Chapter Text
It’s good to have him home. Both of them in fact. The prodigal son and the usurpateur as I heard him call Oliver the day he arrived.
Elio is still far too skinny. He looks as if a brisk north breeze would blow him over in an instant. He’s always been the same. As a child I would joke he should be careful not to slip down the cracks in the paving and when it was windy that he shouldn’t venture out in case a heavy gust were to carry him away like a kite.
I can still see the knitted brows and the fierce look he used to give me. When he felt a bit braver his tongue would stick out like an ironing board and I’d scold him. Se non fai attenzione rimarrai con quella faccia! You’ll be stuck like that if the wind changes and I would hurry him out of the kitchen, tapping his behind as we went.
I stay back as his parents greet them both. Smiles and kisses and hugs for the pair of them.
It seems mere minutes ago I joined their household. Elio a handful of months old when his mother inherited this villa. Recently employed by the previous paternal owner I thought I was to run a quiet, almost sedentary dwelling and a mewling baby, with the thickest, darkest hair I’d ever seen on an infant, was not part of the plan.
But I quickly grew to love him, care for him, take pride in him and worry for him. A lonesome if not a lonely child. More likely to have his head in a manuscript or book than tearing around the village of villas with a ball at his feet or a stick in his hand. I was concerned he would always live such a solitary life.
And then he came.
‘Mafalda, come stai? Sei meravigliosa.’ Mafalda, how have you been? You look wonderful. Those movie star teeth come out and I can’t help but smile. He kisses both my cheeks but I brush him off. ‘Dici queste sciocchezze probabilmente a causa di quel terribile cibo americano. Devi mangiare di più. Stai perdendo la vita.’ You talk such nonsense probably due to that terrible American food. You need to eat more. You're wasting away.
I see Elio roll his eyes. ‘Non è quasi in vita, è grande quanto una montagna.’ He’s hardly wasting away, he’s the size a mountain.’
‘E tu un topo.’ And you a mouse, I tell him as I place my hands to his waist. ‘Ho de’lle pabassina in cucina. Puoi iniziare con quelli.’ I have some pabassinas in the kitchen. You can get started on those, and kiss him on both cheeks.
His face lights up at the mention of his favourite, childhood biscuit and he puts an arm around me as we walk inside.
Anchise tries to take their bags from Oliver but he’s having none of it. ‘You’ve long told me to stop treating this place as if I were a guest.’ he says to Annella. ‘Guests get their bags carried. Family should not.’ Anchise mutters something even I can’t decipher and shuffles back outside to his more natural habitat.
Elio dutifully follows Oliver up the stairs, with a hand lightly placed on is back, to their room. Their room.
In Olivers first summer with us, it took me less time to roll out my linguini dough than to figure out Elio had developed a crush on Samuels newest resident. I saw the furtive looks over sunglasses. His twitchy-ness when Oliver was near, his sadness when he wasn’t. His well rehearsed indifference when I told him Signore Oliver would not be joining the family for dinner.
It took me a while longer to realise Oliver felt the same way but very soon after that, with my washing duties as a housekeeper, deciphered that they had eventually found each other.
I admit it disgusted me at first. An ultimate sin of my church. So far removed from my normality and I didn’t know where to place it. Elio’s parents, if they knew at the time, were not worried by the turning of events, and I as an employee, would never have made my feelings known.
But then Oliver left and I had never seen the boy so broken. He took to his bed, their bed, and swaddled himself in his misery. It could not be mistaken for anything but real, true heart break.
Mine broke too, not only to see him so very devastated but that I had judged them in my own ignorance and later that evening, just as I was about to sleep, I prayed that one day Oliver would return to mend the damaged pieces he’d left behind.
He did.
God works in mysterious ways.
And now they are to be married, if not before God then before the world. Before their friends, their family and me. I wish them nothing but love and happiness.
I also wish Anchise would bring me the fresh fish he promised me for the wedding breakfast. If that old man lets me down I’ll string him up next to his onions.