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Lucia wouldn’t call it love at first sight. Now, that would be ridiculous.
It’s more like love at first pastry, because she certainly remembers those bambalouni Mariam made during that charity event during the first year Nicolò went to secondary school, and Lucia had never considered herself to be a bisexual, but certain things just change a woman’s mind, and Mariam’s bambalouni are definitely very high on that list.
(It’s all said in jest, of course; Mariam is happily married and Lucia is living a very heterosexual adventurous, blissfully single life after she got rid of that absolute asshole of an ex-husband of hers 10 years ago.)
So it wasn’t love at first sight but it was love alright, and they have met up every Wednesday morning since to drink tea and, as Mariam’s eldest daughter Yasmin phrases it, gossip.
They don’t gossip, of course. It’s all said in the most excellent of tastes, and really, if Katia doesn’t want anyone to talk about how obvious her new nose job is, then why did she come to the playground with her face still black and blue from the surgery anyway?
Nicolò doesn’t know about their friendship until much later.
Lucia sighs as she remembers the time when school schedules weren’t so terribly flexible, and when Nicolò going to school on Wednesday meant he would be gone the whole day, and not nearly crash through the door at 10am because his teacher is ill and no one could pick up the class.
“Are you allowed to go home when that happens, passerotto?” she asks sternly when he steps into the living room and freezes upon seeing Mariam there. He pulls a face when he hears the nickname, one that Lucia is still holding onto fondly from his childhood years, when he used to look at her like she hung the sun, the moon, and all the stars. Now he is still sweet, much sweeter than Giovanni and Herberto used to be at that age, but then again, her twins had never been easy with anything, had they? Certainly not during labour…
So yes, he is still sweet, but he is also self-conscious, and he doesn’t like to be compared to a bird. Lucia doesn’t understand, she thinks his nose is beautiful, that he inherited from Lucia’s own father, just like the azure of his eyes. There is very little of her ex-husband in her sweet Nicolò, and that is a blessing she thanks God for every day.
“No,” Nicolò replies, shuffling a little. He is becoming so tall, Lucia notices, something that still surprises her sometimes, when she forgets that he is already 14. “But they weren’t taking attendance, and we wanted to play some football.”
That’s when Yusuf pokes his head into the living room, his baseball cap turned backwards on his head in a way that Mariam always scolds him for, saying that he has been raised well and does he really need to look like his mama doesn’t care? Lucia can sense Mariam’s long-suffering sigh more than she feels it.
“Mama!” Yusuf calls out, grinning at his mother in that sweet way of his. Yusuf is also a sweet boy, although it is hard to pick a favourite when it comes to Mariam’s children. All her girls are delightful, too. (Lucia had always wanted a daughter, but the Lord gave her Nicolò instead, and she couldn’t have been more blessed; He truly does know best.)
Lucia watches with interest as her Nicolò’s cheeks colour slightly at Yusuf’s close proximity. She is giddy when she glances over at Mariam, who still has a piece of biscotti lifted halfway to her lips and who seems to have noticed the exact same thing as Lucia has, if the knowing smile is anything to go by.
“Are you skipping class, Yusuf?” Mariam asks. Nicolò disappears back into the hallway, opening a closet and rummaging around in it for the ball.
“No, mama, I wouldn’t dare,” Yusuf says dramatically, leaning against the doorframe. He is getting some facial hair already, and he is letting it grow proudly. Mariam shares her displeasure about that at great extent during their Wednesday gossip sessions. (“If only Ibrahim stood up for once in his life and taught the boy to shave…” It is said in good humour, of course. Who can blame Ibrahim of being proud of his only son when he starts to grow a beard and become a man?)
“We’re outside!” Nicolò calls out then, having found the ball that Lucia always has to clean up after him. She doesn’t mind it. It reminds her of when Giovanni and Herberto still used to live at home, and how much mess they made. She used to berate them for it all the time, but not her Nicolò. He hardly ever leaves any clutter, after all.
Mariam and Lucia share a look when Nicolò’s hand wraps around Yusuf’s bicep and he pulls him back and out of the house, Yusuf waving his goodbyes as he stumbles backward.
“I suppose we will become family after all,” Mariam says before she finally takes a bite of her biscotti. “Is this cardamom? It is truly something else.”
They don’t talk much about Nicolò and Yusuf for the remainder of the morning, as they get lost in talks of baking and the better recipes. Lucia still hasn’t gotten her hands on that bambalouni recipe that stole her heart years ago, as Mariam has been terribly unwilling to share it with her (“But if I give it to you, then what reason will you have to save me from my loneliness? I would be so bored if left with just my idiot husband!”).
They both expect to get the news sometime soon. It just has to happen.
Lucia can see how Nicolò struggles with himself. Whenever Yusuf is over for lunch or dinner it is clear in both the boys that there is more there than just friendship, and it is hard not to intervene when she catches the longing looks sent the other’s way when they know the other isn’t looking. But Lucia doesn’t want to shatter the fragile beginnings of something so pure and tender, so she keeps her mouth shut, with great difficulty.
The most she can do is sometimes drop a hint, to let Nicolò know that she would welcome any news he were to bring her with open arms. I have known you are gay since you were five years old, passerrotto, she doesn’t say, please just tell your mamma and kiss that foolish boy.
Her struggles are shared with Mariam, of course, who sees the very same happen at her dining table and in her living room.
“He is such a delight to have,” she tells Lucia with a sigh. It is not that Lucia needs to be reminded of what a perfect boy her Nicolò is, even at the age of sixteen, but it always nice to hear. She takes it as a personal compliment, as she has not let the horrid personality of her ex-husband affect the beauty that is her Nicolò in any way. “He is practically part of the family already! How more welcoming can we be? Yet Yusuf does not notice the hints we drop. Even Ibrahim has started calling Nico son!”
Lucia does tear up a little at that. It is good for Nicolò to have a papà in his life.
When Nicolò tells her he wants to talk to her about something, Lucia is two steps away from baking a celebratory rainbow cake. She is thinking about how she will bring the news that she has already known for so long, that she cannot wait to greet Yusuf properly and embrace him into the family like she has been aching to do for so long.
She tries not to look too disappointed when Nicolò tells her instead that he will be fasting along with the Al-Kaysanis for Ramadan.
Lucia had kicked the Catholic faith out of the door even before she had sent her ex-husband packing, and while she had raised Giovanni and Herberto on Sunday masses and Lent, she had given Nicolò a choice in the matter. Lucia herself believes that God most definitely does exist (who else could have brought her this perfect boy of hers?) but she finds the Catholic religion distasteful in its hypocritical narrow-mindedness. Nicolò thinks religion is interesting, but he has never shown the signs of wanting to participate.
Of course, Lucia also knows that Nicolò isn’t exactly going to participate in Ramadan for the sake of God.
It’s the most clumsy courting she has ever heard of, and her eyes water at its innocence. Oh, her Nicolò, her little foolish boy.
“I am sure they are pleased to have you fast with them,” she says, and Nicolò nods excitedly and starts talking about the plans they made to help each other through the fast.
When Mariam and her meet up again it is decidedly without pastries and tea. Lucia could never fast for entire days like Mariam does, but she would never stoop so low as to eat or drink something in front of her either.
“How is Yusuf feeling?” she asks Mariam as they go on a stroll around the park. She has some bread to feed the ducks, and Mariam has little Noor with her, her delightful 7-year-old daughter. They are watching her together as Noor tears small pieces off the bread and deposits them into the water, telling the ducks off when they fight one another to get to the piece the fastest.
“He is beyond himself with love,” Mariam says, looking at Lucia, who has eyes only for little Noor. “I keep wanting to give him that final push, as does Yasmin, she claims he is ‘yearning’ and that it annoys her.”
“What a brutish way to put it.”
Mariam chuckles. “Not all my children are as delicate as my Yusuf.” Lucia knows that this is true. Yusuf is most delicate, with his pretty drawings and his long fingers. He likes to do the boyish things as well, of course, but Lucia knows that Yusuf’s heart lies in the arts, just as her Nicolò’s can be found amidst the dusty pages of his favourite novels. “He is thinking about what he wants to do after school.”
“Art, I hope? He is so talented.”
“Yes, the academy. Nicolò wants to follow him, to the same city at the very least.”
“That does explain his sudden interest in that university,” Lucia agrees. “But they still have a while to think about it.”
“Ibrahim says it will all turn out alright in the end.”
“What an awfully wise man you have married,” Lucia teases, and Mariam bristles as she lapses into more stories of her idiot husband. Lucia isn’t jealous of the relationship between Mariam and Ibrahim, or of the delight that Noor brought to their big family, being the fourth and youngest of their children. But sometimes she thinks of Nicolò, who will be leaving her for university soon, and how lonely she will be when he is gone. It has been just her and Nicolò for so long, it is hard to imagine a time beyond it.
They spend a lot of time over the years speculating whether they have kissed or not already. Lucia takes careful note of how lovesick Nicolò is, and when she puts away his clothes after she has laundered them and looks at the little doodles that are stuck to his walls and the doors of his wardrobe, she smiles. It’s only a matter of time, after all.
And then, on a Thursday afternoon when Nicolò returns home just a little too flushed and a little too late, claiming that the tire of his bicycle had a leak and Yusuf had helped him fix it (Lucia tries not to scoff at that; Yusuf has never fixed a tire in his life, she has it on good account: it is Ibrahim or Nicolò who he manages to charm into doing it for him every time), she knows it happened.
Lucia is sure of it.
Which means that the announcement sure will be quick to follow. Because how can Nicolò and Yusuf think that she and Mariam do not know? Her Nicolò blushes so brightly when Yusuf moves a little too close, and a little too close is what Yusuf moves, almost all the time. They touch each other ‘secretly’ while seated next to one another at the dining table, a hand on a thigh or fingers intertwined Lucia cannot tell, and they decline her offers for homemade pastries and fresh tea more often than not after disappearing up to Nicolò’s room.
Mariam has the same observations and therefore, the same complaints, of course.
“It must be Yusuf who has convinced Nico not to talk of it,” Mariam decides. The pastry of the day is makroudh, and Mariam has eaten five already. She is as upset as Lucia is by the proceedings. Their boys are seventeen now.
“No, that cannot be,” Lucia argues. “It is my Nicolò who has convinced Yusuf to remain a secret, I will not hear talk of anything else.”
Ibrahim has the day off and he is sitting at the dining table, thumbing through his newspaper. “You women are entirely too invested in this. They are much more likely to open up if you do not scrutinise them so.”
“Have they opened up to you then, my neutral husband?” Mariam sneers as she turns to him, not appreciating his input whatsoever.
“No, but Yusuf knows I am the safest person to go to. He would much rather have his baba than his meddlesome mama.”
Lucia munches thoughtfully on her makroudh as Mariam and Ibrahim start to bicker in Arabic.
Nicolò makes his final decision of the university he wants to go to in April of that year, just before Ramadan starts. It is quite far from home, he will have to move out and into student housing. He will share a room with Yusuf as it is, ‘coincidentally’, also the city the academy is located in, and Lucia thinks that surely this will be the time that Nicolò finally tells her. But he doesn’t. He just blushes prettily and pretends Yusuf and he are just friends who have decided to room together to save money. It causes Lucia to despair.
“I will still come visit every weekend,” he promises, mistaking his mother’s sadness at not being let in on this important portion of his life for sadness that he will be abandoning her, and surely, Lucia isn’t happy to see him leave but she would never dare stand between him and his future.
“You say that now,” Lucia mutters as she grates parmigiano over the pasta, “but once you have found the party scene you will be too busy dancing to remember your poor mamma.”
“I’m not going to party, mamma,” Nicolò says. “You know I don’t like clubs.”
“So if Yusuf asks you to come with him when he explores every little nook and cranny of that city you will just stay home and go to bed?”
Nicolò’s cheeks darken to a deep red. “Well, maybe if Yusuf asks I will come.”
The moving day is emotional. Ibrahim drives the van and piles the boys and most of the furniture in there, while Lucia and Mariam trail behind in Lucia’s Fiat 500. Ibrahim drives like an old man, sticking to the speed limit like a saint.
“Surely they will tell us today,” Lucia says, and Mariam hums, clearly not too convinced of it.
They leave Nicolò and Yusuf with brand new furniture (there is no bed, yet, something went wrong with the delivery, their boys insist, and Lucia cannot remember the last time her patience was tested so), put together by Ibrahim’s crafty hands with Nicolò’s help, in a nicely decorated room, courtesy of Yusuf’s art and Lucia and Mariam’s combined designing skills. They also make sure the fridge fully stocked, with leftovers and fresh produce both, and made the boys promise to come home at least somewhat soon before they forget all about their mammas. And baba, Ibrahim adds, which Mariam is quick to wave away.
It’s hard to say goodbye to her little boy who is a little boy no more. He is still 17, her little Christmas miracle, but Yusuf is already 18 and he promises to take care of Nicolò. Lucia just pretends he means it in a way that is not kissing her son senseless while buying booze to share with him as Nicolò will be underage still.
Mariam and her continue their little Wednesday morning teatimes, even when their primary sources of gossip have left them far behind. Lucia also gets to have Noor every now and then, and the little girl fills her house with the joy and brightness only a child can bring.
The boys try to make it home every now and again but it’s clear that university life is much more interesting. Lucia doesn’t mind it, it is to be expected. So what if she harasses Giovanni and Herberto into coming to visit her more often? She had been going easy on them all those years she still had Nicolò, it is now their time to take care of their mamma. Her blackmailing works wonderfully, and she is delighted when they even bring along their girlfriends, soon to become fiancées and then wives, every now and again.
“Mamma,” Nicolò says when they are calling, discussing their plans for Christmas. Giovanni and Herberto are coming over on Christmas Eve with their wives and firstborn sons, still as connected at the hip when they are in their early 30s as they used to be when they were small. Lucia has kept the First and Second Christmas Days all clear and open for her youngest son, who will be bringing Yusuf along with him as always, she knows. It is a given. Yusuf has been spending Christmas at their place for years now, of course not because of the holiday itself but because of Nicolò’s birthday, and the abundance of food that Lucia spoils them with around the holidays.
Nicolò merges with Yusuf’s family for Ramadan, and she gets to have Yusuf for Christmas.
Yusuf has tagged along with Nicolò even since they moved out for university, and they are both in their third and final year of their bachelor’s when the call comes.
Lucia’s hands pause from where she is working the fresh pizza dough as the tone in the word registers in her mind. This is nervousness, from her sweet Nicolò. She lets out a sigh of relief. Will she finally be on the receiving end of Nicolò admitting to her that Yusuf is more? That Yusuf has been more for the past four years, if not longer?
Lucia isn’t sure if her heart will survive the overwhelming joy she will be feeling at the news. She squeezes the phone she holds between shoulder and cheek a little tighter in anticipation.
“What is it, passerrotto?” she pushes gently. Tell your mamma, Nicolò, and make her happy.
“Is it okay if I bring someone home, for Christmas?”
“Of course, Nicolò. You have been bringing someone home for Christmas every year, since you were 14.” She doesn’t want to push, but she can help, surely?
“Ah, no. It- uh- it won’t be Yusuf.”
Lucia doesn’t understand.
“Nicolò?”
“I want to bring my girlfriend, if that is okay?”
Lucia doesn’t drop the phone, but it is a near thing. That is altogether wrong, in every single definition of the word. Not only is her Nicolò not into women, something she can say with absolute certainty, he also belongs with Yusuf. They had been so sweet together the last time they had done a video call, bundled up together underneath layers of blankets because ‘the heaterwasn’t working’. Mariam had offered sending Ibrahim over to take a look at it, but they had been quick to wave it away. The landlord would fix it soon, they had said.
Mariam and Lucia had laughed for many minutes after the end of the call, of course.
“Of course,” Lucia says, her own words hardly registering through her shock. She is not going to take away from Nicolò’s joy. She is not going to tell him how he should feel. If he wants to bring a girl home for Christmas, he can, and Lucia will be supportive of this decision always, but she is not convinced. “Is everything alright with Yusuf?”
“Yusuf? Yes, of course. He just has some deadlines due, he will be very busy.”
After they hang up, Lucia hastily gathers the dough and plops it back into the bowl. She doesn’t even bother to cover it with plastic wrapping, that is how out of it she is, as she dusts her flour-covered hands on her apron and leaves the house. Mariam doesn’t live very far away, only five minutes by bicycle, and Lucia manages to reduce it to an impressive four despite the stormy weather.
Amira opens the door for her. She is younger than Yusuf, still 17, and this will be her last year living at home. Mariam has been anxious about that, even though she still has Noor with her for years to come. But Lucia understands it fully, how empty a house can feel when you are used to it being full and lively. She had felt the absence of her twins when they had moved out, although she feels the absence of her Nicolò more. Sometimes she still tears up when she is baking and Nicolò isn’t next to her to help her with the dough.
“I need to talk to your mother,” Lucia announces, her voice making it clear that this is a matter of great importance.
Amira seems to grasp it quickly, as she opens the door more and lets Lucia enter. She walks toward the stairs and calls her mother, who comes rushing down not soon after.
Her eyebrows rise when she sees Lucia, who must make quite the image, with her hair windswept and her apron still tied around her waist. She hasn’t even bothered to pull on a coat despite the early December chill, that is how out of it she is.
“Where is the fire, Lucia?” Mariam jokes, descending the last few steps in less of a hurry after apparently deciding that it is not a matter of life or death.
“My Nicolò has done something very stupid,” Lucia explains, and Mariam ushers her out of the hallway and into the living room. The tea is quickly prepared along with a serving of yesterday’s pastries. Noor is watching television on the sofa, and they keep their voices hushed throughout the conversation.
“I must insist still that it is most likely my Yusuf who is to blame,” Mariam tells her, and Lucia shakes her head firmly to let her know that this time, it is not up for debate. Lucia’s son is clearly the dumbest of the two.
“Nicolò is bringing a girl home for Christmas.”
Mariam nearly drops the pastry she is holding.
“I think he might be talking to the Asshole,” Lucia says with a sad shake of her head. The Asshole is a general term for her ex-husband, although many more creative phrasings have been invented and widely used over the years. “I see no other reason for him to conjure up a girlfriend.”
“Nico has never shown interest in talking to him, has he?” Mariam tries to reason.
“He also has never shown interest in bringing back a woman!” Lucia reminds her. It must be the influence of her ex-husband, surely, he who could not see beyond Nicolò’s interest in other boys when he had been so small, who had shown his true colours when confronted with the behaviour of their toddler. Lucia had been quick to kick him out. He would not hurt her son, her little boy, not on her watch, and she had no interest in being married to a bigot. Giovanni and Herberto hadn’t understood back then, too busy being bothersome teenagers to really care, but he hadn’t been a great father to them either. They try to stay in touch, she thinks, but it is mostly unsuccessful. He hadn’t even come to their weddings. True colours, yes indeed.
They come to a conclusion that very afternoon: surely there must be a misunderstanding. They will be getting to the bottom of this. And Mariam, of course, will support her through these trying times.
Lucia adapts the menu by taking off Yusuf’s favourites. Her heart clenches when she decides she will not be cooking anything Tunisian for dinner, and when she realises the meat she cooks doesn’t have to be halal she nearly decides to go completely vegetarian right on the spot, just to prove a point.
But she had made the decision so long ago not to meddle with her son’s idiocy, and now would be very late indeed to break that promise. So she sucks it up and buys halal anyway. She simply cannot stand to break the butcher’s heart by skipping him over her son’s foolishness.
When Nicolò finally arrives on Christmas morning, his 20th birthday, Lucia is all smiles. The girl he brings with him introduces herself as Quynh, and she is really very pretty. She has a quick wit that meshes easily with Nicolò’s sense of humour, and she is most kind about the food Lucia has cooked. If Nicolò notices the adaptations to her menu he doesn’t comment on it, and Lucia tries not to be upset at the single-mindedness of her son. She also tries not to mention that this will be the first time that Yusuf and Nicolò spend Nicolò’s birthday apart, after befriending each other seven years ago.
Quynh and Nicolò are very sweet together, but they don’t gravitate toward one another. There are no butterflies between them, and the sweet blushes she has gotten used to seeing on Nicolò’s cheeks when he is home (with Yusuf) are completely absent. His cheeks are only flushed when he comes back inside after playing with Noor and Sana and Quynh in the winter snow.
When they go to bed, safely and surely in separate rooms because sleepovers are limited to Yusuf and Nicolò only, Lucia calls Mariam to complain.
“Can you believe my son?” she hisses into the phone. “He brings home a lesbian as his girlfriend for Christmas!”
Yusuf undergoes a similar lapse of judgement for Eid al-Fitr, and Lucia is then on the receiving end of Mariam’s incredulity as she speaks of one Andrea, a young woman with very muscular shoulders, who had been introduced as Yusuf’s girlfriend. Andrea had been fun and rowdy, getting along with Yusuf’s sisters, and Mariam’s voice reaches the highest pitches when she announces:
“I even overheard her talking to Yasmin about girls in the corridor!”
At that point, both Lucia and Mariam aren’t sure what they are more upset about: the fact that their sons keep lying to them, that they pretend to be heterosexual, or that the girls they decide to bring home are so glaringly lesbian it is hard to take their attempts at appearing straight seriously.
Her Nicolò graduates from university summa cum laude and it is quite the celebration. Yusuf still has another year to go at the art academy, but he is there at Nicolò’s graduation. Lucia makes pictures of them hugging a little too closely and smiling at each other a little too dreamily, and she resists the urge to show them her camera roll and point at their lovesick faces and say: See! You cannot fool your mamma, passerrotto!
For Christmas and Nicolò’s 21st birthday, Nicolò asks if it is okay if he brings home Quynh and Andrea, as well as Yusuf. Lucia is delighted, it has been a long time since her house has been so filled with youth. She cooks an elaborate meal to celebrate.
She is not surprised when Andrea and Quynh put forth a similarly bad attempt at hiding as her boys do, and when, after dinner, Yusuf and Nicolò have gone upstairs to locate some of the boardgames they had left behind when moving and are taking entirely too long to fetch them and return, they look a little uncertain, Lucia does what she does best and assures them.
“When I was around your age,” she tells them, taking a sip from her mint tea, which somehow never manages to taste as good when she prepares it herself as when Mariam does it for her, “I had a friendship like yours.”
Andrea looks like she is going to protest to Lucia’s statement, but Lucia does not allow her the time to form her response.
“We used to kiss in the shade of the cedar tree in her parents’ vineyard, back in Italy. It was a most enjoyable summer.” Of course, Lucia has never kissed a girl underneath the cedar tree in a vineyard, she doesn’t even think there is such a thing as cedar trees on vineyards, but they don’t need to know that.
It has the desired result, anyway, as for the remainder of their stay the girls allow themselves to gravitate closer to one another, and Lucia is very certain that they are holding hands when the boys finally return, slightly dishevelled and with their lips kiss-swollen, Yusuf’s hair a mess underneath his backward baseball cap, and they are fooling exactly no one.
The years trickle by and Lucia is content. She gets to see her grandchildren, delightful little boys as they are, with great frequency, and she still has Noor over every now and then. She is becoming a most beautiful young woman, with eyes of molten caramel and a smile as easy and pretty as Yusuf’s. Still, as Lucia grows slowly older and her hair turns almost entirely grey, dyeing it being something she has given up on long ago, she decides that this house will no longer do for her. It is too large, with its four bedrooms and three stories.
She makes the announcement on Christmas Eve, when Yusuf and Nicolò have come over from the city they still live in even after both have finished their studies, and Giovanni and Herberto are there too with their little families. Yusuf’s family will come over tomorrow for Nicolò’s birthday, and Lucia has prepared a great variety of pastries for the occasion.
“I will be moving in the new year,” she states after dinner.
It is only Nicolò of her three boys who looks shocked by this, and it is only him who comes to find her in the kitchen while she prepares the after dinner coffee and tea. Herberto and Yusuf had done the dishes and cleaned the kitchen after dinner, but there is only so many tasks a woman can give to the men in her life without getting itchy fingers herself.
“We- I am thinking about moving back to town,” he tells her. “Every time we come back home, which is not frequent, I know and I am sorry, mamma-” Lucia doesn’t think Nicolò has anything to be sorry for; she is just his old mamma, she understands that his priorities lie elsewhere during the prime of his life, “-but it hurts my heart when I see that you are ageing.”
“Not that quickly, passerrotto, I have many years left in me yet!” she assures him, and Nicolò laughs softly as he wraps an arm around her shoulders. He is so tall, her youngest child, and the crown of Lucia’s head hardly reaches his broad shoulders. She puts down the honey and hugs him back, her sweet son.
“I know. I just don’t want to look back at this time in twenty years and kick myself for not being here when it mattered most. I want to cherish these times.”
How terrifying the realisation of mortality can be when you are in your early 20s, Lucia muses.
She has a similar conversation with Yusuf when her boys have all come over to help her move a few months later. It is a delight, for the roles to be reversed. How many times has Lucia helped her sons move over the years, after all? They had spent this morning looking over the old photo albums Lucia had found, filled to the brim with pictures of her Nicolò as a baby. Yusuf had been delighted by the sight, agreeing fully with Lucia that he was a gorgeous little man.
They had all cried together over the memories. Lucia loves her Nicolò, of course, and somehow she thinks the love she has for him keeps growing every year. He is her biggest success and he holds so much of her heart in his caring hands. But to look upon the photographs of 24 years ago and see those big blue grey eyes staring back at her like she is his world, well, it loosens something even in the toughest of mothers.
She will have to go over the photo albums with Mariam soon, and then Mariam can pull out the photographs of Yusuf when he was an infant, and they can swoon together over how pretty their grandchildren would have been, if biology were to allow it.
Yusuf stands beside her and helps her with the dishes. Lucia had cooked her famous lasagne for her helping sons, and Giovanni, Herberto and Nicolò are doing a last run with the van for the evening before retiring for the day. Yusuf stays behind to help her tidy up the kitchen and put the last of her kitchen supplies neatly into boxes. He laughs when he sees some of the bowls Yusuf had made during his time in art school, slightly lopsided things that he had given Lucia for her birthday and she has cherished since.
“Do not mock my bowls,” she scolds him, pulling the bowls in question out of his hands so she can carefully lower them into the box herself.
“I should make you new ones, these are hideous,” Yusuf protests.
“They have character, Yusuf, you silly boy!”
“Lucia,” Yusuf starts a few moments later, when he is drying the dishes Lucia has washed. “I don’t think I… I just want to say thank you. I don’t think I ever have.”
“You have thanked me plenty,” Lucia assures him, because it is true. Mariam has raised him to be polite, and polite Yusuf is. He is a delight. He is the only person who will ever be worthy of the love of her Nicolò.
She does not miss the conflict in his eyes when he looks at her, the words that remain on his tongue, heavy like lead. There is more he wants to say, more he wants to thank her for other than her hospitality, and Lucia knows this. Thank you for giving me Nicolò, Yusuf doesn’t say. Lucia wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him down into a hug. You are welcome, she doesn’t reply.
That night, Yusuf and Nicolò sleep in Nicolò’s old bedroom. It has remained largely unchanged from when he moved out so many years ago, and they have kept the bed in there still so they will have a place to sleep. When Lucia gets out of bed for the third time that night in order to relieve herself (it all truly does go south with age: looks, breasts, and most definitely the capacity of her bladder), she overhears them. Not because they are not quiet, because they are, the walls are simply thin.
She smiles when she hears the distant sound of whispered words and low moans as she pads across to the bathroom. Her silly, silly boys.
They have lunch at Mariam’s the next day, and Yusuf and Nicolò are looking very nervous. Lucia doesn’t miss the gentle touches between them meant to comfort one another, or the looks sent each other’s way. She is with them during the morning, when they carry the heavy furniture around her new house, and every time they disappear into another room she doesn’t go looking. There is something important they want to share, and it clear that it takes guts. Lucia will wait.
“I think it will be today,” she tells Mariam when she helps her with the last preparations of that day’s lunch, scooping food into bowls and adding garnish. The boys are with Ibrahim and Noor in the living room. Noor is showing her latest drawings to her brother, and while she is not nearly as talented as Yusuf was at that age, Yusuf’s praise is limitless. Such a sweet, gentle boy, their Yusuf.
“They have been very nervous,” Mariam agrees.
The announcement is not what they expect it to be. At this point, Lucia is starting to doubt if she will even live long enough to ever hear the words tumble from their lips: she is not getting younger, after all. Still, their boys are 25, and per Mariam and Lucia’s calculations have been together for eight years at the very least, when they share the news that they will be moving.
“We have a bit more money now I’m actually selling art,” Yusuf explains.
Lucia knows that their reason for living together all these years has always been Nicolò financially supporting his best friend while Yusuf chases his artistic dreams. It is true, of course, only Nicolò doesn’t do it out of the platonic goodness of his heart.
So, they move a few months later, and it is good to have their boys so close again. Getting to see them only a handful of times a year was difficult on both Mariam and Lucia, and they are especially delighted to finally have some more fodder to add to their weekly gossip sessions. Of course, Yusuf and Nicolò have always been a favourite topic of theirs, but it just feels so much better now they are actually close to home.
The pastry of the day is sfogliatelle, a delicate pastry that Lucia has spent entirely too long on to prepare. She has a lot of times on her hands these days, with retirement creeping closer, and she likes keeping her hands busy. Flaky pastry is just the way to do that.
“You will have to give me the recipe,” Mariam announces after she has finished her first and moved on to her second.
“I will trade it,” Lucia decides, taking a bite from her own pastry. “My sfogliatelle for your bambalouni.”
Mariam looks at her and seems to think about it for a second. “Fine, keep your secrets.”
Some things, after all, never change. Not even with time.
“I never once suspected my son to be such an idiot,” Mariam says on another Wednesday in time. She has made bambalouni, and Lucia knows she probably shouldn’t eat as many as she does, but can she really be blamed?
“What has my Nicolò done now?” she asks. Mariam and her have always bickered about which of their sons is to blame for the ridiculous situation they find themselves in. Mariam, of course, is convinced it is Yusuf, while Lucia knows Yusuf would never do such a thing. It must be her Nicolò.
“Yusuf,” Mariam starts, emphasising it, making sure Lucia realises it truly is Yusuf’s own idiocy this time and not the usual ambiguity, “bought fifty red roses. I was having tea with Fatima when I saw him walk past the café.”
Lucia nearly drops her bambalouni, which truly would have been the most serious form of blasphemy. Fortunately, the Lord is full of forgiveness, and she manages to hold onto the pastry.
Their boys are 27 when they invite their families over to their house. It is quite the secretive event, and while no one else seems to share Lucia and Mariam’s suspicions that today will be the day (Ibrahim still thinks they are too meddlesome, even if he too is starting to worry a little after all these years, and the other children are too busy with their own lives to worry much about the mess their brothers have made), Lucia and Mariam are sure of it.
They have discussed it at great length while in the car, and Ibrahim has let many a long-suffering sigh roll past his lips in the process.
“I do not know why I still drive the two of you,” he complains. “It is like being cooped up with chickens. You women never shut up.”
Mariam tears into him with the same gusto as she has always had, and Lucia looks out the window as she is left to her own musings, the bickering in Arabic a truly marvellous background noise to contemplate to.
“We, uh, we have an announcement to make.” It is Yusuf who finally brings all the attention to the two of them, after desserts have been eaten. Giovanni and Herberto both have two children by now, all boys (it truly is a family curse), and Yasmin has two as well. Amira is married and heavily pregnant. It is wonderful, how their families have grown so much over the years, and while Yusuf and Nicolò’s house is not small by any means, the living room still feels so very full. It reminds Lucia of her own childhood, which she shared with nine siblings, and how that house had never felt empty.
“We realise this might come as a shock to some of you,” Nicolò starts, and Lucia hides her mouth behind her hand because biting her fingers will be the only way to stop herself from laughing. It is time. She meets Mariam’s gaze and sees the same realisation there. It is time. God truly does reward patience, after all.
Yusuf and Nicolò share a look, the gentleness within their eyes unlimited, the tenderness and love on their faces pure and beautiful. Ibrahim reaches out to grab Lucia’s free hand, his other intertwined with Mariam’s fingers. Lucia can see the tears already forming in Ibrahim’s eyes, and Mariam will be scolding him on the way home. You idiot husband, pretending you did not care as much as we did, all those years!
“We are engaged,” Yusuf finally concludes.
It is quiet.
Yasmin is the first to start laughing, loud and boisterous, and after that it is chaos. Of course, the boys are congratulated. Mostly, though, they are mocked.
When the other children have left and it is just Ibrahim, Mariam and Lucia for tea, Nicolò is the one to cave.
“Since when have you known?” he asks, bravely.
Mariam and Lucia share a look.
“Since the beginning, I would like to think,” Mariam decides.
“So, when we moved away, for university?” Yusuf says hopefully.
“No, no, long before that. I think you were 14, when we first saw the beginnings?” Lucia asks Mariam, who nods.
Nicolò groans and hides his face against Yusuf’s shoulder. Yusuf lifts his backward baseball cap, something he still wears so often, much to Mariam’s discontent, to run a hand through his hair, disbelief on his face.
“So long?” he asks.
“We are your mammas, silly boys,” Lucia says, scooping honey into her tea, although she will not need it for it to taste wonderfully sweet. “We know everything.”
“So even when we started dating?”
“At 17, you mean? Yes,” Mariam says, reaching out to accept the honey Lucia offers her.
“That bad, huh,” Yusuf mumbles, and Nicolò groans again.
“Nicolò,” Lucia says, “why did you not tell us sooner?”
Nicolò and Yusuf gaze at one another.
“We just didn’t know how to bring it up, after all this time,” Yusuf says. Lucia and Mariam sigh.
The wedding takes place not much later. It is a hectic affair, and there are a lot of people. Lucia has gone through the trouble of inviting all her siblings and their children and grandchildren, and most of them were very excited to come, even though they will have to travel from Italy.
Mariam has distributed the same invitation on her side of the family, and they, too, do not pass up on the celebrations. They fly in from Tunisia and Morocco, from Spain and France, from Germany and Greece. They have to get a big venue and Lucia and Mariam spend the days before the eventual wedding cooking with the help of other women in both their families.
They hold onto each other when Yusuf and Nicolò finally bind themselves together officially, in front of everyone to behold, and when they lean in and share the first kiss, both mothers realise that this is the first time they have seen their children kiss.
They cry into their handkerchiefs and then into each other’s dresses, it is a most emotional affair.
And when the food is dished out and the dancing starts, Mariam and Lucia never leave each other’s side. They look at where their sons are sharing their first dance. Their Yusuf. Their Nicolò. They do not say anything, but they don’t have to: their two silly boys are saying everything and more.
Mariam grabs Lucia’s hand and squeezes.
They are finally, finally family.