One Italian Summer(53)

Carol peers inside the mug. “Two peppermint,” she says. “How did you know?”

I shrug. “It’s how I like it, too.”

We blow on the tea silently.

“Now tell me, who is this hotel guy?” Carol asks.

I take a small, scalding sip. It does taste better with two; she’s right. “He’s American.”

Carol cocks her head to the side. “And? What’s going on there? You’ve spent a lot of time with him recently. You just said he took you to the San Pietro. That place is romantic.”

“Nothing,” I say. But that isn’t true, of course. And here my mother is, alive, present. If I can’t be honest now, I’ll never be able to be. “I mean, we kissed.”

Carol’s eyes go wide. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

I set the mug down and rub a hot hand back and forth across my forehead.

“I’m not divorced. I’m not even really separated, I don’t think. I just told Eric I needed some space on this trip.”

“Does it matter?”

Mom, I want to say. But instead I say, “Carol.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask. You’ve told me you don’t know if you’re happy. Isn’t seeing if you can be happy somewhere else a good way to figure that out?”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works.”

“Maybe it should.”

“Eric is a good person,” I say. “He doesn’t deserve this. Honestly, I don’t know what came over me.”

I think about Adam’s hands on my back by the pool. I think of his eyes looking at me down by the water’s edge. The trip to Capri, the afternoon in Naples.

“It’s possible actions only have the weight we give them,” she says. “We can decide what something means.”

I look into my cup. The tea is so heavy it’s nearly opaque. “I don’t think that’s true.”

Carol nods. “I guess it doesn’t matter, because it’s clear you think that cheating is unforgivable.”

“Isn’t it?”

Carol lifts her shoulders, slowly, to her ears. “I don’t know, is it?”

“We made vows, we made promises. I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive him if he did this to me.”

“Maybe Eric doesn’t exist right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean maybe this trip isn’t about him. Maybe it’s not about whether or not you love him or whether or not he’s a good person and a good husband or does or does not deserve this. Maybe this is just about you.”

I look at my mother, at Carol, impossibly, solidly, here.

“Do you think that’s true?”

Carol blinks once, slowly. “You know good people make bad choices.” She looks down into her cup. “Good people do bad things all the time. Does it make them bad, too?”

Carol is still staring at her tea. I see her swallow.

“Are you okay?” I ask her.

She nods. “Yes, yes, of course. That’s just my opinion, for whatever it’s worth. I don’t think bad action makes you a bad person. I think life is far more complicated than that, and it’s reductive to think otherwise.”

There’s the Carol I know, opinionated about everything.

She stretches. “I’m going to clean up these plates.”

Carol gets up to her feet and begins stacking the dinner plates from the coffee table.

“Here,” I say. “I’ll help you.”

I lift one and then it spills over. The remaining contents of oil and garlic go straight down my dress, soaking into the silk.

“Shit.”

“Oh!” Carol says. “Not your gorgeous dress!”

“I’ll blot it,” I say. “Do you have baby powder?

“Blot?” Carol asks me.

I stand up. “You can dab it with powder and then let it sit. It should get most of it out.”

“How do you know that?”

The question startles me. You taught me. But she didn’t. Carol didn’t. In fact, the reality is that right now, I’m teaching her.

“My mom,” I tell her.

Carol hooks a wineglass between her chest and thumb. “Of course,” she says. “The woman who knew everything.” She smiles.

“Where is your bathroom?” I ask.

She points with her free hand. “Just through the bedroom on the right-hand side. Powder should be in the cabinet. I’ll lay out something for you to put on.”

“Thanks.”

Carol heads to the kitchen, and I hear the clattering of plates and the turn of the faucet. I go into the bathroom.

I take off the dress and loop it over my arms in the sink. I dab it with a hand towel to rid the fabric of the excess grease, and then locate the baby powder and sprinkle a generous helping over the material. As I’m washing my hands I notice all Carol’s products on the sink. Some tried-and-true—Aveeno, she used that right up until the end. Others will be discarded later. I pick up a bottle of golden perfume and inhale the scent. Honeysuckle.

I open the door and can hear Carol back in the kitchen, the water on. I’ve found myself in her bedroom. I see the clothes she just laid out for me on the bed—a button-down shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts. I fold the towel I’m wearing and put them on. They smell like her. I smell like her. I think about all her clothes lying in her closet in Brentwood, waiting for her return.