Crocuses

My Uncle Chuck calls to tell us about the crocuses on the front page of the Anderson Bulletin. Dad's put the call on speaker phone, so we all hear my uncle, in the way his accent, a trace of Rhode Island from his childhood that fits into the crevices of 60 years living in Anderson, Indiana fills the room here in Siena. It's out of place. From here, there is a view of the church of San Domenico with its castle-like towers, its stained glass windows, its color—like a smudge of terra cotta pressed onto the milky white sky—and after that, if you follow the skyline, it is all tumbling towers of russet brick, arches that lead to cobbled alleyways, roads with their slabs of grey stone and the entire city that feels pieced together, mosaic after gilded mosaic. But we are here, my father and Marilyn and me, and Uncle Chuck's voice turns to laughter that mingles with my father's laughter, and we listen. Siena is gone. It is Indiana instead—a cushion of bright purple crocuses—that comes to mind.

These are the conversations I like the most. We hear these conversations every year, every time my father is with his brothers, and isn't it soothing the way they laugh? Isn't it soothing the voices they use when they want to remember? Sometimes it's on the phone. Sometimes it's gathered round a table. Thanksgivings were full of them. The clink and clatter of silverware, the conversations, my mother standing in the kitchen, slicing up pies: apple, pecan, sweet potato topped with whipped cream. In that quiet moment between one dish and another, they would talk. Uncle Dick in his husky voice, Uncle Chuck in a tinny laugh, my father who sat slouched on the dining room chair, one leg slung over the other, leaning back. My brother and I paid attention, my mother's eyes sparkled. And they sat round like any normal day, reminiscing on the gooseberry bush in the back yard, on the walk to school in Rhode Island, on the time they chopped the head off of a flailing chicken in the garage. They spoke in names of families, of relatives. Uncle Romeo. Aunt Jackie. Uncle Marvin out in Martinsville. Our dining room table was populated with the names I'd heard all of my life, and the rest of the dining table was silent but for bites of pie and persimmon pudding, and the world had turned wonderful.

In the late evening we go for pizza in the Campo in Siena, the main piazza that is shaped like a fan that's been opened, fluttering in a breeze. I am visiting for the weekend, this, one of their last weekends here in Italy, and Siena looks like it has peeked out from under an umbrella for once, the piazza starting to fill up, these bars that line the outside of the square already set for dinner, even at 6 pm. We are still flush with talk of home, even here, even in the center of the city where the evening sky is a deep shade of blue and there are plates of pizza at our table. We talk about Uncle Chuck and his next eye appointment, and how his eyes are so bad now that spring comes in sounds, in birds on his front porch, in a flock of Sandhill cranes flying over his house one morning. We talk about my Uncle Dick too, who lives in Florida near Fort Meyers and has suffered every ailment one can think of, survived every cancer, every bad break. He is the survivor of the brothers, my father says as we eat our pizzas and look out over Siena. He talks about his brothers as if they are there sitting at the table. The sky is going from blue to an inky black night, and we are under the looming medieval tower of the old city hall. We could climb it one morning if we wanted to. We could see all of Siena, red rooftops that stretch, their arms wide open, castles and church towers that holler in bells ringing all the way out to the sea.

We talk about the crocuses the next day, on the drive back from the medieval town of Volterra. We talk about what spring is like back in Indiana even here, in this vast expanse of rolling hills, of countryside in bright green that ripples down the mountain like water. Dad is singing at times, and I join in. We talk about springtime, and the garden, and what is waiting for Dad and Marilyn when they get home to Indianapolis. They'll be home in a week's time, and they say, as we drive, that this might be the last time they come to Italy for a while. I think about it and realize they've been coming here for years now—for me, for Rome, for Siena. Time has blown past us, lifting our flimsy sleeves like wings, bringing us down ten then twenty then thirty years in endless motion before we've had a chance to take a breath. It is the slowest of breaths that we do take. The feel of it in your lungs, filling you to capacity. I can't talk about it, my heart isn't ready at all. So we sing instead. Dad sings “Give My Regards to Broadway”. I join in on the chorus. Marilyn gazes out the window and mentions, every once in a while, just how beautiful this is. The countryside, the fields, the patches of green that turn to silver, that turn to gold. It is true. For a minute I stare off into it myself, and then I follow the long hairpin turns that lead us down this mountain, down these endless wistful hills.

There are ghosts here. Can you feel them? The fields are filled with them, a kind of remembrance of people that we love. People that we miss, people who are gone. Grandparents, uncles, mothers and fathers. We tell these stories and we watch the countryside fade, we watch Volterra disappear behind the fog, and we see other towns, we watch cypress trees thread their way through the land in folded stitches, we look out and we can almost see the mountains past this haze. One day this will be my story. This land, like some sort of unexpected inheritance, like the Aunt Jackie who moved across the ocean, who married Uncle Antonello, who left everything behind in search of love, in search of herself. These towns that stretch across entire ridges, whose bridges span the chasms that drop, whose medieval lanes get lost, turn circles around the day. These are the places that we'll remember, I think. These are the songs we'll sing. One day, gathered round, in hushed voices, when every other story has been told.

Bagel Seeds

Regret