The Knotty Bride

by Julie Sarff

  “Enrico, you’re a dead man,” she calls out, twisting, writhing, punching and kicking the poor poliziotto in an attempt to free herself.

  “Federica!” I shout authoritatively, aware that all the people of Arona have exited their cars to get a better view of the scandal unfolding atop the steps of City Hall. “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth this. Trust me, Federica; you are better off without this sorry excuse of a man.”

  “Hey now,” Enrico tries to defend himself. Again I ignore him and stare at Federica. She looks as if she is seeing me for the first time. A horrible look of shame crosses her face, and she slumps forward. Behind me, Enrico staggers to his feet. He holds out his scarf-wrapped hand and looks woozy, as if he might pass out.

  “You’re a crazy woman,” he shouts at Federica. He opens his mouth to insult her again but is silenced by a bouquet of roses that comes crashing down on his head.

  “You told me you stopped seeing her ages ago,” an angry Lidia Cerchi screams, bashing Enrico in the face until every petal has shaken loose from her bridal bouquet. She snorts at him like an angry bull, and gives him the ultimate insult: spitting on the ground at his feet. With another rather rude gesture, she is off— holding her head up high as she totters away on six-inch heels.

  How horrible it is to have all of Arona bear witness to our shame, Federica as she is placed in the back of a police car, Lidia as she makes her way down the street, and me as I take my ex by his good hand and lead him in the direction of the nearby hospital. He hesitates, wanting to go after his young bride-to-be but I am firm as I push our way through the crowd that has gathered around us. I walk him the block to the hospital, help him with the admissions paperwork and then skedaddle back to my car where I sit along with the rest of Arona for another half an hour, waiting for the traffic to clear and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t bring Matteo and Luca along to see their father get shot by a woman they adore.

  Chapter 7

  “He pushed her too far,” I whisper to Alice and Tommaso that evening as we huddle in the Bettonina’s kitchen.

  “But the boys? What are we going to do about the boys?” Alice whispers back. The boys do look terrible; they are sitting in the living room, catatonically staring at the TV.

  “I could kill him myself,” Uncle Tommaso declares. “He puts us through one thing after another. The problem with Enrico is he thinks only of himself.”

  Uncle Tommaso can say that again. Enrico is a bad egg. How could he do this to any of us? I mean, fine, he is a womanizer; a selfish, narcissistic womanizer. But how could he do this to his boys? What kind of a father invites his children to his own wedding thirty minutes before it happens? What kind of a father causes so much turmoil in his relationships that one girlfriend feels the need to shoot him on the steps of City Hall as he is attempting to marry his other girlfriend? Did he think of his boys when he was messing around with two women at the same time?

  “But I mustn’t think about Enrico right now. What I need to do is concentrate on the boys. I think they may need to see a psychologist. They were very close to Federica,” I mutter out loud. Alice and Uncle Tommaso nod their heads in agreement which demonstrates the gravity of the situation. As an American, I have noticed that many Italians feel psychologists are superfluous. After all, why would somebody pay to talk about their feelings? That’s for crazy people, and no Italian wants to admit to being crazy. In this situation, however, Alice murmurs that she knows an excellent child psychologist in Baveno whose specialty is art therapy.

  “Great, then that is the answer to the first part of my problem. The next thing I need is a lawyer. I won’t put up with anymore nonsense. I agreed to share custody at the time of our divorce, but now I want the boys away from Enrico. He’s always been a terrible person, and now he’s become a terrible father. I can no longer abide by his thoughtless actions.”

  My words hang over the three of us like a weight. Alice and Tommaso exchange a glance, and I expect them to disagree—this is their precious nephew we are talking about. But to my surprise, they don’t argue. Instead, they stare at me resolute. We are united. We all want Enrico out of our lives.

  It’s ironic then, that as that exact moment, it is Enrico himself who comes striding through the back door of Uncle Tommaso’s kitchen. At the sight of his disgraced nephew, Uncle Tommaso sails across the floor and begins to beat Enrico around the ears with a large straw hat he has removed from his head. How ironic that Enrico should be assaulted by both a bouquet of flowers and a straw hat in the same day. Goes to prove you reap what you sow.

  “Ma come’ hai potutao fare questo!” Uncle Tommaso roars, asking Enrico how he could have committed such a selfish act.

  I, too, am moved to action. I am about to assault Enrico with all the force of the Visigoths sacking Rome when I stop short. Enrico has been crying. There are traces of tears down his cheeks. “They let you out of the hospital so soon?” I ask after Tommaso stops brandishing his chapeau as a weapon.

  Enrico shoots Uncle Tommaso and me a wounded look before shuffling over to poke his head through the kitchen door. Dejectedly, he stares at Luca and Matteo who are busy watching a Sponge Bob marathon on the television. “Hey sports,” he calls as if in a daze, “bet you thought your ole dad was done for, but I’m fine. It was just a little disagreement.”

  “It was more than a disagreement,” I say, tugging on Enrico’s sleeve until he reluctantly closes the kitchen door. “We need to talk, out in the garden!”

  No sooner do we step out into the cold night air then Enrico breathes, “You saved my life, Lily. You stopped her from shooting me a second time. Who knows where the second bullet would have gone? I could be dead.”

  I stare up at the darkening sky. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t save your life. She couldn’t have killed anything with a gun that shoots bullets smaller than a BB gun.”

  “What’s a BB gun?”

  “You know, BB guns. Remember that show we used to watch on cable from America? About toddlers and tiaras?”

  He gives me a blank look.

  “You know, the show where those people like to put makeup on their small daughters? We used to watch it on cable, and you used to say how messed up Americans are.”

  More blank looks.

  “And when they weren’t at the pageants, they were out shooting things in the woods with BB guns. And you kept saying that the American education system must be completely cracked.”

  “I don’t remember the show, but yes, the whole world knows Americans are violent and senseless. You don’t believe in evolution. You deny climate science. What do they teach you in school in America? And how much fatter are Americans going to get…”

  Wait a minute. After everything he’s done, he insults my nationality?

  “Look, I don’t know how we got off on this tangent. I don’t have time to explain what a BB gun is. And there are dumb people all over the planet. I’m staring at one right now. What do you want, anyway? What are you doing here?”

  “Lily Bilbury,” he says, unfathomably reaching out to grab both of my hands, “I am here to thank you most ardently. You saved me. You saved me from that maniac by tackling her.”

  I yank my hands free and stare him in the eye. Enrico looks groggy. They must have given him some good pain medication at the hospital.

  “Shouldn’t you be off trying to woo back your teenage bride-to-be?”

  “She left me, Lily, she’s gone for good…,” he sobs.

  “Well, of course she left you. She’s a young person with her whole life ahead of her,” I say, hoping that my unsympathetic words will sober him up. But they don’t. Instead, Enrico holds out his arms for a hug. In response, I fold my arms tight across my chest.

  “I wanted to come by and tell you that you’re all I have left,” Enrico continues deliriously. “Lidia’s parents found out about everything, our secret plans to get married at city hall… and…and Federica trying to kill me… and they are forbidding her to have any con
tact with me. Her father even rang me up and said if I ever come anywhere near her again, he’ll shoot me himself. Dio mio, he say he’d shoot me. Suddenly everyone’s got a gun, must make you feel right at home, Lil.”

  Honestly, who is this man? What planet did he come from? Was he really trying to marry Lidia without the consent of her parents? I swear there’s no bigger creep in the world than this person who stands before me now, looking even sadder, if at all possible, than Phil did the other day.

  “Stop,” I say. “I won’t hug you, and I don’t want to know you anymore. I am not all you have left. You do not have me. You have nothing. You deserve nothing. You stay away from the boys. And get ready, because I’ll be seeing you in court. I may be nothing more than a dumb American, but this dumb American plans to sue for full custody.” Adroitly I maneuver around his outstretched arms and head back to the kitchen.

  Uncle Tommaso, God bless him, has been standing at the entrance waiting for me, watching like a guardian angel through the door’s glass panel. He slams the door shut in Enrico’s face as soon as I shuffle into the kitchen. Then Uncle Tommaso, Aunt Alice and I look at each other and shake our heads. We’ve had enough of Enrico to last a lifetime. We are done.

  November

  (Rough seas.)

  Chapter 8

  So it is that we are a family divided. Bettonina vs. Bilbury will go to court someday, but for now, Enrico is lying low. I no longer allow him to pick up the boys on the weekend and thankfully, he doesn’t try. He has even quit his job, transferring to a hospital in Milan in order to avoid all the embarrassing glances and snatches of gossip that float his way every time he steps out of his house in Arona. As for poor Federica, she’s being charged with attempted first-degree murder. It seems a bit much, given that she used such a tiny gun.

  So, on the first day of November, as the temperatures begin to plummet, I pull on my warmest sweater and my heaviest pair of slacks. Then I exit my apartment building with purpose. Today I’m going to visit Federica in prison.

  Fifty-five minutes later, I sit in a dark, damp room with a single bulb dangling overhead to light the space. I try to stay upbeat despite the overwhelming starkness of the Northern Italy Correctional Facility for Women. But I can’t help thinking how pathetic Federica looks in her allocated grey jumpsuit.

  “How did you know they were getting married?” I ask as she puffs away on a cigarette.

  “Private detective,” she replies. “I hired one to follow the scumbag three months ago.”

  She stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray and adds, “I’m sorry about the boys. They must have been terrified to learn their father was shot.”

  “They’ll be alright. They are in art therapy. Oh no, don’t make that sad face, Federica. The boys quite like it. Look, they’ve made something for you,” I say, handing her a large portrait of something that looks like a possum/mouse or a mouse/wombat or a wombat/fox. I can’t quite tell.

  “It’s so lovely, Lily. Why, is it a bouquet of flowers?” she asks, turning the picture from side to side and squinting hard.

  A bouquet of flowers? In what universe does it look like a bouquet of flowers? It’s clearly an animal of some sort with a red face and incredibly sharp fangs.

  “Why yes, it is a bouquet. Primroses, I believe,” I say breezily.

  “Primroses! I loved those flowers as a child. My father used to grow them in the garden. How thoughtful Luca and Matteo are!”

  She stares down at her hands, denuded of the usual ostentatious rings that she once wore. “You know, I thought I would play a special role in their lives.”

  “You will, Federica, you will. Maybe you will never be their stepmother, but they need an honorary aunt. Someone they can do things with. Someone who isn’t as boring and bossy as their own mother.”

  “No, I can never see the boys again,” Federica says in a low voice. “I’m going to prison. Even my good family name won’t get me out of this one.” She stares miserably at the floor. Behind us a guard with a rifle shifts restlessly against the door.

  “I’ll bring the children here to visit,” I say with an uneasy glance about the room. The Northern Italy Correctional Facility for Women is no place for small children. This place is so sad and forlorn, it is soul-sucking.

  “No, Lily. Promise me you’ll never do that. I don’t want them to see me here, like this.” She tugs at her gray prison top as if its coarse fabric irritates her skin.

  “Federica,” I start slowly, “there’s something I have to say, something I need to get off my chest. Enrico was never worth it. He was never worth going to prison over. You know that, right?”

  “I know.” She wipes at the tears. “He’s been bad news since the day I met him, but for some reason I couldn’t let it go. Who knows what I ever saw in him.”

  Well, that is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Who knows what any of us ever saw in him? Who knows what possessed me to marry him eight years ago? Of course, if I hadn’t married him, I never would have had my beloved boys.

  I sigh over all of life’s little ironies and then bid a fond farewell to Federica. “I’ll return soon,” I call back from the door as the guard moves aside, “with more paintings of primroses. I promise. And I’m sure that the Italian justice system will come to their senses and you will be released in a few days.”

  With that I flash her a forced smile and hope never to return to this awful place.

  ******

  “Do your job and stop with all that staring off into space,” my boss says heatedly, several hours later.

  Right, I’ll do my job. Except it’s a terribly slow day, and it’s really cold outside. Nobody wants ice cream. I pick up a knife and lazily begin chopping the fruit. A half a dozen dismembered peaches later, I hear the little bell over the store door tinkle. In walks Rupa. On her face she wears a sly smile.

  “So, are you already for your fabulous vacation to Lipari?” she asks.

  “Mmm, yes, I was just standing here day dreaming about it. What’s up with you? Why are you smiling like that?

  “Like how?”

  “As if you know a secret.”

  “I don’t know any secrets,” she says, doing her best to frown. “I’m just very happy for you. That’s all. It’s time you had a vacation. Dario and I went to Lipari once, and it’s magical really, turquoise waters and all.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, still feeling quite suspicious.

  “Yeah, and I was wondering if you could pick up a few cats on your way back. Beatta Cavale has corralled the last of the strays in her garden shed. I don’t suppose you can call on her on your way home.”

  “I am taking a train and then a boat. How would I stop by and pick up some cats?”

  “There are only two of them. Maybe she could meet you at the train station in Orvieto?”

  Has this woman looked at a map of Italy? Orvieto is not on the way. I am leaving on my first ever vacation next week. My first official vacation in five years. I deserve this so much. I really don’t have the time or the inclination to go several hours out of my way and pick up some cats.

  Of course I don’t reply with any of that. Instead, I simply say, “Okay, Ruup, I’ll see what I can do.”

  Chapter 9

  The sea around Lipari is indeed a marvelous color. At least in all the tourist pictures I’ve seen. My guess is those tourist pictures must have been taken between May and October because right now, in the second week of November, the Mediterranean is quite grey and angry. As I rode on the crossing from Napoli, the sea was so rough that half of the ferry riders threw up all over themselves.

  Well, maybe not half the riders. I tend to exaggerate. Perhaps it was just that one little boy in the green shirt, but oh God, when he threw up, I lost it too. I cleaned up as best I could in the ferry’s tiny bathroom. And now, as I stand in the lobby of The Lipari Luxury B and B by Debi with my hair smelling of sick, I am still smiling because I am about to check in for my long-deserved vacation.

  Onl
y the man behind the counter is holding a newspaper up to his face and doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve walked in.

  Hmm, where is Debi? The Debi from the brochure? Am I supposed to ring a bell to get this man’s attention? I look at the reception desk, which is covered with odds and ends: a calendar, pens and pencils, rubber bands and paper clips all strewn about, but there’s no bell.

  And now that I look around the place, it looks a little on the shabby side. The paint is peeling like at Beatta’s place, and the empire sofa that lines the wall sags badly. Still, that’s okay; this is what I can afford.

  “Ahem,” I clear my throat. The man does not look up from his paper. What is his problem?

  “Ding! Ding!” I make an impromptu bell noise.

  The man puts down his paper, and I almost fall over.

  “You?” I say, unable to believe my eyes, because on the other side of the reception desk is Brandon Logan in the flesh.

  A thousand thoughts flood my mind, but they all tend to be variations on a theme. The theme is “My God, he looks flat-out fantastic!” He really does. He’s wearing a crisp, white cotton shirt, a pair of dark slacks, and his hair is all tousled.

  With a hand over my heart to calm the palpations, I stammer, “Wh-what are you doing here?”

  “I’ve rented the whole place for seven days.”

  “But I rented a room here for seven days.”

  “I bought you out.”

  “You what?”

  “I bought you out,” he says, before standing up and making his way around the check-in desk. My poor heart does a complete somersault because Brandon is wearing these glasses that give him this whole Clark Kent appearance.