Racing the Sun(80)

Oh. Well, I guess that should make me feel a little bit better, knowing they could have found their way home anyway.

When we get back to the funicular, Derio has to take his bike since he rode it here. I assure him I’ll be fine with the kids going home—they certainly don’t seem any worse for wear. But as I walk with them through Capri town, grasping them harder than ever, I know I’m not fine at all. Something has changed in me. Whatever confidence I had earned—falsely—over this job has now been shot dead.

Later on in bed, Derio tells me over and over again that it could happen to anyone. That I did a good job and that I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. He tells me that here, people don’t worry so much and that the twins are more capable than I might think. He reminds me that this is Italy, not America, and Capri is a very safe place.

But for all that, I don’t feel it. And when he tries to initiate sex later, for the first time I pull away from him, uninterested. All I can hear in my head as I lie there in the dark is my mother’s laughter over the phone, my dad’s words echoing that I’m useless, helpless. I can’t seem to shake the guilt, nor can I shake that feeling of hanging on the edge. Something could have gone horribly wrong today and it was only by luck that it didn’t. I walked a tightrope with people’s lives and I didn’t even know it.

I dream again that I am falling.





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


True to my mother’s words, my father does call me. Again and again. I don’t pick up, though. I can’t afford to hear his voice now, not after what happened a few days ago, when I lost the twins.

You’d think I’d just get over it. So I lost them. It ended well. It’s not a big deal. Time to move on.

But I can’t move on. I can’t get it out of my head. To be honest, I think it’s making me a little bit mental. When I go out with the twins into the town, I freeze up. I either make sure Derio comes with me or I keep a crazy grip on their hands, barking at them like a freaked-out seal if they even stray an inch away from me. The twins are starting to think I’m a bit overbearing and overprotective but I feel like I can’t afford not to be anymore.

Losing them, however briefly, has frightened the life out of me and it’s becoming harder and harder to let it go. It’s like I lost one fear and replaced it with another.

Not that all my fears have been replaced. There is the fear of losing Derio, which looms greater now than ever. Next week will be my last chance to leave the country before I become an illegal alien. Derio says he’s still looking into it but he hasn’t come up with anything yet. On my end, it doesn’t look good either.

I did go out for drinks with Shay one night, after I randomly ran into her on the street. It was nice to be able to take a load off and have some girl time while Derio watched the kids but it didn’t take long before she was crying her eyes out on my shoulder. It turns out that she and her boyfriend broke up the other night and she was trying to decide what to do. He was going back to the States but she could either stay in Italy and risk getting deported if she was found out, or go to a country outside Schengen law, like the Ukraine or Romania or the UK, for three months and then pop back in when the visa had reset itself. The last thing she wanted to do was go home, which put her in the same boat as me.

Unfortunately, the only solution that she had for me was to just stay as long as I wanted and then take my chances—just like she would be—when it came time to leave and hope the Italian officials wouldn’t care or notice when I came into the EU. With the date coming up so soon, it looks like I’m not really going to have a choice in this matter.

A part of me, though—the part that listens to my parents—tells me to do the responsible thing and just leave before I’m forced to. In some ways, I’m kind of kidding myself if I think I can stay on Capri and play house with Derio forever. The fact remains that they aren’t my children, and I’m not qualified to raise them or be anything more to them than a glorified babysitter. I’m not married or engaged to Derio and I don’t belong in Italy. I’m an American and can’t stay here forever. Eventually, something will have to give.

But so far, the responsible part of me isn’t winning. Though it wants to do the right thing and go back home and make plans for a future that makes sense to me, I manage to push it away. And when I look at Derio, when he whispers sweet Italian nothings in my ear and makes love to me on our moon-splashed bed, all I can think about is how lucky I am to have him and how terrible it would be to leave.

I would break my own damn heart.