LUCA

Three thousand miles away, Luca Carrelli’s mother lay flat on her back in the delivery room at a small community hospital east of LA. The Sisters of Mercy was located in a town bisected by the legendary Route 66. Rialto’s most prominent monument was a motel called the Wigwam: a cluster of teepee-shaped stucco cottages surrounded by acres of boxy mobile homes that had sprung up on the parched landscape like pieces on a giant Monopoly board.

The obstetrician standing between Margaret Carrelli’s knees was impatient. He had three other mothers-to-be in transition, shouting obscenities. In his small practice it was unusual to have two patients laboring at the same time, no less four, which left him wondering what the hell they were all doing nine months ago.

“Must have been a full moon, or a power outage,” he told his harried nurse.

“You’re doing great, Margaret,” he said. “We’re almost there. Give me one more good push.”

Margaret gritted her teeth, moaned, and pushed one last time. At exactly 7:32 p.m. Luca’s head popped out round as a ball; there wasn’t a mark on him. His mouth was a rosebud, his complexion white and pure. His eyes, even that early on, were such a vivid blue that everyone who saw them knew they wouldn’t fade. The doctor who caught him said, “What an absolutely beautiful baby,” and meant it.

How, Margaret wondered, had two such ordinary people produced such an extraordinary-looking baby? Her husband was a scrawny, dark Sicilian; Franco Carelli hated when she called him what he said was his Dago name, had forbidden her to call him that although she preferred it to Frank. He wasn’t going to be happy that she had decided to name their boy Luca. She liked the sound of it, like music, one of those Italian opera singers—or a race car driver. That was what she’d tell Frank: it was a good name for a race car driver.

Frank stood at the nurse’s station holding a cigarette in one hand and the cheapest bunch of flowers he could find in the hospital gift shop in the other.

“Carelli, Margaret,” he said, and coughed.

The nurse looked up from her paperwork and pointed to a set of swinging doors.

“Congratulations,” she said, with a smile. “You’ve got yourself a real cutie.”

Frank didn’t smile back, or nod, or even say thank you. He looked away, cleared the phlegm from his throat, and headed down the hall.

Like everything else about her marriage, Margaret expected motherhood to be a disappointment. She was unprepared for the surge of love she felt for her newborn son. Having a baby had made her bold, fierce in a way she’d never been before. As her husband approached, she put a finger to her lips.

“He’s sleeping,” she said.

Frank tossed the flowers on the bed.

“So what. Let me have a look at him.”

She pushed the receiving blanket back. Luca’s eyes popped open. They were rimmed with long blond lashes. He blinked at the unfamiliar face and yawned.

Years later Luca swore he could remember being born. The light. The sounds. Voices cooing, “What a beautiful baby.” An impossibility. Still he could feel the sensation of being delivered into the arms of an admiring world. He remembered being washed, and measured, and weighed, being wrapped in something soft and white. He could feel hands on him, inspecting fingers and toes, stroking his skin, such perfect skin. Such eyes. That’s what they all said. That’s what they would always say.