Invitation to Italian

Needless to say, when Radko was born Katarina hadn’t even bothered to invite her mother back to Grantham to celebrate the event. Instead, she’d sent an email with all the relevant information. Her mother had mailed a little hooded sweater she’d knitted from genuine yak’s wool from a trek she’d made in Mongolia on some sponsored research grant. Unfortunately, the oils in the yarn seemed to irritate the baby’s tender skin.

Nevertheless, Katarina still harbored a sentimental notion of family. That’s why she had made dinner and invited her mother to meet her husband, Ben, her stepson, Matt, and, of course, to get better acquainted with Zora’s new grandson Rad. She should have known it was a mistake.

Rad had a slight fever and was cranky. She’d kept him up until her mother had arrived late—something about having to check the tire pressure on the pickup truck she’d rented and not being able to find a gas station with a free air pump. Who rented a pickup truck anyway? Katarina had wondered. In the end, then, her mother barely managed a pat on the baby’s bald head before Katarina put him to bed.

Perhaps Matt should have gone to bed early, too. He’d been a monosyllabic teenager over the dinner of lamb stew while Zora grilled him about a physics course. What could you expect of a teenager, overstressed from waiting to hear about college acceptances? Katarina asked herself.

But thank God for Ben. For a man who professed not to be a people person, he’d had the inspired idea to ask Zora about her work—something she had no trouble discussing, especially since Ben made sure the wineglasses were full.

Katarina wiped down the tile countertop and put away the dishcloth. She had tried to create a “normal” family with Ben and Matt and Rad, and of course, Babi

ka, and her life really was good. She had nothing to complain about, she told herself regularly. But still, that hadn’t prevented her from feeling an emotional hole in her being.

Julie sometimes complained about her mother and father—and her scary grandmother—micromanaging her life. Katarina often wished she could voice the same complaint. She had never even known her father, nor had anyone else. Sometimes, she wasn’t even sure if her mother knew, having led what she referred to as “a liberated existence.” And except for the summers in Grantham with Babi

ka, she had never called any place home. They had moved incessantly, as her mother pursued college, then graduate school in geology, then field studies, post-docs, and appointments at a government lab here, a university there. When Katarina had broken her elbow horsing around on the high dive board at Grantham Community Swimming Pool, Babi

ka was the one she had called. When she’d broken up with her boyfriend in college, she’d known not to bother her mother but to call Babi

ka, who had consoled her, telling her there were bigger fish to broil—she never could get her American sayings straight.

But tonight when she needed her most, where was her grandmother?

“Wanda and I are catching a quick bite at the Chinese restaurant around the corner before we go to our tai chi class at the Adult School,” she had said, begging off. “We can’t possibly be late to the first class. Besides, you two have a lot of catching up to do. You don’t need me.”

Katarina was thirty-three years old, and she wasn’t too proud to say she needed her grandmother, especially when it came to dealing with the mother she never really knew and certainly didn’t understand.

She heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

“Oh, there you are,” her mother said blithely as she entered the room. “I didn’t expect to find you here—the little woman in the kitchen.”

Katarina tried not to be riled by her mother’s barb. She affixed a smile. “You’re going so soon, Mom?” She saw her mother scowl. “Sorry, I mean, Zora. You’re leaving already?” Zora had on a windbreaker. A small knapsack was slung over one shoulder.

“Yes, well, the dinner was lovely.”

“I’m sorry the potatoes were a little undercooked.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never even mastered making scrambled eggs. You can imagine my mother’s dismay.” Zora paused. “Anyway, I decided as long as I was back in Grantham for a while that I’d keep myself busy. I saw a pamphlet on the sideboard from the Adult School and noticed an entry for an Italian conversation class. It’s been years since I did field work at Vesuvius, and it’s time for a language refresher, especially since I’ll be giving a lecture at the University of Naples later this fall. I think I may have mentioned my plans to you?”

Katarina picked up the dishrag again and began wiping down the counter tiles that were perfectly clean already. “I can’t say that I remember you doing that.”

Zora awkwardly patted her daughter’s upper arm. “We’ll have other evenings, and the first class meets tonight. Luckily when I called, they still had a spot.” She fished her keys out of a side pocket of her backpack. The toggle from the rental agency hung from her hand. “I don’t want to be late then.”

Katarina realized her mother had small, almost childlike hands. But then, she was small in stature, a good three or four inches shorter than she. Strange. She had this memory of her mother being taller.

Katarina sighed. “Yes, it wouldn’t be good to be late to class. I’ll let Ben know you had to leave.” He had left earlier to take Matt back to school to work on editing the school newspaper.

“Thank you. He’s a lovely man. You’ve done quite well for yourself. Ben, Matt, the baby. This house. I’m glad to see you’re settled so nicely.” She squeezed out a smile.

“Settled so nicely. That’s a funny expression coming from you,” Katarina said. Then because she didn’t want to pick a fight, she leaned in and gave her mother a quick hug. For a moment, she felt the other woman melt into her embrace. The moment passed. Katarina stepped back.

So much for trying to create the happy “normal” family. Maybe she’d give Julie a call and find out just who in her family was bugging her now?

ZORA DROVE THE DARK winding road from Katarina’s house back to town. She gripped the wheel tightly. She’d driven a pickup before, but this rental model was far larger than she was used to, and she hadn’t been able to resist the appeal of its outdoorsy, independent image. She sank her teeth into her upper lip and squinted.

Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn’t the driving that had her on edge. She was anxious about coming back to Grantham, to her mother. To her daughter.

So why had she come home?

Guilt for one. How long had it been? About a year? Not that bad, really. No, it was a different kind of guilt that gnawed at her. Despite all her university appointments, prestigious research grants, the accolades from her colleagues, Zora felt restless, unsettled. She found herself searching for a sense of inner peace in her life that she had never really needed before.

Okay, so she was having a midlife crisis. Somehow, she had hoped coming back to Grantham would provide a certain ease that came with the familiar. Yet despite the outpouring of love from her mother, Zora couldn’t help noticing the ever-present vertical crease that bisected her brow. Then there was Katarina, her daughter. She never said a critical word, but Zora could feel the resentment bubbling beneath the surface. And she could also see the strong bond between Katarina and Lena. If anything, they seemed to share what would be a classic mother-daughter relationship, which of course, meant Zora was the odd man—or woman in this case—left out of the equation. That hurt. Not that she’d ever admit it. Or should she?

But then she could imagine their retort.

“What do you expect if you spend more time with rocks than with your own daughter, not that I am not proud of you,” her mother would say, damning her with faint praise.

“It’s not personal,” Katarina, ever the pragmatic survivor would reply. “It’s just that she was there and you weren’t.”

They needed to have a heart-to-heart even if Zora didn’t do heart-to-hearts. Too much emphasis on past decisions that couldn’t be changed anyway. Too many recriminations for old offences that were best forgotten. Still, she should talk to her mom. Her daughter. And she would. She really would. Just…just…not right now.

Now she just wanted to take it easy. Find pleasure in just being. Regain that sense of confidence that had always come so naturally, but now seemed to have given way to doubts and unnamed desires.

Zora parked the truck on the street near the high school and grabbed her knapsack. She hiked the short distance to the school, passing along the familiar tree-lined sidewalk, the football field and tennis courts. The building had changed since her day. Heck, a lot had changed. Her daughter was married and had a son. And a stepson. God, that made her a grandmother twice over. No wonder she was depressed. Then her mother had gone and gotten a roommate—her old high school math teacher Wanda Garrity, no less. When she came down late to breakfast in the morning, Zora had almost expected to find a detention notice.

She headed toward the main entrance of the original brick building with its Gothic tower. The course listing gave a second-floor room number, and Zora honed in on a stairway down the hall and to the left. The hallways were teeming with adults, some chatting, some seemingly lost. A few officials from the program and what looked to be students from the high school were there to give directions. She spotted the familiar face of an imperious older woman at the central crossroads. It had to be Iris Phox. Great! Another person from her past she’d just as soon forget. She had always felt the woman looked at Grantham as her personal fiefdom.

“I can’t stand her. She’s such an elitist snob,” Zora had announced one day when she’d stopped by her mother’s hardware store after high school. She had just witnessed Iris Phox lecturing Lena on the inferior quality of the hot water bottles she was now carrying.

Zora would have gladly told the woman where she could put her water bottle, if Lena hadn’t shot her a warning glance. She waited until Iris had glided out the door like the Queen Mother—she even carried a pocketbook over her wrist the same way—before turning to her mother. “I can’t stand her. The way she treats you like a peasant.”

“That’s just her way. Besides, we should all be grateful to her,” Lena had argued. “Most rich people keep all their money to themselves. Iris gives away to people who need. And that makes her feel needed, too.”

Zora, with the black-and-white perception of the world that only an eighteen-year-old could bring, had shaken her head defiantly. “And if she gives away money, it’s because she likes to control people.”

“Sometimes that’s the same as being needed,” Lena had said with a shrug of her shoulder before turning to serve the next customer.

And now Iris Phox was approaching her. Zora tried to pretend she didn’t see her making a beeline in her direction and tucked her chin down into her coat. She swerved to the right toward the stairway.

“Zora! Zora Zemanova!” Iris called out. Her high brow tones carried above the anxious din of the crowd.

Zora stopped. There was no point in pretending she hadn’t heard. She turned around and only marginally masked her irritation. “Mrs. Phox, a voice out of my past, a voice that one might say carries an unmistakable quality.”

Iris pursed her lips. “Yes, my son Hunt once said I sounded like a Boston Brahman foghorn, which I always took as a mixed compliment.”

Zora smirked. She never really knew Iris’s son, but she had a newly found regard for him.

“I see you’re taking advanced Italian conversation,” Iris went on.