He heard a giggle behind him and turned to see Stella, the mayor’s wife. He was surprised, the laugh had been unexpectedly girlish from this staid housewife. Then again, she didn’t look like a staid housewife. She’d exchanged her usual navy polyester smock for a fitted, patterned dress in vivid colors. And she was engaged in eager conversation with Vale, the town handyman.
They passed, their whispered conversation peppered with chuckles, and Luciano was fairly certain that they trailed the scent of perfume.
He smiled to himself, watching them drift up the street as he finished his pizza.
Luciano wanted to follow them, to take the long way home and perhaps check on Bea’s chickens.
But the roar of wine was too loud to resist.
Luciano turned into the alimentari. One glass at dinner. Only one glass. He’d done so well today, after all. He needed the wine to beat away the shadows that were sure to come at night.
Even days after the accident, Chiara noticed that Edo still winced at the sound of the register. He walked gingerly, like a dog waiting to be thwacked on the snout with a rolled up giornale. She kept hoping he’d say something, but his attempt at conversation had been limited to periodically asking if the new credit card machine was causing any problems. It wasn’t at all. Mostly because no one paid her with anything other than euro coins.
When Bea and Ava left the bar, pausing to talk to Elisa on her way to the park with Carosello at her side, Chiara took a breath. Before she could say anything, Edo turned and said, “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you hoped for you when you took me in. I understand if you need me to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I don’t know. Get another job, another apartment. I didn’t show up for work, you had to close the bar and get me from the side of the road, you had to arrange to have my car towed. I have no idea when I’ll have enough money to pay you back. I blew it. I know I blew it.”
“Edo . . .”
“No, I get it. I wouldn’t want me around either.”
“Edo! Seriously, what’s with all the self-flagellation? Yes, the accident was terrible, and avoidable. But wearing a hair shirt now is hardly going to change that.”
He hung his head and repeated, “I blew it.”
“Yes, you did.”
Edo’s wounded eyes met hers. Chiara added, “You did, Edo. No use pretending otherwise.”
“I know! I know.”
“The question is, Edo, why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, it’s not my job to push you, but I think you can do better than that. I think you deserve better than that.”
Edo turned and began dropping spoons in the canister.
“Edo?”
“Yes, I heard you. I’m thinking.” He turned back. “I don’t know. When I party . . . all my walls come down. I feel part of something.”
Chiara frowned, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it. I just . . . I feel like me. Not like . . . this.”
“Edo.”
“No, I get it, Chiara, I do. That’s on me, too. Sometimes I just feel a million miles from everything. Separate. Different. Going to clubs, with the music, and the, well the drinking, and, and—”
“Drugs,” Chiara prompted.
Edo looked at her with surprise. “You knew?”
“I figured.”
“I didn’t—”
“I’m not that oblivious, Edo.”
“I know, it’s just hard to say even to myself. Anyway, you wouldn’t get it. You fit in everywhere.”
“Ha!”
“What?”
“You heard me. That’s ridiculous. What gives you the idea that I fit in everywhere?”
“But . . . well, because I see you. Everyone loves you. You can talk to anyone. I’m not like that. I never was.”
“Edo, I hate to shatter your illusions, but I hardly fit in. Look at me. Look at my life.”
“But you’ve gotten past all that.”
“Maybe I’m just better at pretending.”
Edo rubbed the pile on his towel back and forth while he mulled over her words.
Chiara added, “And maybe I’ve realized that we’re all pretending. Just a bit. So I don’t know, I accept people. Life can be rotten, the best we can do is hold each other up when the weight of that pushes us down. In that way, I guess I figure we all sort of fit in.”
Edo scratched his cheek. “Does this mean you forgive me?”
“I do. But I think the important piece is that you need to forgive yourself.”
Edo face twisted in confusion. “For crashing the car?”
Chiara stroked her nephew’s cheek and sought something in his eyes, “For whatever it is that’s haunting you.”
“Ciao, Elisa!”
“Ciao, Fatima! Come va?”
“Good, thanks. Are you hungry?”
“I just ate,” Elisa lied. Her brothers were gone all day at a soccer game, so there had been no reason for her mother to leave her bedroom to restock their bare cupboards. Elisa wasn’t worried about being hungry so much as dreading the eruption that was likely to take place if her father came home to nothing to eat.
Fatima chewed on her lower lip as she regarded Elisa. “Well, I’m starving, I’m going to get a piece of pizza at the rosticceria. Will you share it with me?”
“Sure!”
Fatima linked arms with Elisa, and they walked from the park to the shop. The smell of browning cheese filled Elisa, and she stopped to breathe it in. Fatima tugged on her arm, “What kind? I usually get the potato kind, with rosmarino.”
“Okay.” Elisa gazed off beyond the walls.
“Elisa? Where’d you go?”
“I
