Scenes from a family vacation
BY EMILY BUFF
The sun beat down on the fenced-in street seating and single family. Two young children wilted in the heat as the parents sat back with their eyes half shut. The younger girl - thin, pale, and sullen - glared at an untouched lemonade while resting her head on her arms. Beads of sweat condensed and then pooled on the ceramic table. The family sat on a deserted square with a small stone fountain in the middle. The water in its basin hardly moved and the air was still and heavy.
The family walked to a nearby church after their break. The parents thought the air would be cooler in the grand stone building and it would, maybe, perk up their kids. There was a solemn hush inside the church. It was historic but still in use. The younger watched elderly women come in and light small candles. She felt that she was intruding. She lagged behind her father as they walked the perimeter, looking at the architecture. He pointed out the molding, the detailing on the pews. The mother read plaques on the statues set against the wall. The older sister had wandered off, to explore on her own. The younger sister couldn't see her, and it would have made too much noise to call her name. The younger sister tried looking for her while staying with her father. The older sister stood in front of a wall of stained glass, entranced, until her parents called for her to leave.
In an outdoor patio surrounded by walls of ivy the family ate dinner. The older girl sat upright and tried the different food while the younger dozed in her chair. She had refused all strange foods, as well as anything with fresh tomatoes. The older ate tomatoes and basil on toast and talked about the day. She liked the churches and the old paintings. She thought the canals were fun. The younger started to cry. She wanted to sleep and her feet hurt. Older Italian couples started to look at the American family with the crying child. The parents tried to prevent creating a bigger scene while the older sister tried to make her laugh. The episode only passed when the entrée arrived. Quiet sniffles and the sound of utensils were the only sounds for a few minutes.
Despite a general improvement, the dinner still felt too long for the young girl. Time bent as she watched fireflies hover close to the hedges. Unintelligible dinner conversations and her parents' factual discussion of Italy seemed meaningless. She recalled her breakdown with a flush of embarrassment. The young girl glanced at her older sister. She looked happy and interested and completely unbothered by the heat and the late hour. And when the waiter arrived offering coffee and dessert, the father took some coffee and each girl received a single scoop of stracciatella. The mother declined, but ate the biscotti that accompanied her husband’s drink.
The ice cream soon vanished but the coffee was an event. It arrived with a small creamer and a stick encrusted with sugar. It was fun for the girls to help their father make his coffee, and there was a spat over who got the sugar stick. It was prettier and seemed exotic to them. The older girl soon ceded the sugar stick to the younger. Now, out of shame, the younger no longer wanted the sugar. But it was too late. She stirred the stick as slow as she could, watching the jagged crystals soften and fade in the dark coffee. She had to pull it out too soon because her father didn't take his coffee sweet. Then the older girl got to take her turn with the cream. The milk bloomed in the black coffee. The sugar was there, the younger girl knew it, but all she could see was the coffee and cream.