Massimo Longo E Maria Grazia Gullo - Quarter Moon

"We cannot keep doing this!"

"Honey, let me get into the house first..."

Giulia kissed her husband and went back to complaining.

"It's about Elio, isn't it?" he sounded rather resigned when asking.

"Yes, it is him." replied Giulia.

In the meantime, Carlo took out of his bag a food container that he was going to leave in the kitchen. Then, he was going to put his briefcase into the wardrobe. Inside the briefcase, he would always keep a spare t-shirt because of the heatwave that was striking the region that May.

He was a kind, forty-two-year-old, tall and thin man. His hair had completely gone grey, but once it was like his daughter's. His tapered face was hollowed; on his aquiline nose he was always wearing his round metal glasses.

"Can we talk about it later?" he kindly asked his wife, hoping that she would distress.

"Yeah, you're right honey." she replied, but she kept on complaining until dinner was served.

Luckily, Gaia could not stop talking about her day, looking at her little disappointments in a positive light.

Giulia had just finished setting the table when she said:

"Call in Elio."

"It's pointless and you know it." she replied. "You know that he's not gonna move an inch unless dad calls him..."

Giulia, then turned to her husband:

"He's been in that room since I drove him back home from school. He's getting worse."

"Didn't we say that he was going to come back on his own from this moment on?"

"I was in that area...I was doing groceries..."

"You always make up excuses to protect him, but then you complain about his behaviour!"

Carlo was shaking his head as a sign of disapproval. Then, he got off the couch and went to the kid's room.

He entered the bedroom without knocking and found Elio exactly in the same spot where Giulia had left him. His was staring with dead eyes to the ceiling, was still wearing his white Wi-Fi headphones, and had not even taken his shoes off.

Carlo could not believe that he was the same boy he would always go for a bike ride with. Now he was sixteen years old, was as tall as him, and his green eyes were still beautiful, but they seemed as if they were dead. In the last couple of years, he had been suffering from depression. Carlo had not heard his laughter in such a long time that he had forgotten how it sounded like. He was feeling sorry that he could not spend as much time as before with him. However, he doubted that, as of now, his attention would be appreciated.

Unfortunately, many years prior to that, Carlo had lost his job following the financial crisis. Following an increase in earnings, the company was relocated abroad, like many others.

Carlo struggled to find a new job. At the end, he was offered a position in a different city. Every day he had to cover a great distance and change several means of transportation, which caused him to be away from his family for most of the day. He would come back home so tired that he would be absent-minded. After dinner, he would lie down on couch and inevitably fall asleep despite his attempts to keep his eyes open.

Carlo hinted that Elio should take his headphones off. Elio agreed with him just to avoid being scolded.

"It's dinner time. Come and eat." He ordered. "Your mother said you've been stuck in here since 4 pm!"

Elio got up from the bed, and with his eyes on the ground, walked past his father. Then he walked towards the kitchen, without even making an effort with his father.

Gaia was already sitting at the table that she had just prepared, and was texting her friends and making plans with them.

Elio sat in front of his sister. Yet, he did not speak a single word to her throughout the whole dinner.

The dinner turned out to be uneventful. Everybody was chatting about their daily occurrences, except for Elio, who only ate two bites of a sandwich and went back to his room as soon as possible. His mother was disappointed by this gesture, and so was his father, who looked very grim faced.

When only Giulia and Carlo were left in the room, whilst they were clearing the table, they started addressing the same old topic: their son's bad behaviour.

"What are we doing wrong? I just cannot understand! Gaia is so dynamic, happy and full of life!" said Giulia

"I neglect him way too much!" blamed himself Carlo, as always.

"You're not the only father in the world that has to spend many hours away from home. I, on the other hand, am at home every afternoon" she repeated again as she did not want her husband to feel the burden on his shoulder.

"It's not a matter of character, Giulia, because Elio was not like this before, and you know it!"

"I also wish it were not, Carlo, but kids change when they grow up. And then, they get worse and worse, don't they? At school it's a disaster. Hopefully he won't need to resist, otherwise we won't be able to send him to summer camp...we can't let him go to the summer school...he'll get bored!"

"Giulia, the other kids usually have fun at summer school. Francesca and Giuseppe's children are enjoying it very much. You know very well that he's not gonna do anything at summer camp! We need to find another option, something that makes him fight back. He doesn't even look alive. Do you remember how vital when we were his age?"

"Of course, I do!" My mother would yell on our doorstep that dinner was ready. But, most of the time, I would not even hear her because I was busy running in the fields and rolling over the grass. We were free and happy. We certainly cannot offer him this kind of life in the city. Yet, he does not know how to make the most of summer camp. He doesn't have any friends, no one to invite over and help him cure this monotony he's been living in. He doesn't let anyone get attached to him. Sometimes I ask myself how he feels about us. He's so elusive when I try hugging him..."

"Giulia, teens do not want to be cuddled by their mothers. I am sure he still loves us, but we're not communicating with him in the right way. We need to find a new one. We need to find a way to wake him up. Maybe he could talk to Ida? She's got two young boys. Maybe she can give us some useful advice. "

"Are you afraid he's gonna turn out like Libero? That he's suffering from a hereditary psychological disorder?"

"No, with Libero it was different. His problems were due to his father's death. But there is a common ground, and Ida's experience might be useful. She really worked miracles with that boy after they moved to the countryside. And she did that all on her own! With the farm too."

"Yeah, do mention it to her. I trust your sister. She has her own way of seeing things, and I like it."

"When are we getting the school report?" asked Carlo to his wife.

"June 19th..."

"It'll be too late to decide what to do. You should ask his Italian teacher to have a one-on-one discussion with you. We have to decide where we are sending off our kids. Applications to both summer camp and summer school close before the 19th." suggested Carlo.

"Yes, you are right. We need to be sure of the situation, although he doesn't do that badly at school. It's just that he doesn't put his soul in anything he does. Do you know that the new tenants from the second floor have moved in? They seem to be good people. Mrs Giovanna told me they moved here from Potenza. That's far! It certainly won't be easy for them at the beginning. They have a son who's the same age as Elio. I could invite him over some afternoon..."

Giulia then noticed that Carlo, who was lying on the couch, had already fallen asleep.

"Come on, honey, let's go to bed." She gently whispered to him to wake him up.

Second Chapter

A cold whisper was obsessing him

Elio was standing on the wide pavement in front of his school. All the other kids around him were speeding up, quickly getting in their parents' cars or chasing each other around on the way home. He, on the other hand, was dizzily looking everywhere for his mother's car as if it were his lifeline, hoping that she had not left yet after the one-on-one session with his Italian teacher.