But when they reached the apartment, she ordered them both to remove their dirty shoes before stepping into the kitchen, and he began to feel better.
Inside, the table was already set.
There were plates, glasses, bread, olives, sliced tomatoes, and a large dish covered with a clean cloth.
Teresa lifted the cloth.
Fried aubergines.
Oliver stared.
“You made them?”
“Of course.”
“But your arm.”
“My arm is perfectly capable of frying vegetables. Matteo’s sister helped with the shopping, and I sat down whenever I needed to.”
Daniel inspected the kitchen with an expression she immediately recognised.
“Don’t start,” she warned.
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were thinking something.”
“That’s difficult to prove.”
“I am your mother. I don’t need proof.”
Oliver laughed.
Teresa pointed toward the bathroom.
“Wash your hands. Both of you.”
They obeyed.
When Oliver returned, he found her arranging bread on a plate.
She had prepared the food the way she always did, with more than anyone could reasonably eat.
He sat in his usual chair.
For a few minutes, he simply watched her move around the kitchen.
The room was familiar in ways he had never considered important before.
There was the chipped corner of the table.
The clock that ran several minutes fast.
A small ceramic rooster beside the window.
The drawer that stuck unless it was lifted slightly before being pulled open.
He had crossed countries to return to a place where a kitchen drawer still refused to work properly.
Teresa set a plate in front of him.
“Eat.”
Oliver picked up his fork.
She watched him take the first bite.
“Well?”
He chewed.
“It’s good.”
“Only good?”
“Really good.”
“Better.”
Daniel sat opposite him.
Teresa turned toward her son.
“And you. Eat before you disappear completely.”
Oliver looked at his father.
Daniel looked back.
They began laughing.
Teresa shook her head.
“Three months away, and both of you have forgotten how to behave at a table.”
But she was smiling as she said it.
That evening, after dinner, Oliver fell asleep on the sofa.
He had intended to stay awake. He wanted to talk to his grandmother, tell her about the mountains, show her his notebook, and describe the ferry crossing.
Instead, exhaustion caught up with him as soon as he stopped moving.
Teresa found a blanket and covered him.
She stood beside the sofa for a long time, looking down at his sleeping face.
Then she sat carefully in her armchair.
Daniel was clearing the kitchen.
“You should rest,” he told her.
“I am resting.”
“You’ve been on your feet all afternoon.”
“I survived.”
Daniel carried the last plates to the sink.
Teresa watched him.
“Leave those. I’ll do them tomorrow.”
He turned.
“You’ve spent my entire life telling me never to leave dirty dishes overnight.”
“Then perhaps it is time you learned that rules can change.”
Daniel smiled.
He washed the dishes anyway.
When he returned, his mother was still watching Oliver.
“He’s very tired,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You’ve had a difficult journey.”
“Parts of it.”
She folded her hands in her lap.
“Was it worth it?”
Daniel considered the question.
He had expected to know the answer immediately once they arrived.
But the journey had been too complicated to fit into a simple judgment. It had cost money, time, physical effort, and considerable worry. There had been moments when he questioned his own judgment and others when he felt certain they should turn back.
He could not honestly claim that every mile had been necessary.
He could not even say that travelling so slowly had been the most practical way to see his mother.
But he remembered Oliver in France, sitting beside the road with blistered feet. He remembered the arguments over directions, the long evenings of conversation, and the day his son admitted he feared his grandmother would no longer recognise him.
Those experiences had shown Daniel things about Oliver that he might otherwise have missed while rushing between work, school, and the ordinary demands of home.
“I think so,” he said.
Teresa nodded.
“Good.”
He sat opposite her.
“Mamma, why didn’t you tell us how lonely you were?”
She looked surprised.
“I did.”
“Not properly.”
“I told you I missed people.”
“You made it sound like you were bored.”
“Sometimes I was bored.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“You know what I mean.”
Teresa looked toward the window.
Outside, someone was talking on the pavement. A scooter passed, followed by the distant sound of a car horn.
“When you’re old,” she said, “people become very interested in whether you’ve eaten, whether you’ve taken your tablets, and whether you’ve fallen.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“They ask those questions because they care.”
“I know. But sometimes I want someone to ask what I think about the news, or whether I enjoyed the book I was reading. I still have opinions, Daniel. Quite a few, as you’ve probably noticed.”
He smiled faintly.
“I’ve noticed.”
She adjusted the blanket over her knees.
“When you called every morning, you sounded frightened. So I told you I was fine. If I’d told you I spent an afternoon crying because I missed your father, what would you have done?”
“I would’ve listened.”
“You would have tried to solve it.”
Daniel opened his mouth, then closed it.
She nodded.
“There. You see?”
He sat back.
Teresa reached for his hand.
“You are a good son. You have been a good son even when you couldn’t be here.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I haven’t visited enough.”
“No.”
The admission hurt more because she made no attempt to soften it.
“I know.”
“But you had a life to build. A wife. A child. Work. Those things mattered.”
“I could’ve done better.”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked down.
Teresa squeezed his hand.
“So do better now. You don’t have to punish yourself for the years behind us.”
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Daniel said, “We could arrange for you to come to England for a while. When travel is easier.”
Teresa smiled.
“Perhaps.”
“You’d have your own room.”
“I know.”
“Claire would love to have you.”
“I know that too.”
“You wouldn’t have to live alone.”
She examined his face.
“Daniel, this is my home.”
He nodded slowly.
“I know.”
“Your father is buried here. My friends are here. I’ve lived in this neighbourhood for more than sixty years. The woman downstairs knows how I like my bread. Matteo may buy the wrong milk, but he is kind, and he has known me since he was a boy.”
Daniel listened.
“I may need more help,” she continued. “We should discuss that. But don’t decide that the only way to love me is to take me away from everything I know.”
He lowered his head.
“All right.”
Teresa smiled.
“And I can visit London without moving there permanently.”
“Of course.”
“But not in winter.”
Daniel laughed.
“No. Not in winter.”
She looked again at Oliver.
He had shifted beneath the blanket, one hand hanging over the edge of the sofa.
Teresa reached across and gently moved his hand onto the cushion.
“He’s a good boy,” she said.
“He is.”
“He worries too much.”
Daniel nodded.
“That may be hereditary.”
Teresa glanced at him.
“From your father’s side.”
They both laughed.
Then the apartment grew quiet.
Outside, the sounds of Palermo continued through the open window.
The following morning, Oliver woke to the smell of coffee and toasted bread.
For a few seconds, he did not know where he was.
The sofa was unfamiliar, and the light came through the window at a different angle from the one in his London bedroom.
Then he heard his grandmother speaking in the kitchen.
She was arguing with Daniel about the amount of coffee he had used.
“That’s enough for six people.”
“It’s the usual amount.”
“Not in my house.”
“Mamma, I know how to make coffee.”
“You have many talents, Daniel. This is not your greatest.”
Oliver smiled beneath the blanket.
He lay still and listened.
It was an ordinary conversation.
He had spent ninety-three days imagining a reunion so extraordinary that he had scarcely considered what would happen afterwards.
But now he was here, and his grandmother was complaining about coffee.
He liked that better than he had expected.
When he entered the kitchen, Teresa turned.
“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
He walked over and hugged her.
She laughed.
“Again?”
Oliver nodded against her shoulder.
“Again.”
She embraced him.
Daniel watched from the stove.
Later that morning, Oliver unpacked his notebook.
Teresa sat at the kitchen table while he showed her the route, the photographs, and the pages describing their journey.
He told her about the rain in England, the confusing roads in France, the mountains in Switzerland, and the first sight of the Mediterranean.
She examined the photographs carefully.
At one picture of Daniel struggling to repair a puncture, she laughed so hard that she had to remove her glasses.
“Your father looks exactly like his father when the washing machine broke.”
Daniel looked up from the other side of the room.
“Thank you, Mamma.”
She waved him away.
Oliver continued turning pages.
Then the photograph of Teresa covered in flour slipped from the notebook.
She picked it up.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
“Oh, look at that.”
Oliver sat beside her.
“I brought it with me.”
She studied the picture.
“You were so little.”
“Five.”
“Yes. You wanted to help make pasta, but all you really wanted was to play with the flour.”
Oliver smiled.
“You got angry.”
“Only when you threw some into my hair.”
He laughed.
She traced the edge of the photograph with one finger.
“I had forgotten we took this.”
Oliver looked at her.
“You remember that day?”
“Of course.”
He hesitated.
“Do you remember all the times I came here?”
Teresa studied his face.
“Not every little thing. But many things.”
“Like what?”
She set the photograph down.
“I remember you hiding beneath this table because you didn’t want to go to the beach.”
“I was scared of the waves.”
“You were. And your father said you had to be brave, which was a very foolish thing to say to a frightened child.”
