When we first arrived in Italy, George’s first trip, we landed in Milan early in the morning, rented a car, and drove down to my aunt’s in Liguria, on the coast.
My aunt greets us when we arrive, she comes to the car and hugs us. She had met George once in America when she visited when he was a baby. He’s seven now, a cute little blond American boy. My aunt is so happy to see us. I can’t believe we’re here. George can’t believe it either, he is disconcerted. I won’t realize until much later how strange everything is to him.
My aunt is a lovely person, she’s beautiful and she likes to dress well. She’s 80 now, and she still looks good in her clothes, she wears fashionable clothes. She is cheerful and tells funny stories. She loves to do stuff and see people, she’s chatty. She’s fun to be around. My uncle recently passed after a long illness. They were married for nearly 60 years, and she is alone now. Her two sons, my cousins Gianni and Nino, who are quite a bit older than me, are good sons though busy.
She wants to know what George eats. This will be a recurring nightmare for me as I navigate between his extreme fussiness and everyone else’s complete determination to prepare for him what he likes. Which is nothing. And even what he does like, he doesn’t like consistently. The fact that something is an Italian delicacy that someone went to some trouble to buy and cook it doesn’t phase him one bit, “I don’t want it.”
“Just try a little bit.”
“No.”
He’s holding on tightly to what he knows, which is not much really, but he’s holding on to it with all he’s got.
