The Good Left Undone(19)

“She’s a good friend.”

Silvio didn’t want to say it aloud because he knew it would hurt his mother, but Domenica was, in fact, his only friend.

“It will be so hard to leave here,” his mother said quietly, looking around the room.

“Does the priest want the stable back?”

“You know the church, they always need more space.”

“Mama, do you ever notice that the village priest lives in a big house all alone? Why does one man need so many rooms?”

“Because he’s important.”

“I like our home. I want to stay.”

“What we want doesn’t matter. I’ve made a decision. We have to leave Viareggio.”

“Why?”

“Because you still have both your eyes. They won’t rest until they hurt you so badly you cannot recover. I know how this goes. It just gets worse until they drive you out entirely. Then they find another child to pick on. It’s always the way.”

“Where will we go?”

“Zia Leonora will take us in.”

“No, Mama.”

“She’s not that bad. We just have to listen to her carp about her aches and pains and make her rum balls. She’s all right.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow, before the sun is up. Don Xavier arranged a driver to take us to the train to Parma. He provided the fare and a letter for me to secure a position at Chiesa di Sant’Agostino.”

Silvio wanted to argue to stay, but he felt so bad for his mother, he dropped the cause. “There are lots of things I will miss about Viareggio.”

“After all this? You are a good boy.” Vera embraced her son and held him for as long as he would allow. “Let’s get some rest. We have a big day tomorrow.”

His mother finished her chores. She pressed their clothes, sprinkling them with lavender and lemon before pressing the hot iron onto the fabric. She packed their meager belongings, which fit into one cloth satchel. Vera got down on her knees and loosed a stone from the hearth. She removed their savings hidden in the hole underneath it. Silvio’s eyes widened as he watched his mother sit at the table and count the lire. She placed it in her purse, a small leather clutch Zia Leonora had given her when she no longer had use for it. His mother placed the purse on top of the satchel. She looked around the room, making sure she left the stable as she had found it.

His mother lay down and fell asleep so quickly—it was a joke between them. Across the room, on his cot, Silvio lay awake. It took him hours to go to sleep because he worked in the dark, plotting the life he would someday lead when he was old enough to claim it. He imagined different scenarios depending upon his mood. Sometimes he was a soldier in a mythical kingdom from the Zella cartoon series, other times a sailor on the high seas navigating storms and pirates, or he imagined a life where he wore a brown suit, black shoes, and a hat to an office somewhere. His favorite fantasy: He schemed how to get a government job that provided a uniform and a motor scooter. He would park it outside his apartment with a terrace overhead and terra-cotta flowerpots on the stairs. He dreamt of an ordinary life when he was tired, the kind of life where people were nice to him. The more fantastical options required his concentration.

It was not the worst thing to leave Viareggio, he reasoned. His mother needed a fresh start even more than he did. It hurt him when his mother was ignored by the people who attended church, even though she was the one who cleaned the pews, buffed the floors, and washed the stained glass windows. Did the parishioners ever wonder who rolled the beeswax candles and refilled the offering trays so their precious prayers might be answered before the wick gave out? Vera Vietro was treated shabbily, but she endured it because their home on the church grounds came with the pittance of pay she received. The disdain for his mother didn’t seem to faze her, but it bothered her son. Vera Vietro was so busy holding their lives together, she didn’t notice how she was treated, and if she did, she ignored it for the good of her son.

Silvio had observed his mother fill with false hope whenever a child besides the steadfast and loyal Domenica Cabrelli befriended him. When a boy invited her son to play a street game, she hoped that it meant that Silvio was finally accepted by his peers. She would fortify any fledgling friendship with acts of kindness. She would send a cake or a pot of soup home with the new friend as a gesture of gratitude, in hopes her largesse might gently encourage the friendship to take root. In those moments, when it appeared that things had changed for her boy, Signora Vietro believed that the worst was over. But of course, it wasn’t. The parents of the children would sever any new ties when they learned of the circumstances of Silvio’s birth. They made a point of ostracizing the Birtolini boy from their proper families.

As Silvio grew older, the bullying deepened to contempt, the portal to violence. There was no way to change their perception of Silvio, especially one that was deeply ingrained in the people who perpetuated the pain. There was only one person in the world who could change people’s minds about Silvio, and he wouldn’t do it. Silvio was unwanted by his father, which made him unwanted in the world. Despite all of it, Silvio kept trying to fit in.

Every day of his life, Silvio Birtolini started over. He left his mother’s home with high hopes each morning, believing that this would be the day that would erase the sin, or at least leave it in the past to be forgotten. He tried his best to fit in, to be a good pal, but Silvio accrued no loyalty, even when he gave it. No kindness was returned when he offered it. No one thought to include him, even when he spent sleepless nights considering how to make friends and find camaraderie in simple connections that came so naturally to other children. If that weren’t enough pain to endure, he saw what it did to his mother. The rejection of Silvio by his teachers and fellow students was an open wound for his mother. It broke his tender heart to live a helpless life.