Page 99 of I'll Look for You, Everywhere
‘No,’ he interrupts before I have time to even blush. ‘I have had the privilege of watching you stretch tall through growing pains. I have watched you dance in the hallway with awful bangs flopping across your forehead and watched proudly when you wobbled down the hill on a tricycle. Jo, Lucia, Dante – I love them more than words. Of course. But the day you were born, I swear – you were a beacon of light. Like it was inside your skin, glowing so brightly it had to come out through you somehow. I told your mamma, God captured starlight and swaddled you with it. I was blessed. I am blessed.’ His eyes glisten with unspent tears and I know mine look the same. Taking a long, shaky breath, Papa rolls his chair closer to me.
‘But as the years went on, there were times when it felt like I had lost you. Moments that this beautiful face – it was still you, still my too-tall Magdalen, but you became empty.’
My chest hurts, pain and embarrassment striking my body when I think about my father watching me grow up. You’re so concerned with becoming an adult on your own that you forget others are also concerned. That papas will always worry. Here I was thinking I was the unproblematic child. The one who braided her own hair, remembered to turn the lights off when leaving a room.
‘I’m sorry,’ I croak. ‘I never wanted you to worry about me.’
He shakes his head. ‘You could be swaddled in bubble wrap and I’d still find a way to worry. But this summer, watching you glow, it’s like you’re not afraid to laugh any more. Not afraid to snort!’
I smile broadly, untucking my hand from my lap to reach out and hold his hand.
‘Should I tell you who it is?’ He raises his eyebrow, shaking my hands playfully.
‘Shouldn’t I be the one telling you who it is?’ I ask, feeling lighter after talking to him. Who cares if Theo doesn’t like me any more? At least I had him for a weekend.
‘Ah, but you know I am a good guesser.’
‘Fine, guess away, il dottore.’
He smiles, the lines around his eyes branching out towards his temple as he does so. ‘I think it’s a boy I once knew.’
‘Interesting assumption.’
‘I think he’s trying to be a man but cannot even face his reflection without wincing.’
‘Are you defending him? How do you know he even messed up in the first place?’
‘Magdalen, do you forget that you are half of me? Half of all your pain is felt by my whole heart. I know when you’re upset, angry, scared, in love. I get a tug right here.’ He points to his heart, rubbing his chest in a circle like he can feel my pain as we speak. ‘And I know that you love him, so don’t try to deny it. I am a doctor, remember! But I also know that Theo will fight to avoid feeling anything at all, in case those feelings turn him into Dexter.’
I lean forward, pressing my palms into my eyes until the urge to cry mellows.
‘And if I get hurt in the process of this fight with himself? Is that fair, Papa?’
‘Well, that’s for you to decide. You can teach him there are other ways to patch up his pain. Tell him it’s okay to ache. To hurt and sob, to stomp around, and kiss, yes! Kiss it better! But you tell him that you do it together. Sit knee by knee and you hurt with his heart and stomp with your foot and kiss together, equally. You show him it’s okay to ache with you. And, in turn, you can share your hopes with him.’
‘That sounds lovely. But I think it’s too late for us. I...’ The words struggle to come to the surface.
My father looks at me, love pouring out of him so that I instantly feel better, because I know I’ve done something right if Claudio Savoy loves me. He adjusts himself in the big leather chair, clearing his throat and stroking his beard one final time before answering.
‘Theo Sinclair is scared by how much you consume him.’
I thought I’d spent this summer learning everything I could about Theo. The pattern that his curls form when touched by salt water. The sweetness of the skin across his chest, painted with the ankh symbol. That Sir Gawain and the Green Knight comforted the child in him.
But what I hadn’t known was that he’d been confiding in my father. Sneaking to the museum early in the mornings, telling him about us. About his confusion. His pain. His desire to learn just a little bit more about me. Should I be angry? Embarrassed? Upset that he spent hours with my papa, the man who saw through gap teeth and teenage posters on the wall, talking about me?
Ever loyal, my father refused to confess any secrets. But I sat on the train back to Chivasso with his voice in my head.
Theo Sinclair is scared by how much you consume him.
My father’s use of the word consume makes Theo’s feelings seem archaic, like loving me is rooted in an ancient and immovable tradition, like it’s beyond him. I watch the blur of deep green rolling hills through the window, thinking about that night in Alassio. The faint trace of salt water still left on his skin, the taste of him in my mouth, how he sighs right before he falls asleep. How perfect a moment can be until you notice a loose thread and soon its unravelling is the only thing you can focus on. My stop is announced, and the memories of Theo fade away with the faint sound of the train horn. Rubbing my eyes tiredly, I drag my feet as I exit the station, something my mother would scold me for, but I have no energy to care. Right as I’m about to begin my ascent of the hill, I freeze.
Theo leans against the wooden fence of a house near the station. He doesn’t see me, so I take a few selfish moments to just stare. To forget about Lucia, about confronting him and hating myself for loving him. I love him. Denying it is so exhausting. But admitting it is piteous! Because he hurt me and I still pine for him. Desperately.
Wearing a white T-shirt again, and those light blue jeans that are torn near the ankle. Red Adidas sneakers. He is the type of beautiful that people write songs about. His beauty could start wars, I think.
A dog barks from a backyard behind me and Theo turns his head towards the noise, to find me instead. His eyes widen and immediately, he hops off the fence and runs his hands over the front of his jeans and then waves. Waves! My hand betrays me. I wave back. He then shoves his hands in his pockets and gestures with his head for me to walk to him. So I do.
‘I haven’t seen you,’ he says when I’m close enough.
