The day before my father disappeared on the mountain, my mother and I went swimming upriver from the bridge. We dangled our feet, and then our legs, finally submerging ourselves up to our necks in the frigid water, paddling a few times from one side to the other.
We heard yelling and looked up to see soldiers gathered on the bridge, waving to us. “Just ignore them,” my mother said.
Then an ambulance arrived with flashing lights, and one soldier began walking down the bank toward us. The river was loud, and only when he was twenty feet away could we understand what he was yelling, “Una bomba, una bomba. Attenzione!” He jabbed his finger toward the bottom of the swimming hole, pointing at a shiny object we’d thought was a stone. He pointed up the mountain, hands sweeping downward, “Bombe degli partigiani! ” implying it had washed down with mud and debris. He reached out to help us from the water, and we hurriedly wrapped towels around our bodies while soldiers applauded on the bridge. “Molte bombe,” he cautioned, telling us to stay on the road until the woods had been cleared.
When we came running up the hill, my father stood on the patio, talking into his phone.
“Didn’t you hear the sirens?” my mother shivered, her arms covered with goose bumps. “We were swimming over a mine left by partigiani!”
He snapped his phone closed and nodded at the road, newly opened for the first time in weeks, convoys of trucks passing by with debris, horns honking in celebration. “This is fun. Watching people unearth their lives.”
My mother stared at his phone, her voice trembling. “I thought we were here to unearth ours.” Then she turned and walked inside.
The second week in March, my mother arrived home from her cooking school, her clothes tight, her cheeks round. “I know I’ve gained weight, but I’ll lose it.” She hugged me in her soft arms. “I missed you so much.” She kissed my father. “You look handsome. You got new glasses.”
He winked at me to go get her gifts. “Remember that ceramics village, the place you wanted to go to?” I handed her the candleholders he’d picked out. “Parent field trip,” he explained.
“You went without me? All those times I asked you to go, and then you went without me?” My mother set the candleholders back in the box and stared at my father, his blue cashmere sweater and ironed jeans, Italian haircut and stylish new glasses. “Why didn’t you wait until I got back?”
From that day on, my mother insisted on picking me up at school each afternoon, once again standing alone at the edge of the parking lot. One of those afternoons, nearing the end of the school year, I handed her the invitation I’d received, printed with a map—Aria’s birthday celebration, a guided tour of the Gucci factory in Prato. “They do it every year,” I told her.
When Kelly’s mom arrived and saw the invitation, she asked to speak to my mother privately. Returning to the car, my mother spoke abruptly, “Get in, Leah.” She was silent on the ride home, and only when my father joined us at the kitchen table did she confront me. “Is it true Aria assigns numbers to you girls?”
I stared at my hands. “It’s a joke.”
“I can tolerate anything but cruelty,” my mother fumed. “I don’t think you should go on this field trip, not when Aria has been mean to other classmates.”
“But the whole class is going,” I protested.
My father defended the field trip, surprising us both. “Luxury goods are the backbone of Italy’s economy. Artisan trades. She’ll learn something.”
My mother relented. “Only if you call Kelly and tell her you’d like her to go with you.” She opened the school directory, dialed the number, and handed me the receiver. “All she needs is a little encouragement, one friend to stick up for her.”
When Kelly came on the phone I said, “We were wondering if you want to ride with us?”
“Yes.” Kelly didn’t hesitate. “Have you already gotten her a gift?”
“A CD, Madonna’s greatest hits.” I watched my mother smile as she left the room.
“I love Madonna,” Kelly said. “Do you have any ideas about what I could give her?”
“Not a book.”
“She doesn’t like books?”
“Nobody likes books like you do.”
Her breaths sounded like hiccups before she hung up.