Invitation to Italian

by Tracy Kelleher

  Sebastiano took it all in before responding. “Okay, here’s my proposal. I say, let’s expand the hospital but to such a way that it actually contributes to the betterment of the immediate neighborhood. What I’m talking about is a combined clinic/community center that would serve the local people not just medically, but in other ways to make them become healthy, active members of the town instead of marginalizing them. I’m talking about an after-school program and child care, nutrition instruction, legal counseling—things like that. It will be cost-effective in the long run, cutting down expensive emergency care in a time of crisis. But just as strongly, I believe that everyone who benefits should also be held accountable, hence the sliding payment fees, and if need be, some kind of bartering system for services.” Just talking about his plans gave Sebastiano renewed energy, down to his bones.

  Rufus flipped through the pages of his copy. “I like your thinking. I like the idea of the hospital as fostering good neighbors, and its neighbors, in turn, taking a greater stake in their community. I have a question, though—have you given any thought as to where the center would be located?”

  There was a loud roll of thunder that prevented Sebastiano from responding immediately. He waited. Almost immediately, a clap of lightning struck. The lights flickered but remained on.

  “It’s a good question,” he answered. “Obviously, it would have to be in the neighborhood, as close to the hospital building as possible. Right now, as the approved hospital plans stand, there isn’t space for an additional structure. But let’s say we can jump that hurdle.” Sebastiano began talking animatedly with his hands. “Something else is also crucial for the project’s success—the makeup of the board of directors. For once, I believe we should look beyond wealthy donors and CEOs. You’ll see that I’ve recommended that members of the neighborhood be included.”

  Iris tipped up her reading glasses and studied the relevant page. “I see you’ve recommended putting Dr. Antonelli on the board.”

  “Let’s just say her outburst last week provided some timely impetus for the project,” Sebastiano explained. “Ideally, I think she would make a terrific head for the clinic portion, but I know she already has a lot on her plate between her private practice and her hospital visits.”

  “Not to mention your Italian class?” Iris added.

  Sebastiano tipped his head. “What can I say? Your idea has proved very instructive for all concerned.”

  Iris beamed. She was not above flattery.

  Rufus held the page a little farther away. “You’ll have to excuse me. I forgot my reading glasses. This woman Carlotta Sanchez that you also mention? I don’t think I know her?”

  “She came into the E.R. the other week in great distress. Dr. Antonelli delivered her baby—”

  “Ahh.” Iris opened her mouth in thought. “The impetus for the doctor’s outburst.” Then Iris removed her glasses.

  Sebastiano nodded.

  “Well, as you mentioned, usually we do like to reserve board membership as an enticement for big donors,” she advised.

  There was another onslaught of thunder followed more closely by a flash of lightning. All three looked to the window.

  “I think the weather forecast was right for once,” Rufus joked.

  “Given the weather conditions, I think it’s advisable to wrap up this meeting as soon as possible so that you both can get home safely. But let me leave you with this thought,” Sebastiano said with conviction. “We have been given the opportunity to help make an already fine community achieve greater things. Don’t you want to be able to say to your children and grandchildren that when the opportunity presented itself, we did the right thing, that we didn’t just think of ourselves and the usual cast of characters, but made a leap of faith and reached out to help those in need, as much for their future as for ours? Because, believe me, as someone who in his own past did not respond nobly when the opportunity presented itself, I can tell you what regret feels like.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  JULIE SAT NUMBLY staring at her coffee cup in the hospital cafeteria. It was only Tuesday, and she had already delivered three babies in less than two days, a personal record. One of the maternity nurses claimed it was due to the gigantic low-pressure region making its way up the coast.

  Julie wasn’t convinced. All she knew was that a healthy eight-and-a-half-pound baby boy had just entered the world kicking and screaming. Mother and baby were doing well despite the protracted delivery. The baby’s father, a postdoctoral fellow in microbiology with the frame of a marathon runner and the scraggly beard of Bob Dylan, fainted dead away after Julie had given him the honor of cutting the umbilical cord. Luckily, he was suffering from nothing more severe than a bruised ego. All of life should have such complications.

  Then there were her own complications, another matter completely. Here she was, feeling down in the dumps, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why. In the span of seven days, she’d suffered through her birthday blues, met a man and lost a man. She had never quite figured out what she and Sebastiano had so briefly together. On the other hand, she had no problem characterizing what they had now. Nothing.

  His story had been heart-rending and infuriating all at the same time. And while she wasn’t sure she could ever forget his conduct, she felt that she had the capacity to empathize and forgive it.

  Clearly, he didn’t.

  He had in some measure helped her come to grips with her own screwed-up past, and for that she was eternally grateful. But that didn’t put her under any obligation to try to help him deal with his demons. She had tried, and what she really feared was that if she continued to try any more, not only would she fail, but she also might never recover.

  Because whatever it was that they did or didn’t have, Julie recognized one thing for sure—she had fallen in love. She had given her heart to Sebastiano, and now it was breaking.

  She idly studied the blackening sky and watched the branches of the cherry trees in the entrance to the hospital sway violently in the wind. The rain was coming down sideways. The cars had their headlights on even though it was only midday, but the beams hardly penetrated the gloom. A woman was rushing along the sidewalk from the hospital parking garage, her umbrella pulled down close to her head like a mushroom cap. The wind whipped it inside out.

  Julie recognized the frustrated expression of her friend Sarah, who abandoned any attempt to fix her umbrella and instead ran toward the revolving doors of the hospital entrance.

  “Hey, look what the cat dragged in,” Julie called out when Sarah finally made it into the lobby.

  Sarah looked up. Her blond hair was plastered to her head, and she brushed her sopping bangs out of her eyes with the back of her hand, the same hand that still held on to her useless umbrella. Her warm-up jacket and track pants, her usual physiotherapy uniform, were soaked to a shade or two darker than their royal-blue color.

  “Laugh all you want,” Sarah said. “Wait till you have to make the mad dash over to your office. You won’t be looking any better.” She took the two steps up to the carpeted area where Julie sat. “They’re saying gale-force winds are expected today, and I can believe it. The office has already cancelled patients for the rest of the day, and after I see my patients here, I tell you, I’m headed home. I already called Hunt to tell him to come home as soon as possible from New Brunswick. I don’t want him getting stuck in traffic or risk having the roads closed.”

  Julie downed the rest of her cold coffee. “You’re getting to be such a worrywart now that you’re a responsible married mother. What ever happened to the wild woman gadding about town?”

  Sarah unzipped her jacket and peeled it off. Her polo shirt underneath had damp splotches on the shoulders. “I was never a wild woman gadding about town, if you remember correctly. And don’t try to claim that you were, either, Ms. My Patients Come First. Anyway, you might find it’s the better part of valor to cancel your appointments this afternoon, too. I heard on the radio t
hat the local schools are letting out early.”

  “What a bunch of wimps!” Julie replied. “I mean, really, it’s only the tail end of a hurricane. It’s not like we got a direct hit.”

  “Speaking of direct hits, did you happen to read your email this morning?”

  “I was delivering a baby. What happened? Nothing to do with Sebastiano? And me?”

  “What?” Sarah winced. “Sebastiano? Dr. Fonterra? No, whatever gave you that idea?”

  Julie looked down.

  Sarah studied her friend closely. “Maybe that’s a story for another day?” She waited, but only briefly. “Right now, it’s our good friend Katarina who’s got problems, big problems.”

  Julie’s head shot up. “Not the baby?”

  “No, nothing like that. Lena emailed me. Katarina’s mother suddenly announced to them the identity of Katarina’s father, and then without wasting another breath, she declared she was going to leave Grantham immediately. I mean, talk about cowardice. She drops that bomb and then leaves everyone else to pick up the pieces.”

  “Maybe she’s just afraid, feeling guilty about what she did in the past, and now she doesn’t know how to face it?” Julie suggested. She thought of Sebastiano’s reaction to his daughter’s death.

  Sarah wrung out her umbrella one more time. “Excuse me, but who’s the one in need of our support here? Katarina, not her flaky mom.”

  “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I’ll call her right away.”

  A loud roar of thunder permeated the plate glass windows.

  “Good luck to you. She’s not answering her phone, not even for Lena, who’s been trying all day. Thankfully, Katarina’s got Ben to help her through this.” She stepped down to the lobby. “Gotta go, then.”

  “Wait a minute,” Julie called out.

  Sarah stepped back. “Make it quick.”

  “Did Lena mention who the father is?” Julie whispered. She immediately thought about Zora’s office visit.

  Sarah leaned closer. “That’s the even weirder part,” she said softly. “It’s Paul Bedecker.”

  “Paul as in Paolo in my Italian class?” Julie stood slowly. It was all beginning to make sense.

  “I wouldn’t know about that. From what Lena told me over the phone, he moved back to town from Hollywood after some difficult times.”

  A second later lightning flashed.

  Julie scanned outside the window. “That was close.”

  “Well, if he thought he had difficult times in Hollywood, the proverbial you-know-what is already hitting the fan all around Grantham.”

  Another rumble of thunder started up, this time even louder.

  Julie studied the torrential rain, overflowing the drains and roaring alongside the curbs. “Boy, this is getting serious. I think I will cancel this afternoon’s appoint—”

  Before she could finish another clap of lightning sounded, this time even louder. There was a crack. Close, very close. Someone’s car security alarm started blaring. And then the hospital’s lights went out.

  There were a few screams.

  Within seconds, a low level of lighting came back on.

  Julie looked around. “The auxiliary generator just kicked in. That last lightning strike must have hit something nearby.”

  “I hope Hunt makes it home okay,” Sarah said, not sounding all that convinced.

  “He will. He has something to come home to,” Julie said reassuringly. “I’m just going to check in with my office and then I’m out of here.”

  “You’re worried about your condo?”

  “No, Nonna’s bird.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  HER PARENTS’ HOUSE was less than a mile away from the hospital. But it took her over forty minutes to reach it.

  Power lines were down all over the eastern part of town. That meant stoplights were out. Mammoth evergreens and maple trees, the pride of Grantham, lay uprooted across roads and yards. At one house, not only had a tree taken out a corner of the roof, but it had also landed on the car parked in the driveway.

  Julie gripped the steering wheel of her RAV4 and anxiously maneuvered around the back streets. She tried to approach her parents’ small street from one end, but it was blocked by fallen wires. So she did a U-turn and tried to come at it from the other end, only to find her way blocked by a large maple tree that had come down, its branches forming a leafy wall.

  She abandoned the car and headed off on foot. The rain was still pouring, and the grates from the storm gutters gushed torrents of swiftly moving water instead of guiding it underground.

  The clogs that she wore during deliveries gulped in mouthfuls of rain with each step. Frustrated, she slipped them off and ran barefoot.

  She reached her parents’ house and immediately felt grateful. It appeared untouched. No trees or power lines had fallen anywhere near it. She flipped through her key ring for the front door key. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking.

  “Calm down,” she chastised herself and worked the key into the lock. Just as well her parents had accompanied her grandmother on her trip to Italy. “Having a panic attack is not going to save Caruso.” She had visions of the bird keeling over from fright, thereby bringing down some terrible curse on the family for fifty years to come.

  She pushed open the door, not bothering to wipe her feet on the mat. The house was dark. She fumbled for the brass-plated light switch by the front door. The lights didn’t come on. No power at all.

  Julie sprinted to the picture window and pulled the drawstring to open the lined curtains. The ominous skies blocked out most of the sunlight, but it was better than nothing.

  She headed back to the stairs and up to the second story of the split-level. Her grandmother’s room was at the end of the hall. The door was closed. Julie felt her way to the door, bumping into a narrow table in the darkness. A crystal bowl of potpourri fell over and scattered on the rug. The sudden inundation of rose-hip smell was almost overwhelming. She grabbed the door handle, and instinctively—uselessly—fumbled for the light switch.

  She skirted her grandmother’s bed and raised the shades on the windows. They looked out over the backyard and her father’s vegetable garden. Julie didn’t want to know what the storm had done to his plum tomatoes and pumpkin plants. She turned to the dresser and the birdcage perched on the corner. A large cloak covered the cage. Julie had once joked that it was Nonna’s own Shroud of Turin, and teased her about the way she lovingly washed it by hand and had embroidered the borders. None of that had gone down well.

  Julie whipped off the material and cast it on the floor. And her heart almost stopped.

  There was Caruso, perched ominously still, a stiff little mass. Julie stopped breathing. Was it possible to do mouth-to-mouth on a bird? she wondered.

  Mercifully, Caruso blinked an eye reluctantly open. He slowly rotated his head to get a full look at Julie, before opening up full throttle. It wasn’t so much a joyous hello as a tormented cry. Julie could have sworn the bird was singing the aria from “Pagliacci,” just like the real Caruso.

  As if. She reached for the canister of bird food next to the cage and filled Caruso’s bowl. She dislodged the water bin and carried it to the adjoining bathroom, where she filled it from the pink porcelain sink. Then she carefully reopened the cage door and eased it back into its proper spot.

  “There you go, Caruso. And don’t go telling Nonna I didn’t think of you first during the hurricane.” The bird hopped over on its perch and pecked at the seed, rejecting most of the kernels as inferior and spewing them on the newspaper on the bottom of the cage.

  “What a diva!” Julie laughed. It had been ridiculous, really, her anxiety about a bird. But that kind of erratic behavior seemed to sum up her mood right now. Too much had happened. Too much was up in the air.

  She left Caruso to his bird activities and collapsed in a heap on the end of the bed. At least she hadn’t screwed this up. The rest of life might be in disarray, but she hadn’t di
sappointed her family in some new, unforgivable way. She stretched out on the bed and fanned her arms out like some sad snow angel. Her fingers brushed the chenille bumps of her grandmother’s bedspread. Julie turned her nose into the cotton nubs and drank in the smell of Nonna—baby powder, Oil of Olay and some distinctly old lady smell that was somehow comforting in a dusty sort of way.

  She closed her eyes. She could feel herself ready to nod off, her heartbeat lower, her limbs relaxed. Yes, she could easily fall asleep in the quiet….

  Julie shot up. It was too quiet. Houses were supposed to make noises.

  Look who was the birdbrain now.

  “MRS. ZEMANOVA, I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Sebastiano Fonterra, from the hospital. I’m sorry to bother you at dinnertime.” Sebastiano stood on the front stoop of Lena’s house. Pots of rust-colored mums flanked the entryway and an old climbing rose curled on a trellis, the last blossoms practically inviting the person waiting to enter to lean over and take a sniff.

  Or would have, if it hadn’t been pouring. Even now at seven o’clock in the evening, the rain continued in a steady, uncompromising fashion, as if settling in for the long haul.

  Lena held the door open wider. “Of course I remember you. I met you at the charity auction. You won the bid for my catered meal for six but then offered it to a new family in town—from Bratislava. So lovely.”

  Sebastiano tried to be patient, but it was not coming easily. “If you wouldn’t mind?” He indicated coming in.

  “Of course. The rain. I’m so sorry.” Lena stepped back. “Would you like some coffee? Cake? Please, come into the living room.” She closed the door behind him and indicated the comfortable room to the side. A fire crackled in the fireplace, dispelling the gloom outside.