I’m an idiot. I’m not cut out for this. No one could lose two seven-year-olds on Capri but me. My mother was right to laugh. This is ridiculous. What have I been doing all this time, playing house? I can’t take care of kids. I can’t even take care of myself half the time.
I lost them. Oh God, what if something happens to them?
Derio is going to kill me. I’ve let him down. I’ve let the twins down. I’ve let myself down.
Why did I ever fool myself into thinking I could do this?
The questions, the words, spin around in my head over and over again until I realize I’m not even looking for them anymore. I’m lost in self-pity and I hate myself even more for it.
Suddenly, Derio appears at the bottom of the stairs, looking frazzled, and I can’t help bursting into tears at the sight of him. He quickly runs up to me and pulls me to him.
“Shhh,” he says, patting my head. “It’s okay. It’s going to be fine. Tell me what happened.” He pulls away and holds me at arm’s length, stooping over to peer at me.
I can’t even wipe the snot from my nose. “There were so many people,” I say, trying to breathe, “we got off the train and, and, I lost them. I let go of their hands, there were too many people, and I lost them.”
“Okay,” he says, keeping calm although his voice is shaking slightly. “That helps. They can’t be far.”
I shake my head. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I checked the ferries and they hadn’t seen them. I thought maybe someone kidnapped them.”
“This isn’t America,” he says. “That rarely happens here. They are here somewhere and it’s our job now to find them. Have you contacted the police?”
I shake my head, the tears spilling to the ground. “No, I just called you.”
“You did the right thing,” he says and straightens up, looking around. “We will go and find them together. We will search the marina and the beach and the shops and we will find them. If we don’t we will contact the police and get the island searching for them. They won’t get far.”
I nod and let Derio lead me away from the stairs and down the road that curves back down to the marina. Instead of heading back to where I had been before, he steers us toward the beach where we’ve gone a few times. Like always, it’s packed with people and makes looking for the twins almost as challenging as before. The two of us scour the beach, occasionally calling out their names.
“Not here,” Derio says, taking my hand and holding it tight. “Let’s look the other way now.”
He’s so calm and collected, trying to comfort me of all people, the one who lost his brother and sister, when he’s the one who deserves all the comfort.
We walk past taxis and tourists and cafés and head toward the other part of the marina and the other port where the car and commercial ferries dock.
It’s there that we see two familiar faces.
Alfonso is staring at the cars being loaded onto the ferry, obviously intrigued, but Annabella is scanning the area around us. When she sees us, her face lights up and she starts waving wildly, pulling on Alfonso’s sleeve until he sees us, too.
They run toward us and we run toward them, Annabella running to hug me and Alfonso hugging Derio.
“Oh my God,” I cry, holding on to her and feeling relief overtake my shame, “I am so happy to see you!”
“We were lost!” Alfonso cries out as Derio ruffles his hair with a big grin on his face.
“We thought we saw you,” Annabella says, eyes wide and excited. “But it wasn’t you. I guess I was . . . confused. She had your hair.” She points at my curls. “But it wasn’t you. Then we couldn’t find you.” She looks at Alfonso. “We were going to ask someone for help but Alfonso wanted to look at the ships.”
“I want to be a captain,” Alfonso announces, thankfully oblivious to the horror I just went through.
“I am glad you came,” Annabella says, grabbing on to my hand. “We have no money for the train and I did not want to walk up that hill back home.”
Oh. Well, I guess that should make me feel a little bit better, knowing they could have found their way home anyway.
When we get back to the funicular, Derio has to take his bike since he rode it here. I assure him I’ll be fine with the kids going home—they certainly don’t seem any worse for wear. But as I walk with them through Capri town, grasping them harder than ever, I know I’m not fine at all. Something has changed in me. Whatever confidence I had earned—falsely—over this job has now been shot dead.
Later on in bed, Derio tells me over and over again that it could happen to anyone. That I did a good job and that I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. He tells me that here, people don’t worry so much and that the twins are more capable than I might think. He reminds me that this is Italy, not America, and Capri is a very safe place.
But for all that, I don’t feel it. And when he tries to initiate sex later, for the first time I pull away from him, uninterested. All I can hear in my head as I lie there in the dark is my mother’s laughter over the phone, my dad’s words echoing that I’m useless, helpless. I can’t seem to shake the guilt, nor can I shake that feeling of hanging on the edge. Something could have gone horribly wrong today and it was only by luck that it didn’t. I walked a tightrope with people’s lives and I didn’t even know it.
I dream again that I am falling.