Andrea Canobbio - Three Light-Years

That night she began to think that Luca was making a mistake. She would tell him so. He should talk to Mattia when he called, and even if Mattia didn’t seem interested in talking, he shouldn’t fall into the trap. Above all, he shouldn’t delegate his communication with Mattia to Michela, as if there were a pecking order between them. She began to think that the child would become one of those people who do nothing to bridge distances. The distance that separated him from his father existed, she wasn’t dreaming it up. He would always insist that others make the effort. He wanted to be loved for what he was. He was a perfect cat, an obese, furry cat in the body of an undernourished child, more catlike even than she was, and that’s why he beguiled and bewitched the shy internist. The whole world was captivated by the child’s silent power; everything always seemed to revolve around him (even Michela, of course, even Michela, precisely because she believed she controlled him).

The shy internist had been very fond of the child, then he’d become very fond of the child’s mother. And the child’s mother was very fond of the shy internist. She was enormously fond of him. She reached under the covers to her left and to her right, wondering how it would feel to hear someone asleep beside her again, breathing quietly or snoring loudly. And the thought flashed through her mind: maybe she was in love with Viberti, maybe those fantasies were a sign that she was no longer able to interpret. She had to talk to him, she had to make up her mind. The idea was disturbing, and to stop thinking about it she got up, with the excuse of checking to see if the children were tucked in.

She took the pasta that Mattia hadn’t eaten out of the refrigerator. She never knew what to do with leftovers, often she threw them out and sometimes she saved them. It was easier to throw away larger amounts, she saved the smaller, less-risky portions, in case anyone wanted to check. She heated the pasta in the microwave, added a little oil, and ate it quickly.

* * *

The next day she was on the evening shift, four hours from eight to midnight. She took the children to school, did a little shopping, and prepared for the prospect of a whole day off ahead of her. At home she hung the wash out to dry, one of the household chores that made her by far the most irritable, or, in some cases, determined. She’d always hated extracting that intestine-like skein of clothes from the belly of the washing machine, the coils immediately unwinding as though contact with the air caused an instantaneous necrosis of the tissue. She hated the smell of laundry. She scattered socks and underwear from the bathroom to the drying rack in the room down the hall (since she always forgot to take the basket with her). After a while there was no more room on the drying rack, maybe she didn’t make the best use of it, or maybe she didn’t feel like rearranging the pieces that had already been hung. Often she abandoned a last tangle of clothes, hoping that someone (the housekeeper or Luca) would see to it. Since Luca no longer lived with them the loads to be washed had gotten smaller, his countless shirts, all identical, had disappeared, and there was always room on the rack now, and still the laundry wasn’t arranged properly.

Luca had always been better at loading the dishwasher, hanging clothes, and packing the trunk of the car. She had a vague idea of the reasons for this shortcoming of hers, something that had to do with being methodical, something that men seriously took to heart, that women didn’t have time to take to heart, or even (let’s admit it) something that women’s minds weren’t suited for. Who cares. Think of Viberti’s obsession with rules. She thought of asking him to write out rules for loading the dishwasher and rules for hanging the wash. She thought he would do it for her. She thought that no matter what she thought about, Viberti popped into her head. And it was too bad she didn’t have the courage to tell him so.

She would never have the courage.

She wasn’t brave, she was timid and cowardly. Fear of being left alone drove her to delude a man who asked nothing of her and who loved her. She had to tell him that she loved him, too, and that it was best they not see each other anymore. That was what she urgently had to tell him.

A damp tablecloth fell out of her hand, went plop on the floor. She left the laundry half-hung and went out into the hallway, not knowing where she was going. She found herself in the living room, sitting on the couch with her back straight, her legs together, her hands on her knees, like at a job interview. The moment she realized that she was frozen in that rigid, ridiculous position, she slumped back against the sofa. The living room was a mess from the night before: newspapers on the floor, games left unfinished, videos and DVDs scattered around, the battlefield after the surrender and after the children had agreed to go to bed. She felt like she was suffocating, but she wasn’t upset. Well, maybe she was. She wanted to talk to Viberti. Tell him over the phone? No. Wait until the next day? No. She pictured them at the café. Announcing that they should no longer see each other in the same café where he had confessed to being in love was pointlessly cruel. Among other things, she wasn’t sure he would agree not to see her anymore. He might insist. Was she hoping he would insist?

She called him. He was at the hospital, she told him she had to see him at once. Right away, immediately. She couldn’t go too far from home because the boy was sick, and it wasn’t a complete lie, he’d been coughing for three days. Referring to Mattia continued to be a trump card with Viberti. She told him she had to go to pay the dentist and asked him to meet her halfway. Why it was so important to lie each time, she couldn’t say.

The fact that Viberti agreed to all her conditions made her feel better. She went into the bedroom and instead of getting ready she slipped under the covers, dressed. She imagined what she would say to him, she imagined him nodding in silence. She couldn’t make herself move from the bed until five minutes before they were supposed to meet.

Viberti’s cheeks were red from the cold and he looked a little comical; who knows why he’d left the hospital in his white coat. He looked very anxious, he had a solemn, regretful air, as if he had some bad news for her. Seeing him, sad or cheerful, serene or gloomy, put Cecilia in a good mood. They retreated to a café; it was their destiny. Instead of telling him they shouldn’t see each other anymore, she told him that she thought about him often and that maybe she was in love with him. He remained silent, waiting for the follow-up to those words (there was no follow-up), as if he hoped or feared that she had something more to say. But the admission, whether true or false, had drained her, the effort at sincerity or at imagination was exhausted. If their relationship had become a problem, she didn’t have any solutions. After a while she realized that she was clutching his hand like a fifteen-year-old girl (the age Michela would be in two years), but she didn’t loosen her grip. She confessed that she got up at night “to go and see if the children are breathing,” and to make sure they were covered by their blankets. Now she was the one who was uncovered, but Viberti wasn’t skillful enough to take advantage of it. He hadn’t had a sister to argue with, a mother to try to control.

He didn’t know how to exploit other people’s moments of weakness. What relationship had he had with his mother? She imagined a cold, proud woman, who spoke little.

She asked him to tell her the story that his mother had told him, the one with the protagonist named Cecilia. And as he was speaking, an idea occurred to her. Keep the children apart from time to time. Now, for example, with the excuse of Mattia’s cough. Now that Luca was away. Take Michela to her grandmother’s. See how Mattia does without his sister around. Or take her to Silvia’s. The girl would be fine at Silvia’s. How to explain it? She didn’t need to. Mattia’s cough was justification enough. She was the doctor, everyone would believe her. She felt a sudden joy, the urge to give it a try, right away. Could it really work? Will it really work? she wondered.