The Rock

This weekend we did something quite unusual for our family: we took a mini vacation staying at a bed and breakfast in the mountains north of Brescia, though I didn’t organize the weekend away, my friend Theresa did. She and her family have these pleasant organized weekends away sprinkled throughout the year; a winter weekend skiing in Madonna di Campiglio, a fall weekend where we all go to Bolzano where her husband Ermanno did his military service, and two summer weekends, one away at the beach in Chioggia, which is below Venice, and then this weekend in the mountains. All are held at the exact same time each year, the trip to Bolzano is always the third weekend in October, with the same activities followed each time. It is nice to visit a place with people who know it well, that way you are sure that you really are eating at the best restaurants and seeing the most interesting things and Eramanno’s family is so functional that his parents and his aunt and her husband and Ermanno’s cousin and his girlfriend all come along too and no one ever argues or sulks. Best of all they take our children, with their sudden need to eat or use the bathroom or feel tired or flip out in stride without so much as blinking an eye, which is really saying something for as much as I enjoy these weekends I’m exhausted by the end, so I can’t imagine how all of Ermanno’s relatives cope. I like to joke that a weekend with us must be the best form of birth control there is, three boys squabbling over Thomas the Tank Engine and Livia refusing to sit for more than the first course, that Ermanno’s cousin and his girlfriend must drive away after these weekends vowing never to have sex again.
This weekend, which was the first time that we had done this particular trip with Theresa and her family, involved a lot of eating and some limited hiking and long strolls around the town. And more eating. It was the weekend of the Palio, which immediately draws to mind the horse race in Siena that runs around main piazza in town, but up north apparently there are no horse races, though the town was divided into various colored teams. What does happen is a cheese race, where the teams one by one chase an enormous wheel of cheese down the main road that runs through the city center, two men with sticks running along next to it to help steer it and keep it moving, while four or five fellow team mates run behind carrying banners, cheering, and offering moral support. Along the race course people hold lit torches, and the only thing missing is a few pitchforks to make the group seem like one of those angry mobs you seen in old Frankenstein movies.
It was a good weekend, despite the less the ideal weather, mostly because it was pleasantly cool as opposed to the oppressive heat down where we live and because the food was good and there was plenty of wine and after-dinner grappa. But Giulio managed to make the weekend come to a screeching halt with a true “what WERE you thinking!!??” moment. Saturday night after dinner we decided to go back into town to take the kids on the bumper cars and to see if anything was happening in the center for the Palio. Lorenzo offered to stay at the B&B with Livia, who was exhausted at this point, and Ermanno’s parents and aunt and uncle. I was glad to be going down with just Giulio, he is often at his best when it is just me and him, though perhaps the fact that we had Theresa, Ermanno, their two boys, and Ermanno’s cousin with girlfriend, didn’t really mean it was just me and him. Giulio and I piled into Ermanno’s new Citroen 4x4, and drove down the treacherous hill leading up to the B&B and into town.
Ermanno had bought the car a few months before, after a long and weighty search for the perfect family car combined with Theresa’s desire to have a 4x4. Apparently you can take the girl our of America, but you can’t take America out of the girl. This particular model comes with all the trimmings: leather interior, DVD players, and video camera to help you see better when you back the car up. When he had got the car we had all gone out to their garage to check it out, Lorenzo and Ermanno talking gas milage and how much of a discount the dealership had given them, me thinking how great it would be to have a car in Italy that holds seven passengers for when my parents come to visit.
Parking that evening was tight and we had to park further out than anticipated, but we managed to find a spot, and I helped Giulio out of the backseat, gave him a kiss and we walked up the tiny ridge where we had parked to where the road was. I was standing there with Giulio next to me with the car about 3 feet below us, and I was talking to Theresa as the others piled out of the cars and got the stroller open when I suddenly realized that Giulio has just thrown a rock. It was one of those moments where everything seems to move in slow motion. The rock left Giulio’s hand and seems to stay suspended in the air, as Theresa and I both cried out in unison: “Nooooooooo!” We watched as the rock completed its long arced flight before hitting the shiny roof of the car with a solid THUNK. I looked at Giulio a second in disbelief before swatting him on the butt and then running over to the car. I didn’t see anything, just a little bit of dust, but it was dusk and hard to see, especially as the roof the car was just above eye level. “How could you?” I yelled at Giulio, and then the phrase I always swore I would never say: “What were you thinking?” Giulio just looked down at the ground. “How many times have I told you not to throw rocks??” Anger and disbelief had left me sounded like a combination of a wronged ex girlfriend and someone who needs parenting classes. Giulio continued to look at the ground, and I realized that Theresa had gone over and was talking to Ermanno. He said nothing, didn’t even look in our direction, just loaded their younger son in the stroller and started walking up the hill towards the center. We all followed, Giulio trailing dejectedly at the back behind Ermanno’s cousin. All I could do was apologize over and over to Theresa and then to Ermanno who simply smiled weakly and kept pushing the stroller. I told Theresa we would pay for whatever damage had been caused, an offer which she just waved away, but then went on to tell me that when she had told Ermanno what had happened he had said he needed to be alone, and then added, “I don’t know what to tell you Claire, I mean, I think he loves that car more than he loves me!”
If I could have I would have just taken Giulio and gone home, but somehow I didn’t think Ermanno would let me take their car for the ride back. We were stuck. My stomach churned. What if Giulio had caused hundred of euros of damage? What if it they wouldn’t let us pay for it, but were still so angry about it that eventually we couldn’t be friends anymore? Theresa is one of my best friends here, Italian yet American, and her husband was a prince, a truly great guy who Lorenzo really liked as well, and our boys got along so well. Was all this about to go down the drain because Giulio couldn’t fight the urge to throw rocks? I knew he hadn’t meant to hit Ermanno’s car, I knew he had just picked up the rock and thrown it out of pure four year old impulse, that it was bad aim and poor judgement and not pure delinquency that had caused him to do so. But it seems like we were risking a lot for pure impulse. I also knew that if it was MY car and my friend’s son had damaged it I would be pretty steamed too.
We stood in front of the bumper cars as Theresa’s two boys drove happily around the rink, Giulio standing solemnly next to me, having been banned from the rides. He eventually went over to Theresa and leaned against her leg and said sorry, before creeping over to Ermanno and saying he was sorry again. I saw Ermanno lean down and say something to him before Giulio came back over to me. “What did he tell you?” I asked. “He told me not to throw rocks.”
Over the next hour Ermanno thawed. He never said a word about it, but not more than 45 minutes after the Event, he and Giulio were walking hand and hand down the street, Giulio talking animatedly. Right before we headed back to the B&B Theresa gave me the thumbs up. “He knows Giulio didn’t do it on purpose, I also told him how awful you felt, and that you hadn’t seen any damage to the car. He’s OK, really.” When we got back to the car it there was thunder rumbling in the distance, the sky was lit up with lightening. Giulio squeezed my hand and whimpered that he was scared. “Don’t be scared of the lightening,” I said “Be scared of what your dad is going to say when he sees you.” As we all piled into the car I noticed that Ermanno didn’t even glance at the roof, which I had checked again for any possible damage, but still hadn’t seen anything. I would look again in the morning.
The next morning I got up to go running early before everyone else was up, and I checked over the whole roof and still saw nothing. Who knows what happened or what Citroen uses to make their roofs but it looks like this time Giulio got lucky. More importantly Ermanno is no longer mad, and Giulio knows not to throw rocks EVER, so perhaps this whole thing as upsetting as it was made such an impression on him that he really won’t ever throw rocks again. Or maybe not.
At home there was the less pleasant side of going away to deal with: doing all the laundry that you couldn’t do while you were away. As we unloaded the suitcase and the one million backpacks that we always seem to have to take with us for diapers, extra shoes, snack food, and water bottles from the car, the kids ran to the fence to call Babyface’s dog over. I also went to take the garbage out to the curb and as I headed back toward the house Livia came towards me smiling, and when I saw her I threw open my arms and she ran towards me laughing, her arms raised. When I picked her up she tightened her arms around my neck and then turned her head and lay it on my shoulder, and as I stood there I realized that right now this is all she really needs to be happy, a hug from mommy and she is set, and one day it won’t be so easy, that one day a hug from me will be the last thing that she wants. And I reminded myself yet again that I shouldn’t be in such a hurry for this exhausting stage to pass, that one day Giulio won’t throw rocks and Livia will be able to sit through a four course meal but they will want a lot more than just a hug from me. Sometimes in my hurry for time to pass I forget to try and make it stand still, at least for a moment. Yesterday evening, standing there with my daughter in my arms I let the clock stand still for a moment.