CHAPTER 2
"Brittanyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
Bryan shouted from the vestibule leaning out from the bottom of the stairs, dragging the name as long as he could to let her hear perfectly his voice, this time.
"Sto scendendo!" ("I'm coming down!")
She yelled back but, hearing her, Bryan knew that she still needed some more time to come down and that he would have to wait again: she was clearly brushing her teeth because her voice came out full and dirty while the water ran in the pipes that passed right next to his shoulder into the wall on which he was leaning.
"Mi farai fare tardi anche stamani!" ("I'll be late this morning too, because of you!")
He muttered, raising his voice to be heard. Still it was not late, but he knew that after the teeth the woman had to wash her face, put on her makeup, combing her hair and he wondered if she was already dressed or she was wearing her pajamas yet.
"We are never late! Five minute it's not late!"
"Posso andare con Eleonora in treno? O con mio zio?" ("I can go with Eleonora, by train? Or with my uncle?")
It was not a request, it was a suggestion, but he knew that she wouldn't let someone else drive him, especially his uncle, it was kind of an act of pride not get help from anyone, even if Bryan knew that when he was a boy, many had helped her, especially his family. He had only suggested it to make sure that she would hurry.
"No, no, sto arrivando!" ("No, no, I'm coming!") she said again from the top of the stairs and this time her voice was clear as ever and funny in her strange Italian with that American accent which, even after all these years, it wasn't decreased and softened her "r" and rounded her vowels. "I'm already in the car!"
Bryan looked up the stairs and saw the woman's back as she flew out of her bedroom and ran, wearing only jeans and a bra, to her sitting room. She still had to get dressed. Bryan sighed, taking off the backpack from his shoulders and sat as comfortable as he could on the second step. He rummaged in the backpack's front pocket and pulled out his iPod. The sun was rising, but it was still dark in the house, the front door glass let him glimpse a side of the road illuminated from the orange of street lights still lit. The vestibule was quiet and cold, thick stone walls had kept the heat until it was possible for them, to surrender then ruinous to the cold of the night without heating. The doors facing the vestibule were all closed, the dining room's, the living rooms's and the basement's, only the kitchen's door was open and there was still the smell of the breakfast's milk and coffee that they consumed together just before. Since he could remember, the two had always had breakfast together. In fact there were times Brittany worked till late night and didn't wake up to have breakfast with him the following morning, but every time this happened Brittany set the table for him with all sorts of pastries and biscuits, jams and chocolates and a card with a message that always ended with 'Good morning, amore mio!' ('Good morning, my love!') and for him it was like having breakfast together. Bryan unrolled the headphones rolled around the iPod and stuck them in his ears previously turning attention upstairs and hearing drawers open in a hasty and inelegant manner. He sighed again and, turning on the device, he let the music relax him trying not to think to the resignation that he felt every morning he tried in vain to let his mother out of their house in time.
One day she would turned him crazy. Maybe he was already crazy and didn't realized it. He remembered once, he was about six or seven. It was Sunday and Bryan had an important soccer match: the coach had just promoted him as one of the essential team members and that day was the first time he played; he hadn't to play the whole game, only a few unspecified minutes of the first half of the match, but it was his first match ever played and not watched from the bench. Bryan was thrilled and talked about it and nothing else, since the previous Monday, he had forced his granny to wash and iron his soccer uniform, his grandpa to clean his shoes which were already immaculate, and both his grandparents had driven him to the soccer field. The only thing Brittany had to do was to show up before the whistle blow as soon as she finished work and cheer for him.
But the referee had whistled and she wasn't there, his team had made the first goal and she wasn't there, Bryan had started to play and she wasn't there, he had made his first winning pass and she wasn't there, they had announced the end of the first half of the game and she hadn't arrived yet. Bryan was furious, he was convinced that she had forgotten the most important game of his life, he would never forgive her, he would never again look into her eyes. The tears had started to sting his eyes' corners and his lips had bent in a grimace of disgust and offense, but he hadn't cried, because he was the man of the house and men don't cry. And as he was thinking about what he would do to avenge her absence, here she was walking through the locker room's fire door, running and jumping as if there were coals of fire under her feet, with her shining wonderfully blue eyes and a childish smile that lit up her face.
"You have to come with me Bry!"
She had rushed at him and pulled him by the arm.
"Ora? Dove?" ("Now? Where?")
"You have to come, it's a surprise!"
"No! È la mia partita, non voglio venire con te! No!" (No! It's my match, I don't want to come with you! No!") and then he had whispered, "Non c'eri quando ho giocato…" ("You weren't there when I played...") this time a tear had come out of his eyes, but Bryan had hastened to wipe it with his clenched fist and had sniffed. He had felt the eyes of the other children on him while the anger towards Brittany was growing. It wasn't the first time he had been ashamed of her. Perhaps it was for this reason that he never wanted to speak English in public. He didn't care if his family spoke to him in that language, he didn't want to speak English, he didn't want to seem strange. He had crossed his arms over his chest showing with his body all the feelings he hid inside. But she had knelt down and had forced him to lift his arms, taking his small hands in her giants one and she had looked at him in the eyes.
"I'm sorry honey, I wasn't here for the match. I didn't see you playing, I'm really, truly, deeply, sorry. But there'll be many more matches and I'll be there for all of those. I swear I didn't forget this time, but on my way here I passed in front of the Feltrinelli bookshop and... you have to come with me, trust me it's better than that match, I promise!"
Her eyes were still shining, and his grandfather had appeared at the locker room's fire door and had smiled at him. Bryan knew, as he had always known that he could never say no to that woman, or be angry with her, he loved her more than anything in whole world.
"Yay!"
She had shouted seeing the features of the child soften.
"Change yourself, I'm going to talk to the coach!"
And she had come out trotting again and his granddad had approached him and told him the most real of all things, the one he still repeated in his head every day.
At the end Brittany had brought him to a downtown bar where he had met Elisabetta Dami, the writer of the legendary books of Geronimo Stilton, the journalist mouse, favorite Bryan's books, those he swallowed as if they were water. The writer had just come from a meeting she had with readers in a downtown bookshop and Brittany, he didn't know how, had convinced her to wait and meet a little blond Italian-American boy who had lost the meeting to play five stupid minutes of an important soccer match! He had talked to her and made her a lot of questions about the mouse and suggested her a couple of stories which she could write of one day. The writer had autographed a copy of "Lo strano caso del vulcano puzzifero" he had in his soccer bag (he always carried a book with him) and had given him a Geronimo puppet. So the best day of his life, instead of being ruined, had become even more special and his anger had disappeared completely and his love for Brittany had tripled if this was possible.
His granddad's words bounced in his head, while the slow chords of "The great gig in the sky" vibrated in his ears and his right hand's fingers drummed in time as if he was in front of the black and white of his piano.
"Don't be mad!" his granddad had told him, sitting down next to him in that locker room bench.
"Non sono arrabbiato!" ("I'm not mad!") He had replied, but he was! He was mad, he was angry because he could never say no to her! His grandfather seemed to understand his torment and had continued "We've all been through this, we are always through this, it's her, and she's not easy but she's amazing and you can't help but love her!"
And it was true and still today, that eight years had passed since that day, it was still true, that woman was the strangest, the most annoying, the most nerve-racking, the most lovable, brilliant, amazing mother in the world.
Brittany hopped down the stairs and hit Bryan with the outside of his left foot. The boy awoke from his trance of memories and music. And he looked up at the woman as she continued her descent and rushed to the front door making persistent signs with her hand inviting him to get up the stairs. He took off his headphones to hear a "What are you doing sitting there, move! You're always late!" get out of his mother's amused mouth, who was as usual making fun of him. Brittany laughed and opened the door, letting in the the bitter cold of a December morning in the vestibule. Brittany tightened her jacket and hid her chin and lips in the fuchsia scarf wrapped around her neck. Long blond hair hung down over her shoulders and the wind moved them in shivering waves. She hurried to cover her head with one of her ridiculous hats, handmade by Prudenzia, the old woman who lived down the street, orange with a green duck embroidered on the left side. Bryan rolled his eyes pulling his butt from the pavement and walked over to his mother. "That hat is ridiculous!" he said looking out of the corner of his eyes as he passed her and walked out the door, clutching himself in the shoulders to ward off the cold. "Shut up BoringBoy!" his mother chuckled closing the door behind them and with a stroke she overtook his son and slipped into the car. She blew the horn to warn the boy that it was late and he had to move, but then she remembered it was only six fiftyfour in the morning and that their neighbors would not have enjoyed her continuing to make all that noise, especially Luciana, she would surely make her pay it to her in some way. Brittany laughed thinking about her friend. Bryan finally went into the car and stuck to the seat, pushing back the iPod headphones in his ears.
"No, honey, rules are rules, no alone music in the car!"
Bryan snorted and before her mother's fingers reached his headphones' wires, he quickly took off them by himself and turned on the car's radio. Brittany smiled at her teenage child who pretended, like every morning, not to enjoy her presence. She started the car and left the driveway entering the main road. The winter had arrived, she felt it in her bones and saw it in the nature that turned around her. She loved this place from the first day she had set foot and she got to know it and feel it hers over the years. It was not easy at first, it was all so strange there: people, nature, houses, quite different from what she had ever seen. She had to get used to the noise of tractors going up to the vineyards at dawn, to women's voices who spoke at each other screaming from the windows, to the always open doors and to the pleasant intrusion of neighbors at any time of the day, to the roast chicken's smell on Sunday morning, to the taste of olive oil and wine, to the winter snow and the sweltering heat of summer, to the endless sky that could be seen from the highest point of the hill, to the sun that went down in front of her bedroom's window lighting the hills every night in a different way, to the rotation of crops, to the yellow sunflowers. Now she loved all of this with an almost maternal devotion and she felt lucky and blessed.
"What are we doing tonight?"
She asked as the hill found its end and the road led into the state road following the mild curves of the Arno Valley's plain. The car now was warm and Bryan opened his jacket and took off the hat from his mother's head.
"Nothing mom it's Tuesday! I've got school tomorrow, you know! "
"BoringBoy!"
Brittany pout and for a moment she lost the joy that everyday traveled her veins' lines.
"Do not call me that!" Bryan scolded her.
"You called me Brittany!" She turned, glancing to challenge the boy.
"It's your name..." Bryan took up the challenge grinning in his mother's direction.
Bryan knew that she didn't like being called by name: she was his mother and wanted to be called "mom" like all mothers of this world want, but when he was little he started call her Brittany whenever he was upset with her, in the tone in which his grandparents came to her whenever she did something foolish. And so he continued to do that and when he was upset with her, he called her Brittany.
"Movie and hamburgers on the couch?" Bryan looked at her, trying to think of what he had to do that night. He had just started the day and didn't want to think already at its end. Wednesday morning, history test. He would spend the afternoon studying, perhaps a little distraction with his mom would be good. But he took some time to answer so Brittany pushed on "Come on honey you pass all weekends with your friends and your girlfriend, you have no more time for me!" The woman emphasized the word "girlfriend" conscious of the reaction that would lead to the child and hence chuckled and raised her eyebrows finishing the sentence.
"Eleonora's not my girlfriend! How many time do I have to remind you!"
Brittany crossed the toll-booth slowing "I know Bry! I like joking, you know!" And leaned smacking a kiss on his child's head who gladly accepted it. "...and sure she's not your girlfriend, it's me your only love! And you'll never love someone else like you love me!" and laughed heartily.
"Mom it's a really bad thing to tell to your teen son!" Bryan wrinkled his nose.
"I know!" She said between laughter and Bryan immediately mimic her and the car was filled with their cackles.
They remained a bit in silence as the sound of laughter was still ringing in their ears. The highway ran fast and even Brittany with her, overtaking the trucks that populated it in abundance at that time of morning.
When the road sign pointed to the exit "Firenze Sud" Brittany entered the deceleration lane and then left the highway.
Florence was still dozing. Not the cars; the roads entering the city swarmed with vehicles of all sizes and colors running or parked next to the sidewalk in a noisy and smelly carnival, but if you looked over, across the street, shops were still closed and shutters were half open to pass the parcels of daily supplies and stevedores and shopkeepers were standing side by side in a weary silence, giving themselves glances of complicity and understanding.
There were mothers with hands clasped on their children's, lost in the memory of some dream just experienced, who pulled them to the nearby school. There were machines that cleaned the streets and builders on construction sites with a thermos of coffee in one hand and small plastic cups in the other who delayed the inevitable start of work.
Brittany stopped at a traffic light.
"Oh oh, listen!"
On the radio they were passing a song by Elisa. Brittany loved that singer, she was one of the few Italian singer who sang in English and it made her fell somehow understood, like her that singer was a bit here and a little there.
"And I'm lost like a bottle that floats in the sea for ever/Will somebody pick up my hope? /Will somebody try? /Will I realize?"
Bryan looked at his mother as she sang not only with her voice, but with her whole body, moving her shoulders, waving her head to the music and as they were stopped at traffic lights she kept her hands clasped in a fist in front of her mouth simulating a microphone with her eyes closed. Every time he saw her mother surrendering to the music like that, singing, and dancing above all, Bryan could feel the grandeur of her energy. His mother was energizing, she was like a glass of water after a climb. But when she sang she always kept her eyes closed, as a reflex, and Bryan was convinced that she did it to hide her eyes. Sometimes he felt stupid thinking this, he didn't have an explanation, but it seemed to him that when she sang her eyes turned darker, deeper and nostalgic.
The horn of the car behind them signaled to Brittany that the light had turned green and the queue had started to move and so did she but stopped after a few meters because it was red again.
"Come on Bry sing with me, you liked this song, we always sang it when you were a child!"
And Bryan started to sing followed by a surprised Brittany who didn't believe her son wanted to sing along with her.
"'cause it's broken broken/ Something got broken like stolen/Stolen, like if it was stolen/ And hurting, hurting/I have been hurting and now /Only time will tell/Time will heal"
The music flowed and even cars next to her followed their course in the opposite direction and it was a moment, a car stood next to her window to let a woman with a stroller cross the road. There was a little girl in that car's back seat, dark eyes, olive skin, stuck to the rear window, dark eyes, she was smiling to her and when she saw that Brittany was looking her, she pressed her lips to the glass and blew letting puff up her cheeks. Brittany laughed and stared into her dark eyes. Her heart did a strange jump in her chest, she could have sworn that those dark eyes… but the car drove off and Bryan called out "Mom you're not singing!"
The lights snapped back to green and Brittany started to drive the car and resumed to sing with the image of those dark eyes in her head that faded slowly as the city gulped her down its routine. "Still I can get back on my feet and walk on / As I know there was something to learn / I know there will always be more worth moving on for / Though, it's broken broken / Something got broken like stolen / Stolen, like if it was stolen / And hurting hurting / I have been hurting and now / Only time will tell…"
When they arrived in front of the Music High School the image of that dark eyed little girl was already lost in her memories. Bryan opened the door and waved his classmate who was waiting him at the school's entrance gate. Before leaving he turned to his mother. "So movie and hamburgers on the couch, tonight?"
Brittany explode a pure happiness smile and nodded vehemently. "See you later BoringBoy!" and threw him a kiss while Bryan got out and slammed the door and greeted her from outside with a "Ciao Brittany!" put out his tongue and when he turned his head, his mother no longer existed, there were only his friends and teachers and Eleonora who meanwhile had joined his classmate and was waiting for him in front of the gate.
Brittany gave a last look at the boy. He had really grown. Sometimes it didn't seem possible to her that he was already fourteen. She was a child when he was born. Or at least it was how she felt at that time. Her parents' reproaches were not enough, the move was not enough, the pregnancy was not enough to make her grow, but then Bryan came. She had given birth alone, those days she had again fought with her parents, she had created her son in another continent, in a place she still didn't feel hers, with even vivid and sharp images of her former life, the life which she would never come back to, she had become a mother in the uncertainty of her future, and in that moment, when she had held him in her arms for the first time, that future which she had never thought to, which she had never given importance to, had become the only thing she could think of. At that right moment she had become important because from then on she would have had to teach to that little human being how to live. She had cried that day, she had wept until she had no more tears, letting them streaming down her cheeks and some in her child's head. That day she had said goodbye to the naive little girl she was before. She would have been better. She had promised it to the future who was whimpering and looking at her without really seeing her. She would have been better for him and for herself.
She took the second exit off the traffic circle and swung in the car park. She glanced at the clock making sure not to be too late and realized that it was not late at all. Hidden by the trees she saw the children's hospital's light sea green and she felt at home. She parked and walked quickly towards the entrance cordially greeting each person she recognized passing by: patients, doctors, nurses, family members.
Sitting on one of the entrance's colorful chairs Roy was waiting for her pretending disappointment for her not delay. Brittany approached him quickly, the sun was strong that morning and came in through the entrance's glass walls warming people passing by or stood waiting with heat and joy. Roy was already in his white coat that was not white at all, this morning he was wearing the red one with a bunch of yellow and green balloons printed on the back.
"Good morning, Dr. Patrice, ready for the new arrivals?"
"Sei in ritardo anche stamani Brie! E stai parlando in inglese!" ("You're late this morning Brie, as always! And you're speaking in English!")
Roy stood up and put his right hand on Brittany's lower back pushing her to the bar. Brittany loved his friend's French accent and, above all, the French "r" he pronounced in her name. They have known each other for twelve years, he had helped her to learn Italian, a Frenchman who teaches Italian to an American, this thing had always made her laugh, but he had lived in Italy practically for all his life.
"It's not true and you know it!" Brittany giggled seeing the man reciprocated it with a resigned smile on his face. "Sorry, still English!" she muttered to herself and then in an almost perfect Italian "Stamani offri te!" ("You buy this morning!") she approached the counter asking the bartender two espressos. Roy followed her and paid for the coffees muttering that he always had to pay. Brittany laughed 'cause she knew it wasn't really a problem for Roy to buy morning espresso and early afternoon espresso too. It was so, had always been so, since they started working together.
She soon learned the ritual of coffee, in Italy was almost like a religion, the morning one was the most important, it enter into your bowels, in every vein of your body and wakes you up from the night slumber. The after lunch one washes away the taste of the food. These two were those that Brittany gave herself, but Roy could drink as many as six espresso in one day, and even more when he worked the night shift.
With their cups in hand, they sat down at the table and Roy pulled out the list of little long-term patients who had arrived in the last fourteen days in the Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery Department. 19 children in all. Few of these names were highlighted in yellow. Brittany gave an absent-minded look at the list as she opened the bag of sugar and poured it into the cup entirely.
"How many do you have today?" Roy raised an eyebrow and looked at her "Sorry again! Quanti ne hai oggi?"
"Soltanto 3!" ("Just 3!") Roy replied ironically passing a hand in his forehead "Grazie al cielo! Lo sai che non mi piace affatto parlare con i genitori, sono un chirurgo, sono bravo con le mani, non con le parole! Oh, e poi due di questi sono stranieri!" ("Thank goodness! You know I do not like to talk to parents, I'm a surgeon, I'm good with my hands, not with words! Oh, and then two of them are foreigners!") He slid a finger looking for the three children's names hospitalized on this day by checking their provenance.
"Uno è spagnolo, l'altra Americana. Ah già, come se non bastasse, la bambina americana è figlia di un qualche musicista di una famosa band, non poteva essere peggio di così!" ("One is Spanish, the other American. Oh yeah, as if that were not enough, the American girl is the daughter of some famous musician in a famous band, it couldn't be worse than that!")
Brittany raised her eyebrows and smiled to his friend, "Perchè?" ("Why?") she asked. It wasn't the first time Roy complained of VIP's children.
"Perché le persone famose sono le peggiori, pretendono un sacco di stupide cose e credono che solo i loro figli siano importanti in questo mondo e si aspettano che i loro figli vengano prima di tutti gli altri!" ("Because famous people are the worst, they pretend a lot of stupid things and believe that only their children are important in this world and expect us to take care of their children before everyone else!")
Brittany shook amused her head, as she spun the spoon inside the cup melting sugar and having fun from the ringing of the spoon tapping in the ceramic, Bryan hated it when she did it. "Vuoi andare te a parlare con loro? Alcuni sono anche americani, di sicuro loro capirebbero meglio te di me col mio franco-italo-inglese!" ("You want to go talk to them? Some are even Americans, for sure they understand you better than me with my French-Italian-English!")
"Oh no no no!" Brittany raised both index and shook them in front of his face, "Io lavoro solo con i bambini, niente adulti!" ("I only work with the kids, no adults!")
"Perché sei diventata rossa?" ("Why you're blushing?")
Brittany, visibly blushing, covered her cheeks with her hands and laughed with him at her inability to deal with adults. Then she took the cup of espresso, spun another couple of times and drank the contents in two gulps. The liquid came down powerful and velvety into her stomach and a line of it streamed in her lower lip; Brittany slipped it between her teeth and licked cleaning it. "Dunque come al solito, veniamo a prendere i bambini e li portiamo qui. Immagino che tu non ci sarai oggi?" ("So as usual, we come to pick up the kids and bring them here. I guess you will not be there today?") she let escape a laugh winking to her friend. "No, mentre voi sarete qui a divertirvi, io mostrerò le mie innate doti linguistiche ai genitori dei nuovi ricoverati!" ("No, while you have fun here, I'll show my innate language skills to new hospitalized's parents!") He shook his head, drank his coffee in one gulp and stood up, taking Brittany's arm and pulling her up with him. "Andiamo va!" ("Come on!")
The two walked to the nearby elevator that would take them to the cardiology department.
"Gli altri sono già arrivati?" ("The others have already arrived?") He asked.
"Si, Sara mi ha appena mandato un messaggio dicendomi che sono già tutti pronti e che io sono in ritardo come al solito!" ("Yes, Sara has just sent me a text telling me that they all are ready and I'm late as usual!")
Roy laughed as Brittany stuck out her tongue and hugged him resting her head on his shoulders and hooking her right arm to his waist. Roy put his left arm around her shoulders in the intimacy of an embrace.
A/N The song: Elisa "Broken"