“My mother,” I grumble, sitting back down on the stool and going through my makeshift lesson planner.
“Is she not very nice?”
I shrug. “She can be. But she can also be very annoying.” I look over at her, suddenly wary about talking about mothers.
She climbs onto the seat next to me. “Sometimes my mama and I would fight.”
“It’s very normal for girls and boys to fight with their parents,” I tell her.
She nods, suddenly looking very small. “Yes.”
“What did you fight about?”
She sits there and her bottom lip starts to quiver. I freeze, unsure of what to do. Then she cries out, “I don’t remember.” Big fat tears spill down her face and she looks at me. “I don’t remember what we fought about. Sometimes I don’t remember my mama.” She sobs. “I’m afraid I’ll forget her.”
“Oh, sweetie,” I say to her and pull her into me, hugging her tightly. Tears well up in my own eyes. “You’ll never forget your mother. I promise you, you won’t.”
She wails something in Italian and I hold her closer. “It’s okay, you can cry,” I tell her over and over and it works. She cries. She cries for a long time, until the front of my T-shirt is soaked with tears.
Eventually, though, her tears dry up. I clean her face, kiss her forehead, and then give her a nice bowl of homemade pistachio gelato.
After that she seems almost lighter, like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders. She has a few bites then asks if she can put a few licks outside for Nero. I let her.
Meanwhile, my own heart feels heavier.
* * *
Derio gets back from his motorbike ride around noon but says he wants to do some work in the study. He has a very impassioned look in his eye and twitchy fingers and I know there is some kind of creative urge flowing through him that I shouldn’t stand in the way of.
I decide to take Alfonso and Annabella into town. Annabella is more subdued but Alfonso is getting a bit hyperactive from being in the house, so I promise to take them to ride the funicular, which isn’t much fun as an adult but apparently a lot of fun for a child.
I immediately regret my decision. Since it’s mid-August now, the island is at capacity and everyone from the tourists to the locals are sweaty and irritable. We are shoved along the overcrowded streets of Capri town, pushed through the Piazzetta, and crammed into the funicular with a bunch of angry, smelly people.
When the car eventually unloads, the throngs of people make it hard to keep hold of the kids. Eventually, I have to let go of Alfonso and Annabella, though I keep them in my line of sight.
“Annabella, Alfonso, stay close,” I tell them.
But there is a new crowd coming in and soon I find myself out by the marina and the kids are nowhere in sight.
Oh shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“Annabella!” I yell. “Alfonso!” I whirl around wildly, scanning the crowd to find them. I don’t see them anywhere. I just see person after person, faceless, nameless people, and none of them are the twins.
Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God.
I can’t lose them like this. They have to be somewhere.
I quickly run through the crowd, trying to push people aside. I make my way to the marina’s edge as more people pile off the ferries, dragging suitcases. I move along the edge and cross the road to the Bar Grotta Azzurra and take the stairs that lead up to a higher part of the road. I stop halfway and use the vantage point to look everywhere.
There are no children. Alfonso was wearing a blue shirt and Annabella was in a red-and-yellow dress. They would stand out in this sea of people but they aren’t there at all.
I yell for them again, not caring if people are looking at me like I’m crazy. I am crazy. I’m losing my mind. How can they just disappear? Where could they go? Don’t they know to stay in one place, to look for me?
Oh my God—the thought strikes my heart like lightning— what if someone took them? Can you kidnap people on Capri? Maybe if the next ferry is leaving soon.
I jog down the stairs and start sprinting to the crowd and onto the concrete jetty that leads to the ferries. I make no apologies for nearly bowling over couples and the elderly alike. I run to the ferry ramps and try to ask the attendants if they’ve seen two children. I hope I describe them well enough, switching between Italian and English.
They tell me they haven’t. They’re very understanding, trying to calm me down, but can’t help me as they take the tickets. They tell me that they will help me look for them after the ferry pulls away. I’m grateful to them but I can’t sit around and wait as person after person comes to board the ship.
I take off back down the jetty, looking everywhere. By now my heart feels like it’s on its last legs and I can barely even breathe. The pins and needles of a panic attack are sneaking up on me. I have no choice but to call Derio, but he’s going to kill me for losing them.
“Derio,” I cry out into the phone. “Please, I’m at Marina Grande. I lost the twins, I can’t find them.”
“I’ll leave now,” he says. That’s it. I stagger back over to the steps where I was earlier, which I figure is the best spot to see them or him, and try and catch my breath. The world pulses around me, gray fringing the corner of my vision. I’m panicking, trying to keep myself together, but I can barely keep my heart in my rib cage, my lungs in my chest.
I lost them. Did I lose them?
They’re gone. Are they gone?