Wish You Were Italian (30 page)

“A coma?” My insides disintegrate, my mind a jumble of confusion, hurt. Anger. “And you just
left?
You spent all this time coming out here to get me when I could be there already?”

“Pippa,” he says, somehow staying calm despite my near hysteria. “This isn’t exactly news for you to hear over the phone. And do you really think you’d even be able to think clearly enough to get yourself to an airport and on a plane?”

“You don’t think I could have handled it? I’ve done a lot more—”

“I couldn’t just sit at the hospital and worry about you too.”
His voice cracks and he wipes beads of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “When I finally got the whole story that you weren’t at school, I just reacted. I had to
do
something. Find you. Make sure you were okay.”

If I weren’t so shocked by this whole situation, I’d be a lot more irritated by the uncharacteristic babying. But the truth is, I’m glad to see him. I don’t resist when he pulls me close again. There’s really no one else I could stand to hear this news from. Dad’s always been on my side.

I break away and swipe my eyes before I completely lose it. “So even when we do get home, we can’t talk to her?”

“I just want you to be prepared for the worst.” Dad rests his hand on mine. “We need to go. Let’s get your stuff packed.”

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat, and Bruno helps me up.

“This way,
signore
,” he says to my father as he leads me to the door. “She stays with my family.”

Eyes wide and unfocused, I take the flights of stairs so slowly that I’m not even winded once we get inside. Luca and Matilde beat us there, Matilde already having collected my things scattered throughout the apartment.

Luca stands in the corner with a few of his friends, their celebration interrupted by my drama.

“Luca, I’m so sorry,” I say, bottom lip quivering so much, it’s hard to form the words. “You should go back to your party.”

“Do not worry for me,” he says, offering a hesitant smile.

“I almost forgot.” I dash into my room and come back with a roll of twenty euros tied with a green ribbon. “For you. Happy birthday.”

I don’t wait for a reaction or a thank-you, but instead jump right into packing. I hastily throw everything into my suitcase and backpack, suddenly frantic to get back to Chicago. I can hear the murmur of voices from the other room, Dad’s standing out the most. It’s so bizarre to have him here, like he’s trespassing in a part of my life he was never meant to see.

“You are really leaving tonight,” Chiara says behind me. “I am not ready. I thought we had more time.”

I zip up my suitcase and turn to hug her. “I can’t tell you how much I’m going to miss you. Thank you for everything, Chiara. This summer has been—I’ll never forget it,” I whisper.

“Nor will I,” she says, squeezing me tight.

“I’m sorry I have to go so quick like this. But it’s important. It’s Gram.” I choke on my words and pull in a few shaky breaths. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“I am so very sorry, Pippa. Please let me know how she gets on.”

She reaches into one of her bags and pulls out a little pad of paper and a pen, scribbling her e-mail address and phone number for me. I write down every available way for her to contact me, even giving her Morgan’s e-mail address if for some reason she can’t reach me.

“We will stay in touch, do not worry,” Chiara says.

We hug one more time and I realize Bruno’s leaning in the doorway. Chiara excuses herself to give us a moment.

“Pippas,” he says, “I am sorry.
Per tua nonna
. And for the money I took.”

I shake my head. “If stealing my money helped keep you
from getting beat up beyond recognition or worse, I’m glad you found it.”

He laughs, hesitantly. “I do not think it would have come to that. But Pippas,” he says, taking both of my hands in his, forcing me to look at him. “You helped keep my family from more heartache. I now see that I have been …” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “Mamma does not need that. I am trying.”

I so want to believe him. But he’s got such a long way to go. All I can do is nod and return the squeeze of his hands. He pulls me into a quick hug and I take one last scan of the room to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, and to commit it to memory. It was a short while, but this was my home.

Nestled among cliffs
,

my temporary home lies
.

Time pulls me away
.

Matilde wraps me in her soft arms, muttering something in Italian about loving me and for death to stay away. She gives my dad a bagful of food for us to eat on the way to the airport, though I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to eat again.

“Wait,” I say, digging into my camera bag. “I want a picture with all of you. Us. Together.”

Dad takes the camera from me and I stand in the middle of everyone. Nestled under Chiara’s and Matilde’s arms, I find it easier to smile than I expect. I’m surrounded by people who care for me, and who I care for, all because I wanted a chocolate pastry for breakfast in Rome.

The shutter clicks and I pry myself from their embrace. At the door I turn and look at each face once more, knowing that
this will likely be the last time I’ll see most of them. Matilde, who welcomed me, an American stranger, into her home, even kicking her own children out of their room. Luca, a quiet boy with a good heart. I have confidence he’ll be ten times the man his brother’s been. Bruno, the gorgeous smooth talker. If my dad had a clue about what’s gone on between us this summer, he’d have him beat up all over again.

Chiara. One of my very best friends who I didn’t even know existed a few months ago. All-knowing, beautiful Chiara.

Throat tight, eyes blurred with tears, I wave to them all one last time and turn to Dad, his hand on the doorknob. “I’m ready. Let’s go home.”

On the plane, I keep internally repeating that Gram’s going to be okay, miraculously maintaining composure. That is, until I see Darren’s face in my mind.

I bolt upright and snatch Dad’s hand from his armrest, checking the time on his watch. I count out the time difference. It’s seven-thirty in the morning in Italy. The exact time I was supposed to meet Darren.

Darren
.

My chest constricts and my face flushes. I recline in my seat and tap a rhythm on my thighs to a made-up song in my head, flirting with a full-on meltdown.

“We still have a long way to go,” Dad says. “Try to relax.”

I shake my head, not about to tell him what’s really on my mind. Right this very second I’d have my arms tight around Darren, unwilling to let go. He’d lean in for a kiss and we
wouldn’t stop until he had to catch his train. We’d figure out when we’d see each other again. We’d have a plan. But now we have nothing.

How trivial, how selfish. How dare I be upset about missing Darren when Gram is on her deathbed? I’m a horrible person. A horrible daughter for lying to my parents. A horrible granddaughter for thinking about a boy I kissed and regretting that I can’t be with him right now.

I deserve the worst kind of punishment my parents could ever dream up.

“So,” I muster the courage to say, eyes still closed, “how much trouble am I in?”

“Oh, good. You want to talk about
that
,” he says, abandoning his book and stowing it in the bag near his feet. “It might take us a while to come up with just the right punishment for this situation. I never expected you to completely lose your mind.”

“When did you find out I didn’t go to the program?” I ask.

“Yesterday, I think. It’s all turning into a big, ugly blur.” He looks at his watch. “Gram’s consciousness was sort of slipping and she kept saying something about you not going to school, and that she needed to call some woman named Matilde.”

Tears prick my eyes and my throat is officially on fire.

“Morgan filled in the blanks for us.”

I refrain from pointing out that more involved parents would have noticed right away that their daughter wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Maybe in the back of my mind I wanted them to figure it out all along. To worry about me. And now that I know they didn’t, that they were content with me out of their way and getting groomed so they could get their work done …

Just another crack in my heart next to the one with Gram’s name on it. Next to the one with Darren’s name.

Unable to stop fidgeting, I sweep my tangles into a sloppy pile on top of my head and secure it with a band. The ends are crunchy from the salt water, but I push the happy memory with Darren aside.

“Pippa.” Dad sighs for the millionth time since we sat down. I can feel his eyes burning holes through me as he waits for me to look at him before continuing. “Do you have any idea how scared we were? To find out that you’d been lying to us for two months? That we didn’t know exactly where you were? If you were safe?”

“Morgan knew where I was. And it’s not like I didn’t keep in touch with you guys. I e-mailed Mom all the time. I even Skyped with her,” I say, but my confidence is waning. “And I talked to Gram every week, sometimes more. She was fine with it.”

He ignores me. “You are a young, beautiful girl gallivanting alone across a foreign country during high tourist season. You could ha—”

“And whose fault was that?” I say, raising my voice.

He leans closer and keeps his tone down. “You’re completely oblivious, aren’t you? At how lucky you are. Lucky you didn’t get killed, or worse. Do you know how many young girls get kidnapped and sold into sex slavery?” He squeezes my hand tighter. “How could you just … not
think?
I don’t understand you. I know we raised you better than that. You’ve completely disrespected us.”

“I did think. I saw all the money you gave me and I thought,
wow, I can do whatever I want now that I’m here and no one’s dictating me anymore.”

“Oh, the money. That’s great. Your mom will love to know it’s my fault. I suppose I practically told you to skip town.”

“No one told me to skip town, that’s the point. I made my own decision for, like, the first time in my life. I did what
I
wanted.”

He rubs his temples. “You’re almost eighteen and I’m sure you’ll try to find a college as far away from us as possible.” He shifts in his seat, the leather squeaking underneath him. “Soon we won’t be able to tell you what to do anymore. But I want you to think for just one minute how dangerous that was. And lying to—”

“I get it, I lied. It was wrong. I was horrible. What do you want me to say, I’m sorry? Okay, I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“I’m sorry I lied. I’m sorry I didn’t think about how dangerous it was.”

But I can’t be sorry I met Darren, even if I die a little every time his face pops into my mind. Although if I hadn’t even gone, his face wouldn’t come to mind at all, and I wouldn’t know what I was missing. And Gram …

“If I hadn’t gone,” I manage to say despite my quivering chin, “Gram might not be in a coma.”

“Don’t play that game, Pippa,” he warns, his angry tone matching mine.

“What game?”

“The ‘what if’ game.” He reclines the seat and closes his eyes. “You won’t win.”

Chapter Forty-One

She was supposed to wait for me. At least until I was able to say good-bye while her heart was still beating. But she died before my plane even landed.

They call it Talk and Die. She hit her head on the wall as she fell and everything checked out fine when they examined her. She even made jokes, they said. But the next day, her brain began to bleed, weakened from the impact. By the time they realized what was happening, she’d slipped into a coma and it was too late to do anything.

Dad takes care of the paperwork right away so Mom doesn’t have to think about it. The rest of us zombies are ushered into a private waiting room.

“Why didn’t she hang on so everyone had a chance to say good-bye?” I ask softly, the shock of knowing I will never hear Gram’s voice again slowly taking hold of my body. “They always hang on—”

“This is real life, Philippa, not one of your movies,” my mother says, her tone even, flat. Beyond a fierce hug when Dad and I arrived at the hospital this evening, she’s hardly looked at me.

Morgan’s in the chair next to me, her fingers running absently through the sections of my hair that fell out of the band. I don’t like people playing with my hair, but I don’t tell her to stop. She needs to comfort me, so I let her.

I glance at my mom sitting across from us, her glassed-over eyes staring at the floor. She traces the diamond pattern on the carpet with the tip of her shoe. I know she’s hurting, but I’m jealous she was here for Gram. I wasn’t. And that’s Mom’s fault.

“I should have been here,” I say, an edge to my voice that I don’t try to hide. “You shouldn’t have made me go to that school. You knew I didn’t want to.”

Mom’s eyes bore through me. Morgan goes so still, I wonder if she’s breathing.

“You didn’t even
go
to the program so don’t give me that.”

I raise my voice and sit taller. “If I’d been here with her, it probably wouldn’t have happened, don’t you get that? I would have spent time with her—”

“Yelling at me because you’re angry isn’t going to bring her back.”

I shrink in my seat and stare at my hands. I’ve picked at my hangnails so much in the past twenty-four hours, a few of them are bleeding. But I welcome the pain. It’s so hard to believe that someone can be talking and laughing one minute, in a coma the next, and then dead. She’s dead. Gone. There’s a scarf for her in
my luggage that she’ll never get to wear. It can’t be real. My greatest ally. The only person in my life who actually knew how to love, who never made me doubt she loved me for even a second. Gone.

I risk a glance at Mom and she’s still staring at me, eyes bugged and watery. Her bottom lip is trembling. I’ve never ever seen her get emotional about anything in my life.

I pull in a shaky breath. “Mom?”

She looks at the floor as a single tear slips down her flushed cheek. “Was I really so terrible to you?” Her voice is so quiet, I strain to hear, watching her lips form the words.