One Italian Summer(14)

But after her death it was like something in me shut off. I was numb. Frozen. I couldn’t cry. Not when the hospice nurse declared her gone, not at her funeral, not when I heard my father, a stoic man, wailing in the kitchen below us. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was worried, maybe, that she had taken my heart with her.

Marco does not look surprised or uncomfortable. Instead, he puts a large, warm hand on my shoulder.

“It is hard,” he says.

I wipe my eyes. “What?”

“You have lost the one you were meant to come with, no?”

I think about my mother, radiant and alive, in a visor, white pants, and a loose open linen shirt, straw bag over her shoulder, laughing. I haven’t thought about her this way, so vibrant, in so long. The image nearly startles me.

I nod.

Marco smiles small. He tilts his head to the side. “Positano is a good place to let life return to you.”

I swallow. “I don’t know,” I say.

Marco’s face brightens. “In time,” he says. “In time, you will discover. And in the meantime, enjoy.”

He releases me and looks out over the balcony. The sun is now fully up. Things are light and clear.

“Have a lovely day, Ms. Silver. I suggest a walk to town. Take in the beach and have a lovely lunch at Chez Black.”

I’m startled by his suggestion. It’s the one place I’ve known by name for years.

“The caprese is excellent, and you can watch all the people go by,” he continues.

“Do I need a reservation?”

“For lunch? No. Just walk in and say you’re a guest of Hotel Poseidon. They will take care of you.”

“Thank you, Marco.”

“Pleasure. You need anything else, you ask. No hesitating.”

He leaves, and I head downstairs. I spot a young woman at the front desk. She’s stunning: dark hair, olive skin, probably in her mid-twenties. She has a beautiful turquoise pendant around her neck, held together by a leather chain.

She is helping a couple in their sixties plan a day trip.

“Is a small boat better for seasickness or a ferry?” the man asks.

The woman at the desk gives me a small wave, and I wave back.

I walk outside and am met with cheerful noise. A store across the street sells produce outside. Lemons sit next to plump tomatoes. Two young women spill out, speaking fast and furious Italian. They swig from sweating lemonade glasses.

I put my hat on and start following the sidewalk downward. Tiny Italian cars and Vespas pass, but the road isn’t super busy. When I get a few paces down, I spot a cluster of clothing boutiques. Dresses hand painted with oranges. White linen and lace cover-ups. I finger an ocean-blue slip dress with spaghetti straps and tiered hem.

I keep walking. Viale Pasitea is the main and only road that leads down to the ocean, unless you take the steps. In and around shops and pensiones, hotels and markets, there are staircases leading up into the hills of Positano and down to the sea. Hundreds and hundreds of stairs.

The dome in the center of town belongs to the church, where the bells ring out. Right now they are silent, but as I pass by the square where the Church of Santa Maria Assunta stands I see the ocean. It’s down one short flight of stairs and then a pathway filled with shops. When I get down, there is a clothing stand, then the restaurant, splayed out right in front of the sand.

I move quickly toward it, my heart rate accelerating. It is early, but there are still some customers sitting and smoking. Turquoise chairs are tucked under white-clothed tables. A seashell sign contains the words Chez Black.

“Buongiorno, signora,” a waiter says. He can’t be more than seventeen, with bright green eyes and pockmarked skin. “Can I help you?”

“Just looking,” I say. I can feel my heart in my lungs, the surge of anxiety and excitement, the possibility, the hope.

“Perfetto.” He gestures his arm toward the inside of the restaurant. I scan the tables. I don’t know what I’m hoping to find—some relic she left behind thirty years ago, her name scrawled into the wall, or a message telling me what to do next?

But the restaurant is near empty, the patrons undisturbed. She is not here, of course. Why would she be? She is dead.

I hear the familiar siren of oncoming dread. The sound of a roaring engine before a tsunami. The past forty-eight hours have been a reprieve of this grief, the intensity of her absence. But now I feel it curling back—about to crescendo and sweep me under.

“Excuse me,” I say.

“You eat, miss?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I leave, take up my sandals in my hand, and pace down to the ocean. Some families are already at the small beach, on towels, playing in the sand. Charter boats bob close to the dock where people huddle, waiting for the next ship to Capri, Ravello, the beach club for the day. A woman on the dock trips, and a man catches her. They embrace, their lips meeting. The roaring in my chest gets louder and louder.

At the water’s edge, I sink down. I don’t have a towel, so I sit in the damp sand. I want to call Eric. I miss my mother. I suddenly feel utterly and completely foolish for coming here. What did I expect to happen? Did I think I’d find her, sitting at a table at Chez Black about to order lunch?

I realize what a long way from home I am, how many planes and trains and cars it will take to get back. I’ve never even been on a weekend away by myself, and now I’m alone on the other side of the world.