At dinner, Oliver watched his father struggle to explain that they needed to wash some clothes.
Daniel attempted several sentences, none of which produced the desired result.
Finally, the woman took pity on him.
“Laundry?” she asked in English.
“Yes,” Daniel said with visible relief.
She pointed to a washing machine.
Oliver waited until she had gone.
“You’re terrible at French.”
“I haven’t used it properly in twenty years.”
“Nonna says you were good at languages.”
“Your grandmother remembers the best parts of my childhood.”
“She says you were terrible at maths.”
“That part she remembers accurately.”
Oliver grinned.
For several days, their evenings developed a pattern. Daniel checked the next route and updated Claire. Oliver washed bottles, repacked his bag, and wrote short notes about what had happened.
He recorded the names of towns, the food they ate, and the small incidents that might otherwise be forgotten.
On one page he wrote about a dog that had followed them along a village street.
On another, he drew the shape of a bridge and noted that the river beneath it smelled like wet leaves.
He also began keeping track of his grandmother’s calls.
Sometimes Teresa appeared on video, sitting in her kitchen.
Other times they spoke by telephone because the connection was poor.
She asked about their meals, their accommodation, and whether Oliver was wearing enough sunscreen.
She rarely asked how far they had travelled.
One evening, Daniel asked whether she was disappointed by their slow progress.
Teresa snorted.
“Daniel, I waited nine months for you to be born. I can wait a few more weeks for you to arrive.”
Oliver burst out laughing.
His father groaned.
“Mamma.”
“What?”
“Please don’t start.”
“I remember every hour.”
“Goodbye, Mamma.”
“Such an ungrateful child.”
She was still laughing when the call ended.
That night Oliver wrote in his notebook:
Nonna says Dad took forever to be born.
He underlined forever twice.
By the time they had been travelling for several weeks, Oliver had discovered that endurance was less dramatic than he had imagined.
There were no crowds waiting beside country roads to applaud them. Most days passed without anyone taking particular notice.
They woke early, packed their belongings, checked the bicycles, and set out.
Some roads were pleasant. Others were dull.
They cycled past fields, petrol stations, warehouses, shuttered businesses, and supermarkets that looked almost identical to the ones at home. They ate ordinary sandwiches in ordinary car parks. They searched for toilets, refilled bottles, and occasionally spent long periods trying to work out why a route marked on the map was no longer accessible.
The countryside changed slowly.
Northern France gave way to gentler hills, then roads that rose and fell through agricultural land. Their route took them through towns where stone houses stood close together, and church towers appeared above the rooftops.
Oliver learned to recognise the smell of warm tarmac after rain and the particular irritation of having a small stone caught inside his shoe.
His hands developed calluses.
His appetite increased.
He became extraordinarily interested in bakeries.
Daniel noticed that his son no longer asked how far they had travelled every hour. Instead, he asked about the next place where they could refill their bottles, whether the road ahead climbed, and how long they could ride before taking a break.
He was learning to think in manageable distances.
Yet the journey was beginning to change their relationship in less comfortable ways.
At home, Daniel had been the father who reminded Oliver to complete homework, clear plates, and limit screen time. He knew how to manage his son’s ordinary resistance because the arguments were familiar and usually brief.
On the road, they spent nearly every waking hour together.
Daniel discovered that Oliver hummed when he was concentrating, left food wrappers in his pockets, and became stubbornly uncooperative when he had not eaten enough.
Oliver discovered that his father could be impatient, especially when uncertain about directions, and that he sometimes pretended to know the answer rather than admit he needed help.
Their first serious argument occurred outside a small town in eastern France.
They had taken a wrong turn.
Daniel believed the road would reconnect with their planned route. Oliver thought they should return to the last junction.
“The map says this way,” Oliver insisted.
“I can see the map.”
“Then why are we going the wrong way?”
“We aren’t necessarily going the wrong way.”
“It says we’re moving away from the town.”
Daniel stopped his bicycle.
“Oliver, please let me work this out.”
“I’m just telling you.”
“I know what you’re telling me.”
“Then why aren’t you listening?”
Daniel looked up sharply.
“Because I don’t need a running commentary every time something goes wrong.”
Oliver fell silent.
The words were not especially cruel, but the tone was enough.
For the next half hour they rode without speaking.
Eventually they found the correct road, but the detour had cost them several kilometres.
They stopped beside a field to eat.
Oliver sat apart from his father.
Daniel unwrapped a sandwich.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Daniel recognised the answer as a declaration of hostility rather than an accurate report.
He could have insisted. Instead, he finished his sandwich and allowed the silence to continue.
A tractor moved slowly across the field.
After several minutes, Oliver said, “I was right.”
Daniel looked at him.
“About the road?”
“Yes.”
“You were.”
“You didn’t listen.”
“No.”
Oliver picked at the grass beside his shoe.
“You always do that.”
Daniel frowned.
“Always?”
“When I tell you something, you act like I’m bothering you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“You did it today.”
“Yes. Today I did.”
“And when I wanted to take this trip.”
Daniel was about to defend himself. He had listened to the plan, researched the route, taken leave from work, and spent a considerable amount of money on equipment. Surely that counted for something.
Then he understood that Oliver was not discussing the arrangements.
He was talking about the feeling of having to persuade his father that his thoughts deserved consideration.
Daniel placed his sandwich wrapper inside his bag.
“You’re right about today,” he said. “I was irritated because I made a mistake, and I took it out on you.”
Oliver looked at him cautiously.
“Why?”
“Because sometimes I don’t like admitting I’m wrong.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes. It can be.”
Oliver considered this concession.
“Nonna says you’re stubborn.”
“She has evidence.”
“She says you got it from her.”
“She would.”
They both smiled.
Daniel handed him the remaining half of a sandwich.
Oliver accepted it.
The apology did not prevent future arguments. They disagreed about routes, meal times, rest breaks, and how long Oliver could spend using his phone at night.
But their disagreements slowly became easier to resolve.
Oliver began to understand that adults could be wrong without losing their authority entirely.
Daniel began to understand that listening to his son did not require pretending that an eleven-year-old possessed the judgment of an adult.
Both lessons proved useful as the journey grew harder.
The blisters appeared during a stretch of walking.
They had chosen to travel on foot for part of the route, both to vary the physical demands and because some sections were more suitable for walking than riding loaded bicycles.
By the second day, the skin at Oliver’s heels had begun to rub.
He said nothing.
He knew his mother had insisted that he report pain early, and he understood why. But the discomfort seemed manageable at first, and he disliked the thought of stopping because of something as ordinary as sore feet.
By afternoon, each step hurt.
Daniel noticed him limping.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Oliver.”
“My feet are a bit sore.”
“How sore?”
“Not much.”
Daniel pointed toward a bench beside the path.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit.”
Oliver obeyed reluctantly.
When he removed his shoes, Daniel saw the damaged skin.
He examined the blisters carefully.
“How long have they been like this?”
“Since yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“They weren’t this bad.”
Daniel sat back on his heels.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought they’d get better.”
“By walking on them?”
Oliver looked away.
His father opened the first-aid kit.
“Your mother is going to murder me.”
“Don’t tell her.”
Daniel stared at him.
“That’s not an option.”
He cleaned and dressed the affected areas, then arranged for a change of plans. They would rest, reassess the walking shoes, and avoid making the injury worse.
Oliver protested.
“We’ve already lost time.”
Daniel continued packing away the medical supplies.
“I don’t care.”
“But we’re supposed to keep moving.”
“We’re supposed to get you to Sicily in one piece.”
Oliver pulled on a clean sock.
“What if we’re late?”
“Late for what?”
“Nonna.”
Daniel stopped.
His son was staring at the ground, his hands clenched around the edge of the bench.
“Oliver, look at me.”
He did.
“Your grandmother hasn’t given us a deadline.”
“But she might not have much time.”
Daniel felt the words settle between them.
Until then, they had spoken about Teresa’s age carefully, choosing phrases that acknowledged the reality without examining it too closely.
Oliver had evidently been doing his own calculations.
“Why do you think that?” Daniel asked.
“Because she’s ninety-three.”
“Yes.”
“And people that old don’t always live very long.”
Daniel drew a slow breath.
“That’s true.”
Oliver’s eyes filled.
“What if something happens before we get there?”
His father sat beside him.
There was no honest answer that would remove the possibility.
Daniel thought of his own mother, of the kitchen where she had taught him to cook, the balcony where she once dried sheets in the summer heat, and the narrow bed where he had slept as a child.
He remembered leaving Sicily in his twenties, convinced that independence required distance. He had built a life in England, married Claire, bought a house, and become a father. His mother had been proud of him, though she never completely accepted the idea that a decent Sunday lunch could be eaten at noon without three separate courses.
For years, he had measured visits according to work commitments and school holidays.
