Caffè shakerato with my Aunt

As my publishing date comes nearer and I feel like running to the mountains, my Aunt has come to visit and my days have slowed. We sit under the grapevines in cane chairs enjoying the soft breeze. I think about watering the plants but don’t do it. Coffee materialises in our hands and the dogs snap at flies.

I think, It is summertime again, How did that happen?

When I was small I was afraid of my Aunt because she had a big voice and I never grew used to her. She lived abroad and we were a quiet family. She sang in an important choir, wore kaftans and didn’t care. She had a son with the bluest eyes and he used to cry when any of us plonked through Chopin on the piano.

One visit that I think we have all tried to erase from our hearts an accident happened and this boy’s life was taken away. At the time, we children were given improbable religious explanations, but the reason why this thing had to happen was not to be understood. We were told to go back to school while the adults sat around in shock, then clung to mourning.

Now, so many years on, when we have been drinking my aunt and I talk about how old her son would have been now, how handsome. I feel dizzy to think that my life travelled on, I grew up, I gave my parents grandkids. But I like to bring him into our talk. My Aunt is not sure whether to believe me, but this boy often comes to me, he is a man now, sending her comfort.