Work Text:
The whole thing had started very slowly and then happened all at once.
Conversations, paperwork, interviews, telling their friends and families (that had been the part Alberto found most awkward, because no matter how he phrased it, he always felt like he was asking, hey, if you know anybody who has a spare kid they don’t want, just let us know). And then the phone call from Signora Marsigliese. Her niece was “in trouble,” as the old folks liked to say, and had somehow managed to hide it until around a month ago.
“How soon can you get to Firenze?”
So they’d called Giulia to borrow her car and Davide’s old car seat, and a little under two hours later, they were in a room at a hospital with couches and chairs and pictures of families on the walls, and a nurse was asking them if they were ready to meet their son.
And then, two days later, after they’d weighed and tested and poked the poor guy until he screamed, they’d just let them take him. Even now, seven years later, Alberto was sometimes surprised that they’d just let him walk out with a baby. It was a good thing Luca looked like a responsible adult, because they’d surely have never let Alberto take him on his own.
“Are you sure you don’t need to give us, like, a test or anything?” he’d asked. The nurse had just laughed at him and told him he’d figure it out. He remembered thinking that was worse than if she’d just said nothing.
He tried to think of it without clichés, but he had a hard time coming up with anything more accurate than trial by fire. Luca still referred to those first few months as Caporetto, after the long and disastrous battle in the mountains of the Italian front during World War I. What little sleep they did manage occurred in two hour stretches at the longest, and the world was blanketed by the fog of exhaustion. Sometimes, when it was his turn to feed Matteo at two in the morning, Alberto would think bitterly of the rest of the world, happy and asleep as they should be, and regret all the times when he was younger and he’d wasted such a luxurious opportunity, choosing to stay up all night with Luca instead.
And then he would feel horribly, disgustingly guilty, because maybe this was how it had started for Bruno. But eventually, Matteo would curl his tiny fingers around one of Alberto’s, and pout his rosy lips out when he was full and passed out on milk, and Alberto’s heart would melt and the unshakable knowledge that he would do anything in the world for this little person would settle over him, and the worry that he might still turn out to be as useless as his father had always said would dissolve into the ether. For a while, at least.
Luca grumbled once after a particularly rough night that they’d been fed a lie of what parenting was, as lofty ideas about what they would do or wouldn’t do were unceremoniously fridged by the reality of diaper changes, feeding schedules, and cold, hard terror. (“Is this what parenting is? This is awful,” Luca had groaned as Matteo continued to wail angrily for the third consecutive hour, even after a change and refusing both a bottle and a pacifier.)
It didn’t matter if they’d had a total of eight non-consecutive hours of sleep over the past three days. They had to be on, even though they had no idea what they were doing, and there was nothing to indicate that this wasn’t what the rest of their lives would look like. Giulia told them to sleep when the baby sleeps, and Alberto had wanted to scream at her. How, exactly, was he supposed to do that? He and Luca still had to eat. They had to do laundry and take care of the cat. And what if, after all this exhaustion, he fell asleep so deeply that Matteo woke up and he didn’t hear him and then he starved? He had to be there when his son needed him.
Then there was that.
Somehow, whatever unseen hand that controlled the movements of the universe hadn’t been paying attention one day and had accidentally let something incredible happen to him. Maybe they had gone out for a cosmic latte. Maybe they also had a cosmic newborn and had fallen asleep on the job. For whatever reason, one more extraordinary thing had been allowed to happen to Alberto, even though he knew he was profoundly undeserving. There was no other explanation for how he’d somehow managed to luck into this life surrounded by people who, for one reason or another, genuinely loved him. As long as he did everything correctly and followed all the rules, he might be allowed to keep it.
Deep down (or maybe not so deep down,) he still believed he didn’t truly deserve anything good, that all of this had happened to him by accident. Giulia told him it was presumptuous of him to think the universe paid enough attention to his daily life to have an opinion on whether or not he deserved nice things. Luca told him that wasn’t how the universe worked. His dad told him he was a remarkable and kind young man who deserved nothing but happiness, but that was what dads were supposed to say.
Regardless of what his family said, he couldn’t shake the feeling that fate was waiting just behind the curtain, waiting for him to make a mistake so they could yank it all out of his grasping hands.
See? I knew you couldn’t be trusted.
So that was how Matteo’s bassinet had come to be dragged into their bedroom. It was how Matteo had come to have a bassinet in the first place. (Luca had asked why he couldn’t sleep in the nice crib they’d spent so much money on; Alberto had insisted it was much too big for him. Look at him, he’d said. He’s so tiny. He’ll get lost in that. So Luca had sighed and asked Giulia if he could borrow her car again.)
Alberto would strain his ears in the still of the night, listening for the reassuring sound of breathing from tiny lungs and panicking when all he heard was Luca breathing beside him, followed by the terrible thought, what if he couldn’t hear Matteo breathing because he wasn’t breathing? So he would get out of bed and steal silently across the room with panic beating behind his sternum where his heart should be, kneeling down and peering over the edge to check for the rise and fall of the baby’s chest. He would put his hand under Matteo’s nose and relax when he felt a warm little puff of air hit his fingers. His heart would unclench and he would fall back into bed and snuggle into Luca’s side. Then the cycle would repeat itself, and he’d argue back and forth with himself ( ‘He’s fine.’ ‘But what if he’s not fine?” ) until he would inevitably get up and cross the room once again, and hold his fingers under Matteo’s little button nose and wait for the puff of his breath to prove he was still alive.
After one particularly difficult week during which Matteo had gotten a cold that turned into a fever and none of them slept for two days, Massimo had come down from Portorosso to stay a while. He cooked trenette al pesto and called Giulia and made Luca and Alberto eat and rest. After a few days, Matteo recovered and Massimo went home. When he’d gone, Alberto opened the refrigerator for a snack and broke down in tears on the kitchen floor when he saw his dad had left it completely full of home-cooked meals. Roasted zucchini, trofie al ragù, and more trenette al pesto, all complete with dates and instructions for reheating. He wasn’t ashamed of having emotions, but all the same, he was still glad he’d been alone for that one. The fact that he’d cried over squash would remain a secret between him and the cat.
That first phase lasted three months, and eventually, Matteo started sleeping longer stretches, Alberto’s panic subsided a bit, and their spirits improved.
The second time around was easier, if for no other reason than they knew what to expect. It would be rough, but this time they knew when to expect the light at the end of the tunnel.
Tomaso’s granddaughter had come home from her second year at university and been completely open with her parents from the start. They in turn had asked Luca and Alberto if they’d ever thought about two kids. And so, half a year later, they brought Giada home, in their own car this time, to a house with a garden on the north side of the city.
It was still hard, of course- balancing the all-consuming, round-the-clock basic needs of a newborn with the high energy and limited attention span of a curious three-year-old was a challenge to say the least. There were times Alberto would look at Luca across the room and just be in awe that either of them were managing to not collapse where they stood from sheer exhaustion.
Later, there were still times when he would look around the living room on a Wednesday evening, at Luca working with Matteo on writing his name, at Giada toddling over to sneak a crayon to eat while her brother wasn’t looking, and a knot would tighten in his chest and he would wait for the other shoe to drop, thinking surely this couldn’t be his life and waiting once again for the universe to notice. Oh, how did you get there? This isn’t your life. You belong over there, alone on that island. Go on, back you go.
Sometimes it’s still like that, even now. Mostly, though, it’s like this.
It’s Saturday morning and he’s in the kitchen flipping pancakes and cooking bacon while Luca sips his cappuccino on the couch in the living room. He can hear toys crashing and clattering across the tile and Luca questioning their daughter.
“What are you doing, cara?” he says, his voice tired but not unhappy.
“I think this will be a good place to hide if any T-rexes come.” Her matter-of-fact observation is followed by a shuffle and the soft thunk of little knees bumping against a wooden chest. Alberto flips the next pancake. He peeks through the door into the living room and Luca makes eye contact with him, raising an eyebrow and nodding towards the corner. Blocks and cars and Care Bears are scattered across the floor, and Giada’s crouching down in the toy chest. Her dark, wild curls are very clearly visible, poking above the top of the box in a little puff, but it’s a valiant effort she’s put in.
“Can you see me?” she asks, her voice a muffled echo from inside the box.
“Nope, looks good,” answers Luca, and takes another sip of his cappuccino.
Alberto laughs to himself and returns his attention to the stove. The bacon’s about crispy enough, so he turns off the fire and takes it out of the pan, then sips on his own espresso before transferring the last pancake to a plate. The soft thud of Matteo’s footsteps coming down the stairs and padding into the hall announce him before his presence. Alberto is taking breakfast to the table when he’s stopped by skinny arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
“Buongiorno, figlio. You slept late, huh?”
Matteo nods and buries his face in Alberto’s stomach, but doesn’t say anything. Alberto rubs his back in greeting and tries to cross the room to the table, but the boy doesn’t let go. He eventually manages to shuffle his way to the table to set the plate down, Matteo still clinging around his waist like a vine.
“I dreamed you were gone,” he says eventually, his voice muffled by Alberto’s shirt. “I came down and couldn’t find you or Daddy, and it was just me and Giada, and I don’t know how to cook.”
A familiar stab flashes behind Alberto’s ribs, and the pancakes are getting cold on the table, but breakfast can wait a little longer. He loosens Matteo’s grip and hoists him up. He feels tears and the prickle of skin shifting into scales as Matteo buries his face in his neck, and he knows these days are numbered. Already the boy’s feet dangle down almost to his knees when he picks him up like this. He’s seven already, and it’s only a matter of time before he and Luca are labeled things like embarrassing and nosy, and their son won’t need them in the same way, and they’ll have to learn new ways to be there for him. But for now, he’s little, if only barely. Right now he’s scared and crying and he needs to be held and comforted and fed. Alberto hugs him a little tighter and plants a kiss on his cheek.
“It was just a dream, figlio. Your daddy and I aren’t going anywhere.”
Matteo sniffs and balls his fists into the fabric of Alberto’s tee shirt. “Not even if I’m bad?” he asks quietly.
So that’s where this came from.
Yesterday, Alberto was in the back garden working on a motor. His arms were half-buried in machinery when a nervous voice piped up behind him, apropos of nothing.
“It was an accident.”
He turned to see what was an accident and had to immediately turn back around so the kids didn’t see him laughing. Giada’s beautiful dark curls had been chopped off at various lengths and it seemed that Matteo had attempted to do her makeup with the good oil paints Giulia’s mom had sent Alberto for Christmas last year. Her eyelids had been painted sky blue up to the eyebrows and her eyes were lined by thick black rings that appeared to be an attempt at a cat eye. Matteo had given himself fire engine red lips for good measure. Alberto did his best to keep a straight face.
“Are you sure it was an accident?”
Matteo looked him in the eye and nodded his head in a bold-faced lie.
“You accidentally got out the scissors and chopped off your sister’s hair?”
Again, he nodded. Giada stood by his side, uncharacteristically silent and staring up at him with truly alarming eyes.
“And you accidentally got my paints out of the box on the top shelf?” Another nod. “And then accidentally, carefully painted makeup onto your faces?” Another nod.
Both children nodded solemnly and Alberto bit his lip. It was like being confronted by two tiny glamour shots gone wrong, but he couldn’t laugh, so he sighed instead and wondered when Luca was getting home. He was so much better at this stuff.
“I think I’m going to have to take away some privileges, kiddo.”
In the end, it was decided that Matteo and Giada both would give up their allowances until they’d saved enough to replace the paint they’d used (which was, impressively, almost all of it.) Alberto scrubbed their faces and did his best, but there was only so much that soap and water could do, and even now, Matteo’s lips are still a bit rosy and Giada looks like she’s wearing the ghost of Friday night. Luca had done what he could with her hair when he got home, but for the most part, she was just going to be scraggly for a while until enough of it grew out that they could even it up. After trying his hand at the scissors for a while, he’d just shrugged and said something about natural consequences. At least it was probably a choice they’d only make once.
“Not even if you’re bad,” Alberto assures him now. Matteo’s head pops up from his shoulder, his lips still a lighter shade of ruby, and Alberto bites back another laugh, replacing it with a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Matteo still doesn’t look quite convinced, but Alberto sits him down in his spot at the table and goes to put the pancakes in the oven to warm up a bit.
“Did you know,” he asks as he sets the temperature and timer on the oven, “that I once set Nonno M’s boat on fire?” He pulls out a chair across from Matteo, who is staring at him with wide brown eyes and mouth slightly agape. He shakes his head, and Alberto continues. “I’d been some trouble lately, and I don’t think Nonno quite knew how to handle me. He was used to raising Zia Giulia, you know? And she was used to him, and I guess it just didn’t occur to him that I might be different. I was loud, and he was quiet. I thought it meant he was disappointed in me, and I thought if he was disappointed in me, he’d send me away.”
Matteo has closed his mouth now and is reaching for a glass of orange juice on the table.
“Anyway, I got it into my head that I needed to prove I was worth keeping around, that it was worth it for him to let me stay. So I snuck out one night with a bunch of fishing gear and a lantern, because we didn’t have torcie back then. They existed, we just didn’t have one. But I didn’t know our cat had followed me out, right? He surprised me, I dropped the lantern, and the boat went up in flames.”
Matteo’s eyes have somehow grown even wider and his juice cup is frozen in front of his mouth. “What happened?” he breaths.
“Fortunately for me and Machi, I’m a fast swimmer. Webbing and tails have their advantages, you know. But your Nonno was furious. He couldn’t even speak, he was so angry. Not that he said a lot to begin with, but you know. Anyway, you know what happened in the end?”
“What?”
“He loved me anyway.” Matteo’s lower lip wobbles a bit. “I think lighting a boat on fire is a little worse than cutting off your sister’s hair and lying about getting into the oil paints, yeah?” A watery smile and a nod is all he gets, but it’s enough. “Mind you, I’m still keeping your allowance.” That gets a small laugh and a groan, and the situation is sorted.
The timer goes off, and Alberto calls the rest of the family in for breakfast. Giada helps herself to bacon and chatters away (“Don’t eat anything that can talk,” she advises sagely through a mouthful of bacon; “That’s a good general rule of thumb” Luca agrees), and Matteo pours too much syrup over his pancakes and gradually opens back up to his usual self. Alberto is giving his family straight sugar for breakfast, clearly violating one of the Rules of Good Parenting, but the universe thankfully doesn’t notice.
Some days, he still feels particularly ill-equipped for this job, still worries that shit-baggery is actually some latent genetic trait just waiting in his DNA, and that someday he’ll blow it all up, or that the universe will finally notice that it’s let him get away with a good life for far too long. Some nights he dreams, and he’s back on the island, and he’s eleven. The hat hangs from a hook on the wall by his hammock, and the watch sits in the shell on the bookcase, both untouched for months now. He’s alone, and it’s getting dark. It’s always worse being alone in the tower. Then the shouting in his brain crashes over him with accusations like Dio, you’re so stupid, Alberto, and damn it, why can’t you do anything right, and just fucking stop talking for one minute, per l’amor de Cristo. So he jumps off the top of the tower, because adrenaline and physical pain are the fastest ways to silence that particular Bruno. He crashes down through the tree to the ground, relishes every bump and scrape and bruise on the way because it’s something to think about that’s not him. Then, because it’s a dream and he can’t help it, he makes his way down to the pitch dark beach, just to check. The moon isn’t even out and he’s still checking. It will take another seven months or so for him to fully give up checking. He stands on the shore for what feels like an eternity. It’s always the wrong shore.
But other days, like this one, Matteo will come find him after a bad dream, or Giada will ask him to sleep in her bed with her in case the velociraptors come in the night. (She assures Luca with a little hand on his chest and a quiet voice “I want Papà to sleep with me tonight, but I still love you, okay?”)
Some days, Giada will refuse to put on her pants and run around the house naked from the waist down because she’s four and she thinks it’s funny, and either he or Luca or sometimes both will have to physically wrestle her into them. Some days Matteo will seem quiet and sullen for no reason, and Alberto will wonder what he’s done wrong and if there’s something he should be doing to fix it, because he desperately wants to. He wants to fix their problems. He wants to give them the unconditional love he waited fourteen years to find. He wants them to know they’re loved and they’re safe.
He doesn’t know how to help them sometimes. He does know he’ll have to let them make their own mistakes and let them fix their own problems, let them get their hearts broken and let them cry, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know if they’ll listen to him when he tells them he loves them, or if they’ll believe him when he tells them there’s nothing in this life or the next that they could do that would make him not love them.
He does know that he wants them to wake up on Saturday mornings to the clang of pots on the stove and the smell of espresso being brewed, knowing he’ll be downstairs.