.
Luciano was out of breath. He tired so easily. It was discouraging, and he had to keep reminding himself that he was able to walk farther today than yesterday, and that had to be worth something. It had been a week or more since Fatima had sat with him as he recovered from his rage in Giovanni’s alimentari. Was it the next day that he had caught sight of himself in the mirror? It must have been the next day, or perhaps the day after. All he really remembered as he pulled himself out of the muck was the sight of his face, his eyes set in ravaged sockets, the lines etching his cheeks into gristly patterns, spittle crusting around his mouth. A monster. He looked like a monster. His wife, his daughter, they would never have recognized him.
He reckoned he must have sat there for fully ten minutes, staring aghast at what he had done to himself, to his life.
To be frank, it was closer to an hour. Time is a blurry thing when one is emerging from a liquor-laced existence.
He leaned back and let the sun warm his face. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the scent of the groves behind him and the fog flowing across the valley, caught in ragged pieces in the clustered trees. He imagined that fog’s journey from sea mist on the Le Marche coast, creeping and mingling with the smoke from snapping fires roasting chestnuts and meat. To land here, in this valley that had seen footsteps of man since the ancient Umbri roamed in search of their next meal. And here he was, a teacher, a man. More than a little flawed, and yet still a part of this divine play, this humanity.
Startled, Luciano noticed that he had followed a complete idea, one thought to another.
He closed his eyes and breathed the fog-laced breeze deep into his lungs. He coughed spastically, then sat tall and tried again. He felt the air fill his ribcage like a balloon, before falling into his legs and swirling around his toes. He smiled.
Stretching, Luciano hoisted himself to standing. Noticing that he was less reliant on his cane, he ambled through the streets of Santa Lucia to the park, hoping to catch a glimpse of his granddaughter. He’d avoided her face for a year. It had been too painful to see that little smile follow her mother’s familiar pathway. But now, the despair was less insistent, heard as if behind a door. Giving him a breath of freedom to seek out those dark curls.
The park was empty, but as he paused, Patrizia passed him holding hands with her little grandson. He watched her settle the boy onto the swing. Her face was pinched with worry as she adjusted his jacket which had bunched around his armpits. From where Luciano stood, the boy’s eyes looked distant, gazing through his grandmother. When the swing began moving his focus cleared. The boy cackled and then laughed.
Patrizia’s shoulders dropped from their position around her ears, and her face relaxed. As Luciano stood beyond the cypress trees, he heard the twining laughter of grandmother and grandson rise into the air. He smiled, glad to witness this moment.
He ambled to the rosticceria and stepped in. How could he have forgotten about the homey smell of cheese melting into a savory tomato sauce? Luciano ran his tongue over his upper lip, deliberating over his choice. Strange to notice his hunger.
Finally he selected a slice with mushrooms and eggplant. The girl, Bea’s granddaughter, he was fairly certain, slipped the pizza into a square of wax paper and handed it to him in exchange for a euro. He walked out of the shop, nibbling a corner of the pizza, wanting to make it last.
Luciano considered returning to the park to eat, but then decided to head back to the center of Santa Lucia.
Passing the alimentari, he heard the footfalls of goblins persuading him to enter this place where there was wine. His mind lurched into a ghost-land inhabited by his
