Coming Home

Sono Ragazzi! Sono Ragazzi! Boys will be boys. Sarah listened to her mother say this again. She thought it was the fourth time today but it could have been the fifth. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. After two days with her mother she was already sick of those words. The italian made the phrase sound beautiful but the meaning of it made Sarah nauseous. Her brother, only two years younger than me was already taller, and had been threatening to push her in the canal all day while they were sightseeing. She finally retaliated and threw his hat in the canal and again her mother chastised her with a Sono Ragazzi! Sarah wanted to take that phrase and throw it in the canal too, and perhaps her mother with it.
Her mother is tall and lithe and is a stark contrast to her own 10 pound over weight body. Though Sarah is only seventeen she already knew that her mother's beauty was unattainable. When she was younger she remembered longing to be held by the thin arms and to bury her face into the long milk white neck. That was before her mother left to go back to Italy and long before she felt the unbearable need to be alone. Her brother Ryan looked just like their mother Vanessa. Sarah had taken to calling her that when she spoke of her mother to her best friend Marsha. It made Marsha howl with laughter, though most things made Marsha laugh which made her a good audience. To Vanessa's face Sarah didn't call her anything. She refused to call her mom, had actually decided to refuse to call her that if it came up in conversation. However, she didn't have the guts to call her Vanessa to her face. So for the time being Sarah had said Hey so that whoever they were with turned around, including her mom. So there it was. Sarah was stuck with Vanessa and Ryan hardly speaking and wishing more than anything in the world to be somewhere, anywhere else.
Instead Sarah was stuck in Venice with her mother for a month. Most kids would be thrilled at the prospect of going to Europe and missing a month of school. However, Sarah wasn't most kids and the relationship with her mother wasn't a normal one.
She had arrived in Italy two days ago after an impossibly long plane flight where she was smushed in the middle between her brother and another passenger. Sarah longed for the familiar easiness of her father. Ryan and her lived with their father and Sarah enjoyed the easy silence that existed in the house. Her father, Steve, was a quiet man who loved to collect first edition books when he had the money, and build model airplanes. Sarah like his nerdiness. If a boy were ever to like her, which at this point in her life felt doubtful, she had decided she would want him to have traits like her fathers.
Ryan on the other hand had a very hard time with her father. Ryan was vivacious, outgoing, and of course popular. He played sports and always had a girl hanging on his arm. Sarah thought that Ryan blamed their father for their mothers disappearance. Though Sarah prized the quietness Ryan seemed to despise it and played his music and video games as loud as he could whenever he was home. Sarah figured that Ryan was trying to fill up the space where their mother had left with noise. Sarah, on the other hand had learned to live with the emptiness.
Vanessa left the family when Sarah was ten and Ryan eight. Before that they had been relatively happy, not perfect, but normal. Then one day Sarah remembered that her mother did not pick her up from school. Instead standing outside the elementary school was her father looking completely miserable but pretending to smile. Sarah still remembered that smile. It was hard to get a look out of your head when that one look changed their lives forever. Sarah remember thinking that her dad hated groups and the hoards of children that were streaming out of the school.
Her father explained that her mother had left and was not coming back. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't Ryan's fault, blah, blah, blah. Sarah intuitively knew that this was not her father's fault. He was a good, sweet person. Even at the age of eight Sarah knew that this was their mothers decision and at that moment decided she would hate her forever.

Though Sarah was decidedly miserable she had to admit that Venice was a very pretty city. No cars, no bicycles, and water everywhere! Sarah had imagined people riding to work in gondolas and singing love songs in sudden bursts. In truth people either walked or rode the vaporetto which was like a bus but a boat that people rode all over the city.
Sarah's mother lived in Piazza San Stefano in a large apartment that had been handed down through the generations of family on her mothers side. The apartment had three bedrooms which was great because it meant Sarah didn't have to share a bedroom with Ryan. Sarah had given a little prayer to that when they had arrived at the apartment. Sharing a room with her brother was like living with an untrained monkey. He smelled, was messy, and he snored. It was only Saturday and Vanessa had proclaimed that they wouldn't have to worry about completing any home school lessons until Monday maybe Tuesday which was just fine with Sarah. She sat on the bed in the apartment. She was feeling tired, still getting used to the time difference from California. She could hear Ryan, Vanessa, and Luke talking in the living room. They were laughing about something. Sarah didn't understand how Ryan had never been angry at their mother for leaving. Maybe it was because he was only six and didn't remember as much. Every time Sarah thought about it she could feel anger bubbling in her stomach. Sarah got up and went to the open window to look out on the piazza. One thing Sarah was excited about was being able to walk around the city by herself. Sarah, being her fathers daughter, had started to read about Venice once it was set that they were really coming. Truthfully, Sarah had tried to get out of it but didn't want to upset her father too much by arguing so had let it go once he had gotten upset. Sarah was worried about her father being alone and being able to take care of himself. He seemed fragile, always had.
Sarah leaned her elbows on the window sills of the big window in her room and breathed in the Venetian air. It smelled salty and there was a little bit of a breeze. People were walking in the piazza. Older woman pulling bags behind them. Young man wearing tight European jeans, mothers yelling in italian as their children ran behind them. This was so different from Maryland. Sarah definitely didn't miss the cars, and traffic, and school. "What are you doing sweetie"? Sarah jumped, startled not realizing that Vanessa had been behind her. "Isn't it beautiful? I hope you like this city as much as I do". Vanessa came and stood next to Sarah and reached to lay her arm around her shoulders. Sarah maneuvered out of her way. "I think I'm going to go for go for a walk". "Is that o.k.?" Vanessa gave Sarah a look that she couldn't interpret. It might have looked a little sad. "o.k". "Just don't stray too far and if you get lost say, Scusa poui aiutare andare la casa di mamma?" Sarah raised an eyebrow and laughed. Vanessa laughed as well. "Italian is something we are going to practice over the next month". Sarah shrugged, grabbed her bag, gave Ryan and Luke a wave and hustled out the door before anyone could say anything else.