Welcome back! I hope you’re enjoying Anna’s time in Italy…we’re starting to make some headway, so here’s Chapter 5.
Anna in Tuscany, Episode 5, Chapter 5Anna in Tuscany
Stephanie Verni | Copyright 2021
Chapter 5
The next day, I received a letter in the mail at Rosa’s apartment. I recognized the handwriting right away, but oddly, there was no return address.
Dear Anna,
I am writing this letter a few days before you get on the plane for your new adventure so that you get it soon after you arrive in Italy. I didn’t want you to feel too lonely, so I figured a piece of mail from your family each week wouldn’t hurt. I can’t wait to come visit you. I also thought it might make you look important if you started to receive mail. You know…sort of the “mysterious woman in Siena” receiving mail from a mysterious person in America kind of thing. I will write each week, so that the letters keep arriving and you feel more than loved by your family here.
It wasn’t easy to kiss my beloved daughter goodbye and send her off to my childhood stomping grounds, but I know you will enjoy your time in Italy again. Remember how much fun you had when you studied abroad? As you and I talked, you will have time to recharge your batteries.
You’re in Siena now. Open your eyes. See the world. Write about it. Drink good wine. Savor the bread. Learn to cook. Hang out with your cousins. Meet new people. Open your heart to the right people.
And enjoy your sabbatical from here for a while.
Just don’t get fat. 
I love you, vita mia.
Mom.
I began to choke up reading that letter. I missed my mother already. She had always been my rock—always believing in me, and even when she didn’t love the people I dated, she trusted in me. After both of my relationships ended, she simply told me that God put those people in my life for a reason, and that good would come from it all. It was tough to believe when I poured my heart and soul into both relationships, and with Paul it had been over five years. After everything ended with Ben two years ago—and knowing that I wanted a family more than anything in the world—the depression started to get to me. Plus, I couldn’t bear to go on one more blind date and disappoint friends who thought they were doing me some good.
When your heart’s broken and you’re not ready for something new, everything is lackluster. And after two devastating breakups, you began to look in the mirror and wonder what was wrong with you. Neither man could see “forever” with me, and that notion called for some true introspection.
To be honest, I began to see myself as not worthy of a solid, true, loving relationship. My mother told me it was baloney.
“Everyone is loveable, Anna,” she had said. But was that true? As Paul had said to me, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you anymore.” Words like that can damage your soul. It was amazing I even had it in me to start something new with Ben many, many months after Paul ended our relationship.
Watching me sulk had bothered my mother after a while. I lived only a few miles from her and saw her regularly. We talked on the phone most days. “Pick yourself up by the bootstraps,” she had said, “and throw yourself into your work for a while.”
I did that. I worked. I traveled. I did exactly as she said and became engrossed in my work so much so that I neglected to have any sort of social life. Hiding became a crutch to cope with the hurt.
To be fair, there were millions of us who walked around with broken hearts. We’ve lost loved ones to illness; we’ve found ourselves alone because those we love have fallen out of love with us; and we’ve lost loved ones who simply no longer care and don’t want to be connected with us. I knew I was not the only one—that countless others suffer—and yet being a member of that particular club made it nonetheless lonely, and increasingly sadder by the day. I admired those who genuinely didn’t mind the solitude and were happy not to be attached to someone else. There was something so inspiring about that.
I had almost given up believing that I was worthy of a longstanding love relationship. I beat myself up constantly, and my mother was tired of watching me do it.
“Perhaps your time in Italy will help you find the answers you are looking for. Rosa wants you to come and stay in her place. You have extended family in Siena. And we will come and visit. Go clear your head. Nana would have insisted that you go.”
“Would she have? Really?”
“You know how much Nana loved Italy. And she would have loved watching your career blossom as a travel writer. I can hear her in my head, saying, ‘Arianna, you get your butt on that plane and heal. Learn to love yourself first, before you love anyone else,’” my mother said.
I scratched my head.
I hated when my mother was right sometimes, but it was absolutely true. Nana would have said that.
*
Alessandro arrived at five o’clock sharp. I was waiting for him on the street just outside the walled city so it would be easy for him to pick me up. I hadn’t seen my cousin in fifteen years. He pulled the car over, got out, and hugged me, kissing both sides of my cheeks.
“Anna—so good to see you!” he said.
“You, too, Alessandro. And thank you so much for helping me get set up in the apartment.” His dark skin and dark eyes twinkled, and he smelled of a musk cologne.
I climbed inside his little car, and he began to make the drive outside Siena and through the hills. On the ride, Alessandro filled me in on his life: he married a woman from town, and they had a three-year-old daughter, Gianna. I couldn’t wait to meet her.
“It has been too long, Anna,” he said, as I marveled at the scenery of Tuscany. I’d forgotten its beauty. The hills sloped and the cypress trees graced the hilltops. It was like reading beautiful poetry, and it nearly brought me to tears, the scenery enveloping me, the houses perched like visions of perfection on the landscape.
“It’s so gorgeous. I can see why you are so happy here with your family, and why you would never want to leave,” I said. He smiled at me and patted my hand.
When we rounded the corner and began the drive up the dirt pathway to their home, the vines still in full bloom and the arbors covered with crawling flowers, I was in awe of the place. Instantly, I was overtaken by the vibrant colors, the smells of the countryside, and the charm of Rosa’s house—it epitomized Tuscan splendor.
Just then, Rosa came running out of her house, an apron covering her dress, and embraced me in a hug. “Here she is—welcome! Welcome!” she said, hugging me so tightly into her large bosom I could barely breathe.
Little Gianna stood next to her mother, Alessandro’s wife Victoria, and I waved to her. She gave me a timid wave back, probably wondering who this foreign woman was joining them for dinner. I was glad I had worn a dress for the occasion. Rosa was entertaining us in the home’s large dining room, with windows all along the back the allowed the hills to be a backdrop. The long dining table was adored with twinkle lights, candles, and flowers. Italia splendor.
“You’re too skinny,” Rosa said to me. “Are you ready for a feast?”
I laughed. Never in my entire life had I been called skinny. I had hips and curves, and I’d always had to work very hard to maintain my weight. It wasn’t easy—because I loved food. My mother even cautioned me not to gain weight. I know she said it lovingly, but she knew I could look at food and put on five pounds. She and I were very similar that way.
“I am ready. This all looks amazing!” I said.
The wine began to pour. I was reunited with my cousins and their children. Rosa’s husband, my uncle Pietro, a sophisticated looking man, was warm and welcoming. We passed the numerous plates of food Rosa had prepared around the table. I felt comfortable right away, even though I hadn’t seen them all in many years. But Italian families were like that—it was as if no time had passed at all, and we just jumped in right where we left off.
Except, perhaps for Pietro, who wanted to know the details of my love life as soon as I took a bite of the second course.
“So, no marriage prospects then, Anna?”
I almost choked on my food. Italians can be so blunt. They don’t hide behind formalities.
“Not at the moment,” I said, obviously embarrassed.
Sensing my humiliation, Alessandro saved me. “Papa, she wants to find the perfect person, not a perdente.”
I looked at him sideways, not understanding the word. “Loser,” he whispered to me.
Luckily, Pietro let it go at that, and the rest of the meal consisted of us sharing family stories, especially ones about my mother as a child, and I offered a glimpse into our life in the United States. Sitting where I was right now, in the candlelight of this old, Tuscan home, eating savory food, and enjoying my family’s company, I’d say I was in the right spot for now.
When I said goodbye to everyone that evening and climbed back in Alessandro’s car for the ride back to the city of Siena, I thought about what Alessandro had said to everyone at the table on my behalf: not a perdente.
He was so right. This time around, I would not entertain the idea of someone who did not love me the right way…the way I needed to be loved. I wanted someone who said they loved me—all of me—and that they were in love with me, not just that they loved me. There was a difference. I was thankful I had decided to take this respite here in Italy, to find a new focus, and regain my self-confidence as well.
*******
About the author:
STEPHANIE VERNI is the author of THE LETTERS IN THE BOOKS; FROM HUMBUG TO HUMBLE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF EBENEZER SCROOGE; BENEATH THE MIMOSA TREE; INN SIGNIFICANT; LITTLE MILESTONES; THE POSTCARD; and ANNA IN TUSCANY. She is also a co-author of the textbook, EVENT PLANNING & MANAGEMENT: COMMUNICATING THEORY & PRACTICE. Currently an adjunct professor at Stevenson University Online, she instructs communication courses for undergraduate and graduate students. She and her husband reside in Severna Park, Maryland, and have two children. On the side, she enjoys writing travel articles for marylandroadtrips.com.
Connect with Stephanie on Instagram at stephanieverniwrites.
