The Fifth Gospel (43 page)

Worse, Ugo's disappearance felt as if it confirmed the verdict of Mona's disappearance: that the fault was somehow in me. Life had given me a parole hearing and found me still wanting. The last I ever heard from Ugolino Nogara was that e-mail. And I thought, because I ignored it, that I had finally learned my lesson.

C
HAPTER
27

W
HEN I PICK
Peter up from the Costa apartment, the first thing he says is, “I don't want to go back to Prozio's palace. I want to go home.”

“Did Allegra say something to you?” I ask.

“I just want to play with my cars.”

“We can pick up some of your toys, but I don't think we're going to stay.”

“Can I go to the bathroom, too? I don't like Prozio's bathrooms.”

His insistence seems less odd now. “I'll give you a piggyback ride. We'll get there faster.”

HOME. WHEN I WAS
seven, Simon and I counted the number of stairs to our floor and the number of steps to our apartment. The steps have diminished over the years, but not the habit of counting them. Peter and I do it out loud. He says he will climb the stairs faster than I do when he comes back to live here someday as a world-famous soccer player.

Inside, the plants are wilting. The hake that Sister Helena made for Simon's arrival is developing smells on a lonely platter in the refrigerator.

While Peter is in the bathroom, I clean up what remains of the mess. The place looks like home again.

“I'm hungry,” Peter announces on his return.

I pull down a box of cereal, the single father's standby. While I wait for him to finish, I call maintenance.

“Mario, it's Father Alex up on four. I need to change my lock. Do you have parts for that?”

Mario isn't known for promptness, but we went to school together, so I know I can trust him.

“Father, I'm glad to hear you're back,” he says. “Coming right up.”

By the time Peter's done with his second bowl, we have a shiny new knob and key. Mario has even insisted on installing them himself.

“Anything else you need,” he says, “you call me.”

He musses Peter's hair. He must know about Simon, but this is his reaction to the news. I miss this place. I didn't appreciate enough what a family we are in this building.

When he's gone, Peter brings his bowl to the sink and goes to play with the new knob. “I've been praying for Simon,” he says, apropos of nothing.

I try to look unsurprised.

“Me too, buddy,” I say.

“When it's for Simon, who do you pray to?”

He told me once that praying is like being a soccer coach and calling saints off the bench.

“The Theotokos,” I say.

Mary, the mother of God. The highest power of intercession.

He nods solemnly. “Me, too.” He picks up one of his toy cars and flies it through the air, making artillery sounds.

“Why do you ask?”

He scrunches up his face. “I don't know. But I think this car is out of batteries.”

He opens the battery drawer beside the phone and decides to tap the button on the answering machine.

“Simon's going to be fine, Pet—” I start to say.

But when I hear the words coming out of the answering machine, I rush to cut it off.

Alex, it's me
.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come to see
Peter at the class you were giving. Please call m—

I manage to stop the message before it can finish.

“Who was that?” Peter says.

It breaks my heart to say the word. “Nobody.”

But he knows women rarely call this phone. He reaches onto the counter and scrolls through the list of incoming calls.

“Who's Vi-ter-bo?” he asks.

I stare at him. “Don't be nosy.”

He grunts unappreciatively and starts rummaging through the batteries.

So this is how it's going to feel, every time the phone rings. This is how my heart will be crimped every time someone knocks on the door.

“When is Sister Helena coming back?” he says.

“I don't know.” I feel tired of all the white lies. “Not anytime soon.”

He gives up looking for batteries and, with a sigh, flies the car back through the air toward his bedroom.

“Peter,” I say.

He returns with an old stuffed rabbit he used to sleep with, inspecting it as if for the first time. There were once teddy bears and blankets where there are now trading cards and soccer posters. I'm going to miss my baby boy. He's making his very final lap.

“Eh, Babbo?” he says, coming toward me.

The cartoon bear on TV says something like this. Maybe he's already forgetting the voice on the machine.

But I'm not. Until we finish this, I'm going to hear that voice in every silence.

I open my arms and lift him into my lap. I want to remember this moment.

Running my fingers through his hair, I say, “Peter, there's something I want to tell you.”

He stops strafing the rabbit's ears against each other. “Good news or bad news?”

How I wish I knew. Every particle of hope says good. Every ounce of experience says bad.

“Good,” I tell him.

And then the words he's been waiting to hear almost since he was born.

“That woman on the phone,” I say, “was Mamma.”

He stops. Confusion sets in his eyes.

“She came back two nights ago,” I say. “While you were at Prozio's palace.”

He shakes his head. At first he doubts. Then he recoils. I've kept this from him. This miracle, this divine visitation.

“She's here?” he asks, glancing toward the bedrooms.

“Not in the apartment. But we could call her if you wanted.”

His perplexity is supreme. “When?”

“Anytime we want, I think.”

He stares expectantly at the phone on the table. But there's a distance we need to travel first.

“You and I have waited a long time for this,” I begin.

He nods. “A super-long time.”

Since before he could form a memory of her.

“How do you feel about it?” I ask.

His hand is tapping the table. Feet kicking underneath. “Great,” he says. But what he means is:
Hurry up, please.

“Do you remember,” I ask, “the story of when Jesus came back?”

It's the only way I can think to explain this. By returning to the story we know best.

“Yes.”

“What happened when he came back? Did the disciples recognize him?”

Peter shakes his head.

It's one of the most mysterious, poignant moments of the gospels.

“
Two men were traveling on the road to Emmaus
,” I recite, “
and Christ drew near to them, and walked with them. But they did not recognize him
.”

I used to imagine the two men as brothers, one taller and one shorter. Now I picture a father and son.

“When Mamma comes back,” I say, “she may be different. She won't look exactly like our pictures of her. She may not act like our stories about her. We may not quite recognize her at first. But she'll still be Mamma, right?”

He nods, but this is starting to fill him with anxiety.

“And what else did Jesus do,” I continue, “after he came back?”

What a poor teacher I am. A thousand possible answers to this question, and I expect him to intuit the right one.

Somehow, though, Peter knows. It's taken him a moment to find my wavelength, to align our minds, but we have always understood each other.

“After Jesus came back,” he says with a hint of desperation, “he left again.”

I push forward. “And if Mamma leaves again, we'll be sad, but we'll understand, won't we?”

He turns his head away violently and slips out of my lap. He wipes away tears with lashing strokes of his hand, wanting me to see how upset he is.

“Peter.” I kneel beside him. If I were to make him dread Mona's arrival, I would be sharing the very worst of myself. The part that is incapable of hope. My own heart drowns in these worries for his sake, but for his sake I have to do better. “Peter, I believe she's
not
going to leave. I believe she wouldn't have come back if she were going to do that. Your mamma loves you. And no matter what happens, she'll always love you. She would never want to hurt you. Not for anything in the world.”

He nods. His lashes are dewed with tears, but his eyes are drying. This is what he wants to hear.

I place my hands on his sides. His ribs are thinner than my fingers. “When she meets you, she's going to feel something amazing. There's no love in the world like a mamma's love for her little boy.”

The verdict of our whole religion. Between mother and child is the purest love in creation.

And yet I don't want to ply him with false hope. Neither of us knows Mona's motives. I don't even know my own. We've created a delicate life here, and the upheaval she could create is total. Right now, our energy needs to be focused on Simon. But I can't deny Peter this moment. He's waited so long.

“Can she come over?” he says, reaching for the phone. “
Please?
”

This last word is so bottomless that it guts me.

“We can call her,” I say. “Okay?”

His finger is on the button. He itches to press it.

“Wait,” I say. “Have you thought what you would say to her?”

Without even hesitating, he nods.

My heart cracks. I never guessed he had a script for this conversation.

“All right, then,” I say. “Go ahead.”

But to my surprise, he hands the phone back. “Can we do it together?”

So with my finger over his, we press Dial.

I whisper, “Ready?”

He can't answer. He's fixated on the ring tone.

Mona answers almost immediately. It's as if we've called on the emergency frequency reserved for superheroes. Peter is entranced.

“Alex?” she says.

My son's blue eyes are as wide as the sky. I put the handset on speakerphone. Now I'm just a witness.

“Hello?” she says.

Peter is startled. He doesn't recognize her voice. Somewhere deep inside him, he's discovering the cement is still wet.

His lips form a smile. In a small voice he says, “Mamma?”

I wish I could see her face.

A sound comes out of the speaker. Peter stares in alarm. He doesn't recognize the sound of his mother crying.

“
Peter
,” she says.

He looks at me again. Not for reassurance this time, but for material. I realize there was never any script for this conversation.

“Peter,” Mona says, “I'm so happy you called me.”

She's searching for words, too. In this most fundamental act of my daily life, speaking to our child, she is inexperienced.

“I—did you—what did you do today? Did you have fun with Babbo?”

Her voice is slow and full of sunny overabundance, as if she's talking to a child half his age. But Peter's already recovered. Without answering her question, he locks in his agenda: “Can you come over to our house?”

We're both caught by surprise. Mona says, “Well. I don't know if—”

“You can come right now. We're having cereal for dinner.”

She responds with a pop of laughter that takes Peter aback. He didn't know his mother contained such noises.

“Peter,” she says, still laughing, “sweetheart, we would need to talk to your father about that.”

O naïve woman. Like a fish in his net.

Peter shoves the phone across the table. “Okay,” he says. “My father's right here.”

SHE ARRIVES TWENTY MINUTES
later. I could've stopped her. But I've never seen Peter so lost in joy. I'd sooner have blown out candles in a church.

He rushes to answer the door, and it's like watching a train careen into a dark tunnel. God bless him, he doesn't even hesitate.

Mona is dressed in an outfit I've never seen before. No conservative summer sweater tonight, but an indigo sundress with bare shoulders. She is beautiful. And yet as she lowers herself to her knees, offering an embrace she isn't sure Peter will accept, the smile is plastered on her face. Sensing her terror, he is suddenly full of ambivalence, too, and lurches forward weirdly to take the hug. Neither says a word.

I'm relieved. Peter's too young to understand regret, but my body vibrates with the awareness that we're now playing with those dark materials.

Mona reaches into a plastic bag on the floor by her feet and says, “I brought dinner.”

Tupperware. Her answer to our pathetic dinner of cereal.

“A gift,” she clarifies, “from Nonna.”

Peter's maternal grandmother. I recoil.

Peter looks at the Tupperware and says, as if there's still time to change his order, “My favorite pizza is margherita.”

“I'm sorry,” Mona says, crestfallen. “All I brought is some cacio e pepe.”

Tonnarelli with cheese sauce. The devil inside me smiles. Her mother's version of the dish will be too peppery for Peter. A fitting introduction to the mother-in-law I always found to be an acquired taste.

“We already had cereal,” Peter explains. But he takes her by the hand and leads her inside. “How long can you stay? Can you spend the night?”

Mona glances at me for help.

“Peter,” I say, stroking his hair, “not tonight.”

He frowns. If this is a preview of the new chain of command, he doesn't like it.

“Why?” he says.

Surprisingly, this is the moment when Mona chooses to assert herself.

“Peter, we aren't ready for that yet. You have to be patient with us.”

The anger that blooms on his face is beautifully pure. What hypocrites we are. Grant us love, but not yet.

“I brought something for you, though,” she says, reaching into the bag.

Peter waits expectantly, only to receive a picture in a frame. It shows the two of us watching soccer on TV. I'm holding his arms in the air to celebrate a goal. I have to guard myself against the emotion that comes
with realizing she's kept this picture for years. But Peter pulls the frame out of her palm and says, “Okay, thanks,” and plunks it on the nearest table.