Anything Is Possible(28)

Her daughter looked up at the ceiling—such high ceilings in these Italian apartments—and turned to look briefly toward the window through which the ocean could be seen, then looked back at her mother. Angelina could not stop thinking how old her mother seemed, and small. And weirdly brown. She said, “Mom. Please stop this. Please stop it, Mom. It took my whole year’s savings to fly over here, and I find you in this awful—I’m sorry, but it is—this squalid two-room flat with this guy, your husband, oh God. And he’s almost my age, and we’ve just ignored that fact, what else could we do but ignore that fact? And now you’re eighty years old, Mom.”

“Seventy-eight.” Mary had stopped weeping. “And he’s not your age at all. He’s sixty-two. Come on, honey.”

Angelina said, “Okay, so you’re seventy-eight. But you’ve had a stroke and a heart attack.”

“Oh now please. That was years ago.”

“And now you’re telling me to tell Dad you miss him.”

“I do miss him, honey. I imagine there must be days he misses me too.” Mary’s elbow rested on the arm of the chair; her hand waved the tissue listlessly.

“Mom. You don’t get it, do you? Oh my God, you just don’t get it.” Angelina sat back on the sofa, brought both hands to her head, and pulled her fingers through her hair.

“Please don’t yell, honey. Were you brought up to yell at people?” Her mother tucked the tissue into her large yellow leather pocketbook. “I never felt like I did get anything. No, there were lots of things I didn’t get, I’ll agree with you on that. Please don’t yell at me though, Angelina. Did I just say that?” Mary’s daughter, the youngest of five girls and Mary’s (secret) favorite, was named Angelina because Mary knew during her pregnancy that she was carrying a little angel. Mary sat up straight and looked at the girl, who had been a middle-aged woman for years. Angelina did not look back. From where she sat in the corner chair, Mary could see the sun hitting the steeple of the church, and she let her eyes rest on that.

“Daddy yelled all the time,” Angelina said, looking down at the upholstery of the couch. “You can’t yell at me for yelling, and say I wasn’t brought up that way, when I was—I was brought up with quite a yeller. Daddy was a yeller.”

“Old yeller.” Mary put a hand to her chest. “Honestly, what a sad movie that was. Why, we took you kids to see it, and I think Tammy didn’t sleep for a month. Do you remember they took that poor dog out to the pasture and killed him?”

“They had to, Mom. He was rabid.”

“A rabbit?”

“Rabid. Oh, Mommy, I don’t want you to be making me sad like this.” Angelina closed her eyes briefly, bouncing her hand gently on the couch.

“Of course you don’t,” her mother agreed. “Did you really spend all your savings to get here? Didn’t your father help you at all? Honey, I wasn’t yelling at you for yelling. Let’s go do something fun.”

Angelina said, “Everything in a foreign country seems so hard. And the Italians seem proud of not speaking English. Did you think that when you first came here? That everything seemed so hard?”

Mary nodded. “I did. But a person gets used to things. You know, for weeks if Paolo wasn’t with me I didn’t even try and get my coffee at that place on the corner. They thought I was his mother at first. And then they found out I was his wife and I think they were sort of laughing at us. But Paolo taught me how to pay with my coins on the plate.”

“Mom.”

“What, honey?”

“Oh, Mommy, it makes me sad. That’s all.”

“Not knowing how to put the right coins on a plate?”

“No, Mom. Thinking you were his mother.”

Mary considered this. “Except why would they think I was his mother? I’m American, he’s Italian. They probably didn’t think that.”

“You’re my mother!” Angelina burst out, and this caused Mary to almost weep again, because she had a searing glimpse then of all the damage she must have done, and she, Mary Mumford, had never in her life planned on doing, or wanted to do, any damage to anyone.



They sat by the window in the café past the church; the café was built on rocks that looked out over the water. The late August sun sparkled crazily on everything. In four years, Mary had never stopped being banged on the head with the beauty of this village. But Mary was very anxious; her eldest daughter, Tammy, had emailed her that Angelina was having trouble in her marriage, and Mary had thought she would ask Angelina about this as soon as they were alone; yet she could not seem to do so. She would have to wait for Angelina to bring it up. Mary pointed to a large cruise ship on its way to Genoa, and Angelina nodded. The window they sat by was open, and the door was open. Mary ate her apricot cornetto, then put her hand on Angelina’s arm; she started singing quietly “You Were Always on My Mind,” but Angelina frowned and said, “Are you still wacky about Elvis?”

“I am.” Mary sat up straight, putting her hands in her lap. “Paolo downloaded all his songs for me onto my phone.”

Angelina opened her mouth, then closed it.

From the corner of her eye, Mary noticed once again that age had touched her baby; Angelina’s face had creases by her mouth and by her eyes that Mary had not remembered. Her hair, still pale brown, and still worn below her shoulders, was thinner than Mary had thought it was. And the jeans she wore were so tight! Mary had noticed this right away. “Look, honey,” Mary said, waving a hand toward the sea, “I just love how things are lived outside more in Italy. This open door, the open window.”