Page 62 of My Dark Fairy Tale
“And what did you think of Michelangelo’s most famous creation?” he asked, even though he seemed more preoccupied with nibbling on my ear.
“Eh, I think the sight of you naked would be much more appealing,” I admitted.
He laughed softly right into my ear, and it was the loveliest thing I had ever heard.
“I will have to see what your verdict is after you have seen me as David is,” he teased in that smoky voice. “But in case you did not notice in the wine cellar, I am much better endowed than that poorbastardo.”
I laughed so hard one of the tourists beside us glared at me, but Raffa only shot them a glower and made a rude gesture only Italians would understand.
I had planned to go back to his palazzo for dinner, but he got a phone call on our run back into town and reluctantly asked me for a rain check.
As much as I wanted to spend more time with him, his business gave me plenty of time to explore on my own terms. Armed with my new passport and access to my own money again, I set out to enjoy everything Florence had to offer. I ate a sandwich from the famous All’antico Vinaio while I strolled through the Piazza della Signoria to look at the many statues in the Loggia dei Lanzi and concluded that the theme of female rape was a little too dark to be enjoyable. I walked through the leather market and laughed as various shopkeepers hit on me with a kind of irreverent jolliness that was endearing. I finally saw the Duomo in all its splendor, climbing the 463 ridiculously narrow steps to the innermost point of the dome to see the ornate ceiling muralThe Last Judgment, painted in the 1500s. It was just as breathtaking as I’d always assumed, and not only because I’d just taken a steep climb.
A few classmates invited me out one night to have dinner at a pizzeria down the road from our little school, and I delighted in talking with people who felt a similarpassione Italiana. The people of so few countries spoke Italian, yet our instructor had told us it was thefourth-most-taught language in the world. A German student wanted to learn because she was a fashion addict, a Guyanese couple because they had become passionate about Italian cooking, and an older Scottish man professed he was obsessed with Italian football and wanted to be able to speak the language of the players he spoke about on his podcast.
I truly believed that the ability to speak other languages was an attainable superpower. The first time I had an entire conversation with a shopkeeper in Italian without them switching over to English, I bought myself a gelato in triumph.
The only blight on my week, other than not seeing Raffa daily, was the fact that my father was entirely too nosy about my experience and upset about my lack of communication.
“How is France?” he asked me Friday afternoon over the phone. “You should video call us in front of the Eiffel Tower one day. Your mother would love that.”
“I’m trying to save on data,” I explained, but there was an ever-growing knot of toxicity in my gut each time I lied to him. “But how are you and Mom doing? Enough about me and my adventures.”
“Enough about them? You’ve barely told us anything.”
I could hear the frustration in his voice and the underlying edge of worry. I knew it was hard for them to give me this space, that they had tried to discourage me in every way they knew how—no financial support, emotional manipulation, incentivizing a summer off in Michigan by promising to rent a cabin on Gun Lake—but I knew it all came from love and loss. They had come close to losing me so many times when we were struggling to figure out my diagnoses and when my left kidney started failing, only to lose their other daughter when I was finally in a stable place. It was the kind of thing that changed a person fundamentally, and the tectonic plates in the foundation of our family had been shifting uneasily ever since.
“I told you I’ve made friends with people in my language class,” I repeated, keeping my calm even though I wanted to end the conversation and go back to my fantasy life. “About Greta and Fergus andBibi and her husband, Ramesh. I told you that I love the food and the history, and I’ve already been to all the museums. What else do you want to know, Dad?”
He made a frustrated sound before silence fell, as heavy and smothering as a thick blanket.
“I miss you and Mom,” I told him honestly, letting the emotion that had simmered on low in my belly all day long surge painfully to the surface. “I miss you both so much that I try not to think about it because it makes me want to cry.”
His breath whooshed out in stark relief. “We miss you, Jinx. I’m having trouble sleeping wondering what could happen to you over there.”
“I am in France, not Syria. I got really sick from the plane, but I’m fine, Dad. Truly, I am happier than I’ve been in ...” I couldn’t say “my entire life” because it felt mean somehow, so instead I said, “A long time. I feel like I was always meant to do this.”
I knew I was. Meant to be in this country, in this city. It filled something that had been vacant in my chest since childhood, a sense of belonging amid the summer-toned buildings with streets named romantic things like Via dell’Inferno and the wine windows where you could pass money through a small slot and receive a glass of wine to drink while you strolled. It was vibrant and loud and filled with so much history and culture I could live there forever and never know it all.
And it felt like home in a way that Ann Arbor just never had.
But how could I explain that to my father when he would have a heart attack knowing I’d even set foot in Italy?
“Dad,” I ventured carefully. “You know, you’ve never told me why you left Italy and renounced your citizenship.”
Silence.
“Dad?”
“Why are you asking about this right now?” he asked, weary and annoyed. “I have to be at work soon. I should let you go.”
“No, Dad, please. I’m asking because I’ve wondered all my life what could have driven you away from your home.”
Another pause, the edges of this one so sharp it felt like teeth at my throat.
“I suppose I could ask you the same thing,” he said finally, each word a bullet shot through the phone line. “Have a good day, Guinevere.”
I stayed frozen with my phone to my ear for five minutes before I could unfreeze my muscles enough to set it down. The small pile of postcards I’d started collecting from my explorations caught my eye, and I pulled them apart with my fingertip to stare at the images: Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Pitti Palace, Michelangelo’s slightly underwhelmingDavid.
