CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
True to my mother’s words, my father does call me. Again and again. I don’t pick up, though. I can’t afford to hear his voice now, not after what happened a few days ago, when I lost the twins.
You’d think I’d just get over it. So I lost them. It ended well. It’s not a big deal. Time to move on.
But I can’t move on. I can’t get it out of my head. To be honest, I think it’s making me a little bit mental. When I go out with the twins into the town, I freeze up. I either make sure Derio comes with me or I keep a crazy grip on their hands, barking at them like a freaked-out seal if they even stray an inch away from me. The twins are starting to think I’m a bit overbearing and overprotective but I feel like I can’t afford not to be anymore.
Losing them, however briefly, has frightened the life out of me and it’s becoming harder and harder to let it go. It’s like I lost one fear and replaced it with another.
Not that all my fears have been replaced. There is the fear of losing Derio, which looms greater now than ever. Next week will be my last chance to leave the country before I become an illegal alien. Derio says he’s still looking into it but he hasn’t come up with anything yet. On my end, it doesn’t look good either.
I did go out for drinks with Shay one night, after I randomly ran into her on the street. It was nice to be able to take a load off and have some girl time while Derio watched the kids but it didn’t take long before she was crying her eyes out on my shoulder. It turns out that she and her boyfriend broke up the other night and she was trying to decide what to do. He was going back to the States but she could either stay in Italy and risk getting deported if she was found out, or go to a country outside Schengen law, like the Ukraine or Romania or the UK, for three months and then pop back in when the visa had reset itself. The last thing she wanted to do was go home, which put her in the same boat as me.
Unfortunately, the only solution that she had for me was to just stay as long as I wanted and then take my chances—just like she would be—when it came time to leave and hope the Italian officials wouldn’t care or notice when I came into the EU. With the date coming up so soon, it looks like I’m not really going to have a choice in this matter.
A part of me, though—the part that listens to my parents—tells me to do the responsible thing and just leave before I’m forced to. In some ways, I’m kind of kidding myself if I think I can stay on Capri and play house with Derio forever. The fact remains that they aren’t my children, and I’m not qualified to raise them or be anything more to them than a glorified babysitter. I’m not married or engaged to Derio and I don’t belong in Italy. I’m an American and can’t stay here forever. Eventually, something will have to give.
But so far, the responsible part of me isn’t winning. Though it wants to do the right thing and go back home and make plans for a future that makes sense to me, I manage to push it away. And when I look at Derio, when he whispers sweet Italian nothings in my ear and makes love to me on our moon-splashed bed, all I can think about is how lucky I am to have him and how terrible it would be to leave.
I would break my own damn heart.
“La mia leonessa è pensierosa,” Derio says to me as he brings my iced latte to the patio table. He places it down in front of me then brings my head close to him and kisses the top of it affectionately.
“I’m just thinking,” I say, taking a sip of the latte. He makes the best kind, with lots of rich milk in a blender with ice and a spoonful of Nutella. I make a happy little sound and smack my lips. It’s perfect on a hot day like today when you’re hot as hell and the energy reserves are running low.
He sits down next to me and I ask, “Where are the kids?”
“Watching some show,” he says. Then he smiles broadly. “I forgot to tell you, Signora DiFabbia called earlier when you were in the shower.”
“Who is Signora DiFabbia?”
“She used to run one of the bookstores and was friends with my mother. She has a daughter, Gia, the same age as Annabella and Alfonso. She was at the cooking event for the children and said Gia would like to be friends with Annabella.”
I sit up straighter. “Really? That’s great!” I pause. “Not for Alfonso, though.”
“Well, she invited the both of them to come over later in the week. I told Alfonso this but he said he would rather not hang out with girls anyway. He says he has some friend that maybe he will call. He is a well-liked kid, he just hangs around Annabella so much so he has never really reached out to others before. This might give him the push he needs.” He sighs to himself. “I hope this does not mean they will want iPhones now.” But he’s smiling as he says this.
“They have iPads,” I point out.
“True, but once kids start texting each other, then you have a problem. When I was younger I didn’t have any of that. If I wanted to play with a friend, I was even lucky to call them. Usually, I had to go bang on their door.”
“So Italy was backwards in the eighties, huh?” I muse.
“Italy is still backwards,” he points out. “But I love it.” He pauses. “Don’t you?”
I nod, taking another delicious sip. “I do.” But not more than I love you, I think.
“Of course, you don’t have too much to compare it to,” he notes, sitting back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head.