Kaleidoscope by Erika

There was no time for all of that. She had disgraced her family, disgraced herself, and here she was: two kids, absent husband, making a muck of it all.

Could you imagine that there is a place in Italy whose name, translated, means “eagle”? Mandy didn’t want to say the real name of the place, hoping maybe it would disappear, invisible again as it was before she knew of its existence.

Maybe, deep down, she thought that her family of origin would have saved her, swooped her up and wiped her tears. Instead, she had been branded as the black sheep and kicked out(8 months pregnant, no less) and basically disowned. Then again, no one had told her to marry an Italian with no university education. She had collected a variety of boyfriends from across the globe and in the end, they had stopped caring. She was not presentable. Perhaps, as well, she had been arrogant. But under that was a little girl waiting to be loved and comforted.

The city was in a bowl-shaped geologic formation, caged in by barren hills and, from a distance, sunk below mighty peaks of the Alpennine, the mini Alps in the region of Abruzzo.

But when Mandy came, she realized she was not wanted. Her mother-in-law, clearly, spoke no English. And judging by her expression while she spoke Italian, she didn’t care much for Mandy. After all, Mandy didn’t know how to make gnocchi or iron underwear. She even said that her sons didn’t resemble her husband (the implications of which were clear, she understood that when she began to speak Italian better).

The dim realization of having made a terrible mistake began to dawn on her as she prepared spaghetti in a mumu in the blinding heat of August. What had she done? From San Diego California to this? Of course in San Diego it had been rough. They had trouble finding a rental apartment and had spent the first evening after giving birth literally in a homeless shelter. It was terrifying, even though there was food and a bed. Thankfully after that they had found an apartment and she had made good with her two small children (one just born), pushing the stroller for Denver with Rob strapped to her chest, going to Balbao Park, in line to see Santa Claus, to doctor appointments…but in the end Antonio had pushed her to consider going to Italy. At least they would have help, and she had to admit they needed it. She would be alone in California raising the kids. So they took the plane and came. On their side of the aircraft, there were people dressed in black, mourning an unknown relative. So much for good luck charms, she thought.

In Italy Mandy had no one to rely on except her mother-in-law, who was a good woman at heart, but terribly stubborn. She wasn’t about to make it easy for Mandy to spread her wings. She was only interested in her “tesori” as she called the kids, Rob and Denver.

Mandy did her best, but the desolate feelings did not stop, only grew. She knew her family wanted nothing to do with her and she didn’t blame them, but her future seemed so terribly bleak, so poor. She had no possibility to work, as when she found some possibility, her husband Antonio promptly squelched such ideas, backed up by his mother’s tense frown.

“What’s the point? You will just have to pay a babysitter.” Her husband was so different now. She stared at his handsome face. Just because he looked like a dark-haired Latin lover she had thrown away a bright future. She had met him in a four-story bookstore in Colorado, for God’s sake! And he didn’t be even have a high school diploma, whereas she had read Silvia Plath and Anaïs Nin as a teenager, and her parents had friends in Hollywood. Once opportunities pass, it’s useless to look to the past. But she did, and the pain of it hurt her chest as she prepared the little soups of broth (onion, carrot, and celery) her MIL insisted she make. Her younger son, sick of swallowing that very soup, had thrown a bowl of it against the wall one day. Mandy had trembled inside, feeling sick with the rage and desperation which welled up in her. She was in the depths of post-partum depression, but had no one on her side.

She had fallen for a handsome Italian who was good with his hands and better with doing a disappearing act. He worked putting down wood floors and restoring doors and windows and had variable hours. For now, it seemed she was married to his mother, Genoveffa.

Not that it was all in vain. The older woman doted on her grandsons, and Mandy did learn quite a bit about making soup and “crispelle” a local type of pancake, which, rolled up, were filled with Parmesan and eaten in beef broth. She helped Mandy, certainly, getting the kids washed and dressed and vaccinated and all, but Mandy lost her sense of purpose. She had lost her capacity to think out of the box, seemingly stained with childbirth instead of being celebrated for it.

She began to realize that “Genny” was a victim of circumstance, and in the end, when Mandy thought of Genoveffa at sixteen in love with a debonair soldier, she couldn’t help but admire her tough demeanor and the way she never gave an inch, because she realized that she as well had taken the bait, mothering four children. Of course, it was a labour of love, but it seemed like a death sentence at the moment. No freedom, no happiness, only soup-making, diaper changing, cooking and cleaning. Outings only with the children. Romance nil.

So even though Mandy hated her mother-in-law, in some way she sympathized with her as well.

She became a soldier of eternity, fighting for her little kids, who clung to her in an underground bunker (no, that was a basement apartment) and she gave them everything she could. Unfortunately, Antonio left her only a little money, and she had no access to his bank account. Going to the store, she had to put things back on the shelves, otherwise she wouldn’t be able to pay. Since he didn’t have to live this with her, he didn’t care much and gave her the bare minimum. When she needed help, his parents stepped in, but naturally their sense of entitlement grew proportionally. In the end, the earthquake changed her life, in a sense for the positive.

“Earthquake vacation”… What a paradox!

But that was what happened, after the ground shook, after the dry flowers in the pot were shaken on to the floor, after the chunk of concrete was thrown down in front of the school entrance. More than 300 people died, it is true, and the whole family escaped to a town near the sea, where Antonio’s uncle lived. As well, there, she had problems as she had to deal with Genoveffa every day in close quarters, but finally after months, they moved back to the mountains and Mandy and the kids stayed in Vasto. She was alone, but she was free. There, she would find work, she would begin to assert her independence again, fighting against a crippling sense of uselessness, of despair. Fighting against the everyday tedium of taking care of kids, nursing them back to health, rescuing kittens and water turtles, burying elderly birds, dragging little kids to school.

Finally she escaped that grey town and moved to paradise, where the bougainvillea blooms and the air is soft and where grapes and olives grow.

And she would find a love, one that would set in her free, to live a life of devastating passion, a revenge of lust and fire, burning away years of isolation, fear, abuse, degradation and self-denial. And her roar would continue, as she fought her way to independence…