Chapter 9
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men." - John 1:4
Italy, June 29, 2020.
Giovanna Rinaldi
Lorenzo invited me to lunch at a nice restaurant, I accepted his invitation, I'm looking forward to seeing him soon. I ended up sleeping the whole way and when I got home I slept again, unlike my family, Lorenzo was supposed to pick me up at 11:15.
When I got home, I felt so good, it was as if the years I had lived in Brazil had always been missing something and when I arrived, I felt complete again. I remember feeling complete only once in Florianópolis, the day Pietro showed up at our house.
"It was our first night in the new house, I'm delighted, everything is so beautiful, but it's raining a lot, I've always been afraid of storms and tonight it's raining a lot. My twin sister is asleep and I don't want to wake her up, mom always says I'm inconvenient even though I don't know what that means, so I decided to leave my room and went downstairs, although I'm afraid of storms, I'm not afraid of the dark, that's wonderful for a seven-year-old girl, so when I got to the living room I lay down on the sofa and turned on the TV and watched some cartoons until I fell asleep. I had a very beautiful dream about a girl, I looked very much like her and I called her Mom and she said how much she loved me and that she would always be with me...
The sound of the doorbell ringing woke me up from this dream, I was frightened by the noise, but I was brave enough to open the door and see a little boy all drenched by the rain, he was crying and shivering with cold my only reaction was to put him inside and then shout for my parents. But how had he got through the gates?
- Mom, Dad... - I shouted three times in a row until they found me in the living room.
- What are you doing down here, darling? - Dad asked and until then I hadn't noticed the little boy who was already inside my house.
- I was scared of the rain, so I lay down here in the living room and ended up falling asleep, only to wake up to the sound of the doorbell, so I went to open the door and he was standing in the doorway, Daddy, can we keep him? - I asked with all the innocence of a child.
- O mio Dio - Dad said in Italian, almost in a whisper, my mother was watching everything without saying anything at all.
- What's your name, child?
- Pietro, sir. - I said with my head down, my voice still broken from crying.
- How old are you, Pietro?
- Five years old, sir.
- Mio Dio, you can call me Romeo, where are your parents? Why are you on the street at this hour of the morning and alone?
- I don't have a father and my mother is very ill. She left me here and said that you would look after me and that she could go and live with her father in heaven in peace. - She also told me to give this letter to you," he said and handed a rather wet piece of paper to my father, who immediately read it and I could see his eyes fill with water as he finished reading it.
- I'll take very good care of you Pietro, you'll live with us now and you'll be very happy here, this is my wife Antonella and my daughter who opened the door for you Giovanna, you're still too young to understand everything that's going on, but in time you'll understand everything. - Dad said to Pietro, who agreed and smiled. - Now you need to take a good bath or you'll get sick, can Antonella darling take care of that for me? - Dad asked and Mom agreed and went upstairs with Pietro.
- And you, young lady, off to bed. It's late tomorrow and you'll be starting at the new school. - Dad said and picked me up, carried me to my room and put me to sleep. In a few minutes I was already in the deepest sleep and dreaming of that girl again.
Antonella
- Darling, can you explain to me what's going on? - I asked my husband after giving him a bath and putting that little boy to sleep in the guest room.
- My dear, Pietro is Francesca's son.
- Your sister?
- Yes.
- Didn't his father throw her out of the house?
- Yes, when he found out she was pregnant, he threw her out and then we never heard from her again, my father died without even meeting his grandson and being forgiven by his daughter.
- A grandson who sleeps in the guest room, am I right?
- Yes, in the letter she said that during Pietro's pregnancy she became very ill and thought she was going to die, but she managed to fight off the illness for a few more years and now there's nothing left to do, so when she read in a newspaper that I was moving to Brazil with my family she didn't think twice about leaving me in charge of looking after her son, she knew I'd do a good job.
- And what are you planning to do?
- Fulfill my sister's last wish and raise her son as if he were mine, or rather as if he were ours.
- And where is she now?
- In a hospital in the center of Florianópolis. I'll go and see her tomorrow, I just hope it's not too late.
- It won't be darling, you'll see your beloved sister again.
- You don't mind, do you dear? In terms of looking after my nephew as if he were our son?
- No my love, if God put you in our lives it's because he knows we'll do a good job.
- I hope so, now let's go to sleep, tomorrow will be a long day."
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