I moved home to Villa Farfalla for a few days while Father was dying. Mother hadn’t asked me to, but I knew she would need me—her only daughter—to be there, to witness this momentous shift in all our lives. My two sons were busy with their own families, my husband independent enough to tolerate my absence, so I packed a small bag, drove the several kilometers from our own fattoria, and installed myself in my old bedroom.
The heavy tapestry of the curtains and upholstery were faded with age, the paisley throw at the foot of the four-poster bed limp and threadbare. Years of sunlight had paled the spines of my books and yellowed the framed engravings on the walls. I felt oversize, as if I were trying to squeeze into a dress made for one of my granddaughters. The doorknobs resisted the twist of my hand; the gilded faucets yielded nothing but a rusty trickle of water at first. Had Mother or Rosa begun to neglect even cleaning the bathrooms?
Papa lay in my parents’ bedroom across the hall, unmoving, propped on a mountain of pillows, a light blue silk comforter stretched under thin arms limp at his sides. I thought he was asleep when I approached the bed the first evening, but when I eased myself onto the edge of the mattress, he opened his eyes.
“Giovanna.” His voice was hoarse, labored.
“Hello, Papa.”
He didn’t answer but held me in a sober, watery gaze.
“It’s good to see you, Papa. The boys, all of them, send love.”
He nodded, a barely perceptible gesture, and his eyes closed again. Too late now, we’re too tired—both of us—for any more than that.
“Are you scared, Mama?” I ventured at breakfast, swirling a thin splash of milk into my coffee. Mother and I sat at a small table in the conservatory, warmed by weak sun coming through the glass roof.
“I’m not sure.” She stirred her own coffee in response. “I’ve had so many months to get used to the idea of his dying.” She reached out and adjusted a small narcissus in the bouquet Rosa had placed on the table between us.
“We’re all nearby. We’ll do this together.”
She shrugged, shook her head. I knew what she was thinking: But your lives will go on as if nothing has changed. I’m the one who will be alone.
Later that morning, Father was more alert. I wanted to ask him if he was afraid, but instead I offered, “We’ll all look after Mama, I promise. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I know that, piccola.” At the sound of my childhood nickname, I smiled and took his hand. It was surprisingly warm, his grip steady and firm. How long would it be?
Our dear Rosa was a godsend. Old and stooped now, her hair pulled back in a white chignon, she had had far more experience with the dying than either Mother or I. She had been in attendance at the bedside of her own grandmother, of both her parents and their siblings. Papa, his body wasted from months of an aggressive cancer, had stopped eating or drinking the week before. Rosa kept a small bottle of morphine on a table near Father’s bed, and—at the slightest sign of restlessness or pain on his brow—she would ease a drop or two between his parched lips and under his tongue.
“It won’t be long now,” she said to me. “A few days, maybe. No more.”
The third morning, he had sunk into an even deeper slumber, his head tipped slightly back, his mouth open. Rosa took me aside. “I think,” she said, “if you have anything to say, you should say it now. The hearing, they say, is the last thing to go.”
“How much longer do you think it will be?” I asked.
She reached for my hand. “One never knows for sure, but if he doesn’t wake up at all today, he will probably die tomorrow.”
Tomorrow?...one more day. Then my father will be gone forever. Mother had announced that she was taking a short walk in the garden, so I stepped quietly to the side of his bed. There was a soft armchair pulled up next to it. Had Mother spent much of the night there? Had Rosa given her the same advice? I sat down and took his hand. It was still so warm. I thought I could feel deliberate pressure, as if he knew I was there but didn’t have the strength to acknowledge it any other way.
Copyright © Margaret Wurtele, 2012 Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012
