“I don’t forget.”
“We must forgive.”
“I can’t.”
“Even if I promise you it won’t happen again?”
“It will happen until I’m old enough to make it stop. And then I’ll have to build my own army. Right now, I have nobody. There’s only me.” He tried to smile, but it pulled the stitches.
“Shame on them for chasing you and the Cabrelli girl like animals. They should be punished for what they did.”
“They won’t be.” Silvio patted the bandage.
“Domenica told me to put olive oil on the stitches and you won’t have a scar.”
Silvio rolled his eyes. “She thinks she’s a doctor.”
“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.