Page 30 of Wish I Were Here
“Your fraudulent activities division iswrong.”
“You’re welcome to submit a ticket for our team to review.”
“How do I do that?” But a little part of me already knows.
“You’ll need to fill out a form on our website and upload a photo of your Social Security card and an official letter from the Social Security Administration stating that the number is, in fact, legitimate.”
“Right. Okay.” I hang up the phone.
“Same story?” Luca asks. “No evidence that you exist?”
I shake my head. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in calling my bank. I’m sure my account is closed, and my moneyis…” I wave my hands through the air, fingers splayed.Poof.I bend forward and wrap my arms around my midsection. “What am I going to do? How am I going to pay my rent?”
“Don’t worry about the rent,” Luca says.
Easy for him to say. He has the lobby floor as a backup. But I’ll be homeless.Or back with Dad.
“Do you have any cash to get by?” Luca asks.
“A few hundred dollars for emergencies. That’s not going to last me very long.” I sit up. “I need a legitimate Social Security card to access my accounts. But in order to get that, I need to show my government-issued ID. In order to prove my government-issued ID is real, I need a birth certificate. And I can’t get my birth certificate without my government-issued ID and my Social Security card.”
“I’m getting dizzy.” Luca turns in his seat to look at me. “But I think what you’re saying is that it all comes down to that birth certificate.”
“And the birth certificate comes down to my mother.” I shake my head. “Dad can’t tell me anything. So that’s it. It’s a good thing I can juggle, because it looks like the professor job is toast. It’s clown town for me.”
Luca slides off the bench and crouches down in front of me. “Catherine, take a deep breath.” His hand slides to my cheek. “Look at me. You arenotgoing to end up a clown. We’re going to find your mother and get your birth certificate.”
“How? How are we possibly going to do that?”
Luca stands, reaching out a hand to me. “Buckle up, Kitty Cat. You’re about to meet the Morelli family.”
It turns out that Luca’s childhood home is only two blocks from the DeGreco building, on a quiet Bloomfield side street lined with mismatched brick and aluminum-siding-covered row homes. Before the developers discovered it, Bloomfield was a predominantly working-class Italian neighborhood, and many of the old families still live here. I’m not surprised that Luca’s is among them. Each house has a porch lined up to the next, and if you walk down this street in the morning or evening, you’ll probably find them occupied with people reading newspapers, drinking coffee, and gossiping with the neighbors.
From the porch of Luca’s family home, he opens the door and leads me into a hallway covered end to end in family photographs. To our left is a living room with a dark wooden coffee table and flowered couch sitting atop beige wall-to-wall carpet. More photos hang on the walls and populate the fireplace mantel. I imagine that this house was passed down to Luca’s mother from his grandparents, and maybe the furniture was, too. It’s all a bit dated, but in that comfortable and welcoming way of things that are well loved. I can picture this house packed with generationsof Morellis at Christmas, the decorations on the mantel, a tree in front of the window. Something about that image fills me with longing. When I was growing up, Dad and I spent most of our holidays at ArtSpace, a warehouse where the circus-performer crowd likes to hang out. Our Christmas tree was an old bicycle someone draped in twinkling lights.
I kick off my shoes and follow Luca straight down the hall past a staircase to the kitchen in the back of the house. A woman in her fifties with dark, curly hair sits at an oak dining table in the middle of the room, and a younger version of her stands at the stove stirring something in a pot. When we enter, the older woman drops her newspaper on the table, stands, and crosses the room to embrace Luca.
“My boy,” she says, gripping his shoulders as she stands back to get a good look at him. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” She pulls him in for a hug.
Luca tries to extract himself from the woman’s hug. “I was just here on Sunday, Ma.”
“You know Ma won’t be happy until you move back home,” the woman at the stove chimes in with a roll of her eyes.
“Is it so terrible that I miss my son?” Luca’s mother laments like he’s been away at war. She reaches out and brushes a wayward lock of hair off his forehead. “Look at you. When was the last time you got a haircut? You’d be so handsome if you’d get your hair out of your face.”
“Stop it.” Luca ducks away and guides me into the room. “Ma, Ginny, I’d like you to meet my friend Catherine.Catherine, this is my mother, Lorraine, and my older sister, Ginny.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you,” I say, lifting my palm in a wave. Both women turn to look me up and down.
“Is she your friend or your girlfriend?” Lorraine asks with zero subtlety.
“Jesus, Ma,” Luca mutters, and two pink spots appear on his cheeks.
“We’re just friends,” I assure her.
“Catherine lives in the DeGreco,” Luca explains.
“Really…” Ginny’s eyebrows go up. “Interesting. How do you like it there?”
