A Family Made in Rome

by Annie O'Neil

  ‘And how was it you got us tickets?’ Lizzy asked. ‘The couple behind us in the queue said they’d had to book months ago.’

  ‘A patient.’

  She nodded. She’d clearly had a few of those as well. Patients who were so grateful they promised any favour at any time as thanks for bringing their child into the world.

  They continued walking past the archaeological finds—ancient pots women had filled with water, tiled benches men would have relaxed on, no doubt professing to be ‘thinking great thoughts’, and of course bedrooms.

  A thought struck him as they entered another pitch-black room, the glass floor their only support as they gazed on the archaeological finds a good three metres below them, lit by dim floodlights. Believing that love was enough to sustain a relationship was a bit like stepping onto one of these invisible floors.

  Ahead of him he saw a young child drop to his knees and crawl along it, finding safety in proximity to the floor that supported him. Was that what he’d been doing? Clinging to a false support—to his belief that being alone meant less heartache—when in actual fact sometimes enduring the heartache made moments like this that much more rewarding.

  His gut instinct when Lizzy had told him about their child had been to ask her to marry him. He had to trust that. Even if it did seem insane. Walking on the moon had seemed impossible at one juncture. As had painting the extraordinary arches and domes of the Sistine Chapel. But people who’d believed in the impossible had done it.

  The magical atmosphere of the palazzo suddenly turned claustrophobic. Enough museums. Enough of the past. It was time to build his own future. One that included the gorgeous blonde by his side. One that made them a family.

  He leant down and whispered into Lizzy’s ear. ‘Let’s get some gelato.’

  Lizzy looked up at him, her lips quirked into a smile, but her brows were furrowed together and she looked perplexed. ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes. Now.’

  ‘We’ve not had supper yet.’

  ‘Bah.’ He waved away the feeble protest. ‘It’s only five o’clock. A perfect time for gelato and then...’ An idea struck. He dropped her a wink. ‘C’mon. Follow me. I know just the way to build up an appetite.’

  * * *

  Lizzy’s heart pounded in her chest as she stumbled blindly alongside Leon as he led her through the darkened corridors of the subterranean palazzo.

  Sex.

  He was talking about sex, wasn’t he?

  What other way was there to build up an appetite for supper?

  She raced back over the conversations they’d had which had led up to her agreeing to take this tour of Rome and wondered if there had been anything in her behaviour that had screamed, Have your wicked way with me, you sexy Italian beast, you!

  Hmm...

  There was nothing obvious...

  But they were holding hands.

  Was that a new signal that a lovemaking session was on the horizon?

  Oh, God. She was so out of touch with how things worked. With her and Leon back in the day, things had been extraordinarily simple. Work. Sex. Sleep. Repeat. A spectacular combination of energies that had somehow morphed into her convincing herself she was madly in love with him. Something she was meant to have doused last New Year’s Eve, when she’d left a sleeping Leon alone in his honeymoon suite.

  Leon silently led her out of the palazzo, his hand holding hers, his thumb distractedly...or tactically...rubbing the back of her hand as thoughts of unbuttoning his shirt and whipping his belt out of the loops of his hip-hugging trousers stirred her nervous system into a frenzy.

  By the time they’d bought the obligatory postcards, left the building and blinked and adjusted their eyes to the bright late-afternoon sunshine, Lizzy was so close to pouncing on Leon it was ridiculous. How could one solitary man smell like a pastry shop and the citrus aisle of a supermarket all at once?

  So many questions to which there were no answers...

  Which was why she adopted a casually uninterested air as she leant against a pile of rocks that had no doubt been part of a palace three thousand years ago, stared at Leon, and then huskily asked, ‘So...what’s this big plan of yours?’

  ‘Voilà!’

  Leon stepped to one side and threw out his arm, pointing towards an electric bicycle rental company.

  Oh.

  Her spirits deflated more than they should. She’d been quite keen on the idea of sanctioned sex.

  ‘Yay!’ She waved a pair of invisible pompoms. ‘A bike-ride!’

  ‘Electric bikes,’ he corrected. ‘I’ve always wanted to do this.’

  ‘Really?’ Weird... He lived here, and this was a very touristy thing to do.

  ‘Si!’ He gave one of those nonchalant shrugs of his. ‘I grew up here, but I never really saw things fresh, you know? The Colosseum, the Parthenon, the palazzo we just went to. They were all just buildings I used as signposts rather than things I really looked at.’

  She nodded, seeing his point. Sydney was the same for her. She’d only ever been to the Opera House on a school trip, and more recently on a blind date she’d had to abort before they’d even got to their seats because she’d been called to surgery. She’d never taken a harbour cruise, never seen an open-air film in the Botanical Gardens, never been up the Sydney Tower Eye...

  Crikey. Was work the only thing she’d done since she’d returned from her internship? It was looking that way.

  ‘This isn’t some clever way to show off your glutes, is it?’

  A girl could dream.

  He snorted. ‘I thought it’d be a nice way to build up an appetite. Unless you think it’s too hot?’

  Oh, she was hungry all right. But not for carbs.

  She pursed her lips. ‘You call this hot? Come to Australia, mate. I’ll show you hot.’

  The late spring air thickened between them. The sexual electricity she’d felt surging out of her was now zinging both ways.

  Leon’s dark eyes locked with hers. ‘Would you like that? If I came to Australia?’

  It wasn’t a flippant question. It was a genuine one.

  And it felt as intimate as if she were lying unclothed, waiting for his touch.

  Did she want that? For him to see the little cocoon of work and home life she’d created for herself?

  It was pretty embarrassing, actually. All her friends were from work. Since her mother had passed away she pretty much only saw her dad when she had to. Birthdays. Christmas. If she wasn’t working. She didn’t have any hobbies or social clubs to take Leon to. No surfing skills to show off nor masses of friends to introduce him to at a regularly scheduled champagne brunch.

  In all honesty her life in Sydney wasn’t that different from the little cocoon Leon had made for himself here. A bells-and-whistles workplace that demanded attention at all hours, most days of the week. A home literally a jog away from said hospital. The only difference in their lifestyles was that her place was near the beach and had more Crayon drawings.

  ‘Sure. One day. So...’ She rubbed her hands together enthusiastically. ‘Right, then! Let’s get exploring.’

  * * *

  Two hours later they pulled their bicycles back into the hire station, smiles tugging their lips from ear to ear. Leon had been right. Seeing Rome through Lizzy’s eyes had made his home town about a thousand times better.

  She had a keen eye for finding small pieces of art tucked into doorframes and olive trees defying their cement surroundings and producing tiny little olives, just waiting for the summer sun to ripen them.

  They’d stopped in the centre of Rome’s oldest bridge, thought to have been built in 62BC, and marvelled at all the people and their outfits and the modes of transport it must have borne witness to.

  They’d walked their cycles through the Jewish Quarter—one of the world’s oldest ghettos.
/>   They’d stood in silence, their hands brushing each other’s, in the centre of a two-thousand-year-old church so ripe with atmosphere in the form of incense and candlelight that they’d both, in tandem, turned to light candles, neither one asking who they were lighting them for, but each knowing instinctively the solitary flames they lit were for someone close to them. Someone for whom they wished peace. Their mothers.

  An unspoken peace had settled between the pair of them as they’d glided through the thinning crowds. People rushing home or, as was the case with most tourists, couples wandering hand in hand, paying attention to anything and nothing, happy to be sharing this glorious city with someone they loved.

  And Leon was one of them.

  ‘That was great fun. Thank you.’

  Lizzy went up on tiptoe to give Leon’s cheek a kiss, but their helmets knocked together and she lurched backwards.

  He grabbed hold of her waist and steadied her. Unbuckling her helmet, he slid it off her head, enjoying watching her hair as it tumbled out of the helmet and over her shoulders. He took his own off then, because nothing else seemed to be the right thing to do, and he kissed her properly.

  It was the kind of kiss he’d been aching to give her since she’d arrived here in Rome but had been too afraid to lest it meant committing to something he wouldn’t be able to make good on. Sure, he’d proposed. Lizzy had called him on it. But there had been a hell of a lot of water under the proverbial bridge in such a short time. They were sharing lives, a child, and the world they saw through separate lenses was being melded into one beautiful kaleidoscope of shared history...

  It seemed like something he could do. And the only way to find out if they could be together was to be open and honest. And...like on those glass floors...he wouldn’t know until he took the first step.

  When they finally separated, Lizzy’s cheeks were pink. ‘You were right,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I needed that before supper.’

  He laughed, not asking for clarification as to whether she meant the cycle ride or the kiss.

  ‘Want to eat Chez Cassanetti or out?’

  She considered the options for a moment and then said, ‘Out.’

  He smiled. ‘I know just the place.’

  * * *

  ‘This looks...erm...interesting...’

  Leon’s eyebrows performed a little wait and see jig.

  After having walked past several dozen utterly gorgeous, flower bedecked, history-laden ristorantes and trattorias, pescerias and tavolas and, yes, even some rather alluring pizzerias, Lizzy had tried to summon a smile when they’d stopped in front of the plain-fronted, no-nonsense osteria Leon had chosen—the Italian equivalent of a gastropub, Leon explained, without the chalkboard menus and the aesthetically pleasing olde-worlde environment.

  She was starving, so frankly a hotdog would do at this juncture, but she was trusting that some insider knowledge had made him pick this plain-tiled, sixties Brutalist street-front eatery called, simply, Osteria Rosso.

  She was also completely giddy. Her every nerve-ending was still crackling from that kiss. It had been the type of kiss that swept through her body over and over again in the best possible way. It had coincided with the golden hour—that perfect moment before sunset, when everything was bathed in a peachy-golden hue. So...weirdly...even Brutalist architecture didn’t look half bad. Especially as she was holding hands with Leon—the same hand that had occasionally, almost absently, slipped to the small of her back to guide her this way or that as they navigated the ancient streets of central Rome, bringing yet another set of tingles for her body to enjoy.

  What on earth any of it meant was another story. But for this moment she was happy to let her hormones enjoy the ride.

  There was, surprisingly, a queue. Every now and again a large, rosy-cheeked woman appeared at the door and eyed up whoever was next in line, and then, seemingly randomly, admitted them or turned them away.

  On her third such journey she caught Leon’s eye. He gave a little wave. She beckoned him in.

  After they’d been seated at what might easily be considered the best table—by the window, overlooking a leafy cobbled street—Lizzy asked, ‘What favours have you done for her?’

  ‘Grandbaby,’ he answered.

  Lizzy raised a tell me more eyebrow.

  ‘Spina bifida,’ he said simply.

  ‘In utero?’

  He nodded, his eyes dropping to the handwritten menu they’d been handed, along with a pair of soft drinks and a recommendation to try the fish special. It was, according to the owner, indescribably delicious.

  Lizzy stared at Leon for a few moments as he read, absorbing what she’d always known about him but never acknowledged. That rare spinal surgery was a gamechanger. If left until birth, an unclosed spinal column could cause irreversible brain damage and severe trauma-based injuries to the nerves below a baby’s waist. Surgery wasn’t a cure-all, but it certainly gave the child a better shot at a normal life.

  ‘You don’t like to brag on yourself, do you?’

  He looked across at her. ‘Che?’

  ‘You don’t make a big show of who you are and how unbelievable a surgeon you are.’

  His shoulders did a tell-tale lift and drop. ‘Why would I? It’s about the outcome, isn’t it? Not who created it?’

  All at once she saw how generous and huge his heart was. He was like the very best chocolates at Christmas. A hard, crisp shell with an utterly gooey core. He didn’t do any of his ground-breaking surgeries to raise his stature. He’d all but handed the baton to her when she’d arrived for the Bianchi case. Sure, he was the lead doctor, and he would also overseeing Grace’s care while she focused on Hope’s HLHS, but beyond that first day, when she’d been stupidly cross because he’d taken the lead at the group lecture, where—duh!—she had known about as much as everyone else bar him, he really wasn’t a limelight kind of guy.

  ‘Why do you do this?’ she asked.

  ‘What? Surgery?’

  ‘Yeah, but...little tiny babies. Babies who don’t have personalities yet. Babies who haven’t yet breathed oxygen. When you claimed to never want babies for yourself.’

  They both stared at each other a bit after that.

  Then, ‘Why do you do this?’ she asked again.

  He put down the menu and took a sip of his drink as he considered his answer. It was another trait she hadn’t really etched into her portrait of him yet. He was a thinker. He liked to mull things over before committing. Which meant his marriage proposal genuinely had come from the heart. Which meant...gulp...that Leon had actually genuinely proposed to her.

  ‘I don’t want to be alone when I live!’

  ‘I suppose... I suppose it’s changed over the years,’ he finally said.

  ‘From what to what?’ Lizzy asked straight away.

  ‘From something that seemed impossible—something only extraordinary people could do—to something that is essential, regardless of the merit that comes with it.’

  Hmm...that was too esoteric for her. ‘Explain,’ she demanded.

  ‘I suppose I do it more for the mothers than anyone.’

  ‘How so?’ It was a laudable reason, but she really wanted to get underneath the reason why.

  He traced his finger around the top of his water glass, then looked her in the eye. ‘Have I ever told you about my childhood?’

  * * *

  Three times they waved away Concetta, the proprietress, until eventually she gave up and brought them what she thought they should eat.

  A common practice in Italy, Leon assured her. For a place where restaurateurs did not believe the customer knew best. They did.

  Half an hour and one plate of extraordinary antipasti later, Lizzy felt as shell-shocked as Leon looked. They were finally having the type of conversation most coup
les had in those first precious few weeks of courtship. The type of Who are you, really? conversation that demanded all the attention that neither Lizzy nor Leon had had the time or energy for, because of their insanely busy surgical schedules and because... Well, because that hadn’t been what they did.

  They’d worked. They’d competed. They’d sparked off one another. They’d made love. But they definitely hadn’t talked. Not like this.

  They both sat back in their chairs as their secondis were delivered. Pasta for Leon and—oh, yum—an amazing-looking risotto with fish for Lizzy.

  When the waitress had left Lizzy asked, ‘Why is this the first time you’ve told me about it? Your past?’

  He twirled his fork through a tumble of spaghettini dappled with delicate little clams, glossy from a clear broth. ‘Is your food all right?’ he asked lightly, as if he hadn’t just bared his soul. He poised his fork by his mouth, about to eat the expert swirl of pasta.

  ‘Delicious.’ It was—gorgeous grilled seabass with some beautiful tiny fresh peas in a lemony risotto—but she held up a finger. ‘Can we go back to the whole thing of your father getting up in the middle of your supper and leaving for ever, please?’

  He nodded, his eyes dropping to the bowl of pasta, his fork making half-hearted stabs at the clams swimming in the broth.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he asked.

  ‘Did you ever see him again?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘So, he came back, then?’

  ‘No. His wife in Scandinavia found out about me and invited me to spend the summer with them.’

  ‘He’d remarried?’

  ‘Si.’ he confirmed tonelessly. ‘Right away. Marriage, children, a holiday cabin on an island—the whole nine yards, as they say.’

  He looked up, but appeared to be looking through her, as if reliving that summer afresh. His dark eyes took on a haunted hollowness that made Lizzy’s heart ache. ‘And...?’

  He cleared his throat and gave her a tight smile. ‘And it turned out he would’ve preferred it if she hadn’t. He didn’t like being reminded that he’d made mistakes.’