TRAVELS WITH MY LOVERS
By Erica Miner
 

1. Addio, Firenze

I.

I was beside myself. Admittedly, I was hopeless at maps – this had always been my husband Eric’s job – and suddenly I found myself in my first European city without a clue as to where I was heading. Although I wasn’t a single mom, it certainly felt that way, with my two tykes in tow and a husband bailing out at the last minute to stay in New York. Like a relentless mama sheepdog, I pushed and prodded my precious kids along the cracked cobblestone sidewalks. Where was the shopping cart when you needed it? Or the red wagon, for that matter? I think there comes a time in every mother's life, when you just want to say, what was I thinking?

Don't get me wrong, I loved being a mom. But much as I treasured my two adorable little cohorts, I was beginning to be desperate for some exploration time alone. Julian and Regina, thank God, were not hyper kids; but they were both up for adventure and kept me going, going, going.

By mid-afternoon Florence had become, to my overloaded senses, a bewildering maze of crisscrossing streets and piazzas choked with tourists. Then, when the kids and I had finally got our bearings (I was feeling calm and we were on our way to a bar to reward ourselves with some gelati) the unimaginable happened. My son, who had insisted on chasing pigeons through the Piazza della Signoria, disappeared; and suddenly the phrase "sightseeing" took on a whole new - and frightening - meaning.

Julian was only eight - what made him think he could just take off like that, in the middle of an unfamiliar, foreign city? One minute he was alternately pursuing the ubiquitous birds and fidgeting impatiently while five-year-old Regina and I admired the imposing statues in the colonnade; and the next minute he was out of sight. Something was definitely going on with him.

He’d always seemed to be a mirrored image of his dad – "little Eric," we sometimes called him – and I’d always thought that his affection for me reflected the genuine admiration and supportiveness that Eric always demonstrated towards me. But lately, my husband had gotten less attentive; and strangely, Julian had filled the gap, vacillating between an annoying clinginess and a fierce, unpredictable independence.

I tried to remember how I had felt at his age and suddenly flashed on the exhilarating freedom I’d felt when I had put my own mother through a similar torment. Too impatient to wait for her, I walked home alone from my urban grade school, crossing a busy, dangerous thoroughfare all by myself. When I reached home I found her, head bowed over the kitchen table, crying bitter tears of worry and grief. It was one of the few times I ever saw my mother cry. Now, I supposed, it was my turn to be fraught with anxiety over my own missing child.

I watched the bustling police activity all around me - a response to my impassioned plea to the Carabinieri, in my hit-and-miss Italian - to help me locate my son. I could barely describe Julian without bursting into tears. I was so flustered, in fact, that I gave the Police Chief my maiden name by mistake, then had to correct myself. I must really be overwrought, I imagined. This was very unlike me. After almost nine years of marriage, I was as wedded to my married name as I was to the robust, hair-curling espressos that Eric made for me every morning.

As the hours dragged on, my sunburned arms felt as if they’d fall off from having to carry ill-tempered little Regina all around the Palazzo Vecchio. (Of course I couldn’t blame her - what kid her age wouldn’t be grumpy, traipsing through the Uffizi Gallery for two hours with her fanatic art-lover mom?) And in the midst of all the confusion, which was all the more so since it was Italian confusione, the poor kid’s nose had started bleeding all over my shoulder and onto the sidewalk, completely annihilating a fledgling street-Michelangelo’s masterpiece-in-progress. I handed him a five thousand lire note to start him off on his next one. He grumbled, "Grazie," and we fled before the crimson tide engulfed what was left of his artistic endeavor.

Meanwhile, impressed as I was with how seriously Italians seemed to consider the disappearance of a child, the reality was that no further progress had been made in the search for my little guy. In reality, Julian was a resourceful New York City kid and could probably hold his own on the streets of any city. But I was still fraught with anxiety, all the more since I was plagued with fears about what Eric would think if he knew about the situation. I loved my husband dearly, and I didn’t want to worry him needlessly, but I had no particular desire to incur his wrath. Finally, in desperation, I had asked the policeman in charge to phone our hotel, just in case my son had somehow managed to find his way back there: was Julian that clever?

Apparently so. The concierge answered my frenzied call from the cop’s phone.

"Yes, my friend Julian, he is here." I could almost see the concierge’s broad smile as he spoke. "I gave him the key to the room," he continued.

Relieved, but a bit embarrassed, I thanked the police chief and smiled at his squadra, who smiled back. Dragging a hungry and whiny Regina - who, being the bright-eyed early riser in the family, had been up since the crack of dawn. I hurried back to the hotel, ready to thoroughly chew out Julian – though I was secretly proud that he had negotiated the confusing streets successfully and without mishap. Thank God Florence was small - a lot smaller than New York.

My thoughts briefly drifted again to Eric, whom, I feared, would judge me harshly if he had been aware of today’s events. Within a matter of minutes, however, Regina and I had entered the hotel lobby; and as we were rushing to the elevator to rejoin my precious but mischievous son, I glanced for a brief instant at the lovely drawing of ancient Florence, which hung on the lobby wall. It was labeled "Fiorenza" – very evocative. But I still preferred the contemporary Italian version of the name: Firenze – the city of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, the city with which I had fallen in love at first sight, the city whose heady atmosphere and burnished roofs embodied for me the phrase "Italia."

As we sped down the hall and to our room, I looked down at the delicate cameo locket dangling between my breasts, and I vowed that I would someday give it to Regina for her unwitting bravery that day. As soon as she was old enough, I would say: "to remember our time in ‘Fiorenza.’ " The wee one must have known I was thinking about her, because she turned to me and gave me the biggest, most grateful tired smile, as if to say, "I don’t want to go anywhere ever again."

When we came in, Julian was sitting on the bed in our room, calmly occupying himself with his most cherished treasures, the Star Wars action figures that I had deftly snatched up the moment they had hit the stores. The embodiment of "night owl," Julian was always an absolute bear to get up in the morning; but by this time, late in the day, he was fully into gear – even more so from the adrenaline stemming from his adventure. I scrutinized his face, searching for signs of trepidation, anxiety or excitement. I wanted to ask him what he had been feeling during those hours when he had been on his own: was it fear, or pride in his accomplishment? He merely responded to my worried glance with a curious expression, as if to say, "I got here without a problem - where were you?"

Then my emotions took control as I raged at him, accusing him of foolhardiness, of having a false sense of confidence, of taking unnecessary risks - all the while wondering what had happened to my own sense of adventure. I thought once more of the tribulations I had put my poor mother through back in grade school. Had I now graduated to the unexciting world of grownup-hood, where taking chances was unacceptable? Had I lost my perception of a world beyond safety and level headed practicality?

After the tumult subsided I took Julian into my arms and hugged him fiercely, extracting a promise from him never to do this to me again, and all was forgiven. But I noticed afterwards that he was more forthcoming than usual in giving Regina a turn with the Star Wars figures.

Musing on the events of the day as my cherished little ones played, I silently began to question again my wisdom in thinking I could come to Italy on my own with two little kids. Then suddenly it occurred to me that some of the blame should fall on Eric’s shoulders as well. I had an undying affection for him, and our utter devotion to each other during our marriage was legendary, according to our friends and colleagues. But it was Eric, after all, who had done a complete about-face at the eleventh hour and unrelentingly insisted on my taking the Italy trip solo.

He had his reasons. I had been the one, he had pointed out, who was brimming over with curiosity about the continent where my parents had been born. It was I who had given up a scholarship to study in Rome when I became pregnant with Julian, and it was I who couldn’t wait to see Italy. And in the past year of dealing with the frenetic pace of caring for two small children and balancing a strenuous workload, it was my body and soul that ached for the infusion of life-affirming spirit which, he was sure, the culture and history-steeped atmosphere of Italy would provide.

He also reminded me how much it had meant to me when my mother took me to my first opera (okay, it was in downtown Detroit, but it was still the Met.) How magical it would be, he had suggested, to bring my children to the birthplace of opera and have them help me fulfill my own yearning, to share with them that wonderful country whose essence I had been deprived of for so many years.

But, I countered, being that both of us made our living as opera musicians – he as a conductor, I as a violinist – I felt that Eric should by all rights come with us to the country where opera was born. For opera was the source of one of our most compelling mutual affections.

He won out finally, though, when he pointed out that he simply couldn’t afford to take the time off. He had come to the realization that he needed to stay in New York for the entire summer and attend all the various festivals that were taking place in and near the city, in order to pave the way for his eventual rise in the hierarchy of up-and-coming conductors. He had been adamant about this, and I couldn’t argue with his rationale.

Thus it was decided that I should be the one to take the kids abroad, and now I found myself brooding resentfully about bearing the sole responsibility for shepherding them around a foreign country. I wondered how Eric could be so unconcerned about being separated from all of us for six long weeks, even though he had left open the possibility that he would come and join us. I was left feeling confused, abandoned and alone – and most of all, disconnected.

Suddenly, however, I began to agonize all over again about what Eric would think of my losing Julian. Should I even call my husband and tell him what had happened? Would he be sympathetic and understanding? Or would he blast me with the recriminations of an outraged husband, accusing me of being irresponsible and neglectful? It was odd that I didn’t really know for sure how he would react. And what were my own feelings on the subject? Had I been a bad mother? Perhaps Julian’s getting himself lost had been a cry for attention. But what was going on with him that made him need to cry out?

For a time, I tormented myself with these thoughts. But after realizing that my own feelings of remorse were sufficient to keep me in a guilt-ridden state of mind for the foreseeable future, I decided it would be better not to call Eric after all. Instead, I thought about how fortunate I was to have been reunited with Julian; and about the Police Chief with the impossibly cute face and dazzling smile – who had been so kind in helping me find my lost son.

"A volte queste cose succedono," he had said consolingly.

Indeed, I had mused, these things do happen – but do they happen to good mothers?

© 2003, Erica Miner