Antonio De Vito
DOUBTS FROM THE PAST
To my wife Stefania and my daughters Elisa and Chiara,
with all the love I can,
In memory of my parents Luisa and Raffaele.
DUBBI DAL PASSATO Copyright © 2014 Antonio De Vito First edition: Aprile 2014 English edition: March 2017 Translator: Eva Melisa Mastroianni
Publisher: Tektime – www.traduzionelibri.it
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e-mail: [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, including by any mechanical or electronic system, without the written permission of the editor, except for brief passages taken for the purposes of review.
Any resemblance to persons or actual events is purely coincidental.
Preface
Probably none had seen him getting out from that house.
While walking at a slow pace, staring into space, everything seemed to give him room.
A superhuman effort seemed to put a strain on Sam's eyes. His green eyes seemed turned off and were staring at the ground. The legs were barely proceeding ahead one for the other, though following a marked path. His arms were relaxed; his fists were open; now the veins had stopped pulsing like rivers in flood. His head down let fall forward part of his thick hair and out from the mouth, with each breath; a big cloud of smoke enveloped his head for a few moments. He was an exhausted man. Now he just needed help.
-1-
Sam was a tall and stout man, with that kind of green eyes which don't leave you indifferent. He had a beautiful body, even though he had never spent a great deal of time on himself, in fact.
Since Stacy had made it clear that if he got a wiggle on his fate could finally change, he had tried to clean up his acts. He seriously believed in that story, though, it seemed to not be able to take flight. It had been two years now since the good days of College and it was necessary that Sam started looking for a serious job.
Stacy was a woman who knew what she wanted. It had been that way since she and Sam had met at Ohio State University and they had found out they were from the same country of Colorado.
The surprise of discovering they were fellow citizens had been just the beginning of an evening in front of a bottle of Chianti and ended like many others, lying in a bed or on a carpet in front of a fireplace still smoldering from the night before.
During College in Ohio, Sam and Stacie had never been two model students. It had immediately been bliss between them, since they met at one of the parties in the Campus. They saw things in the same way. Sam and Stacie loved to drink Italian wine and sometimes they exaggerated into a stupor. They loved to be on their own and especially if one of them had a problem the other one always knew how to solve it.
The college years, however, ended and left the two, Sam and Stacie, orphans of their dreams. Very soon the reality proved to be different from the small-time college days. Reality was waking up in the morning, as soon as possible to find a job and all those things which you don't really believe in, but a little accepted and a little suffered to avoid being crushed by everything around you at a pace often struggling to sustain.
Sam had left his family in Colorado to go to College in Ohio excited by what was happening to him. He was so excited that he wasted no time and during the years of study he found a way to make a living by cutting the grass and sometimes working part-time in a fast-food. He never had a chance to join the football team because of a physical problem which he didn't care about.
Unlike Sam, during College Stacie was able to live with fewer financial worries thanks to the study grants she could get and a small inheritance received after her grandmother's death.
The two lived together almost five years without ever worrying about what would happen to them one day. It was a true love like those in novels until when Sam decided it was time to cut off that relationship.
That evening Stacie was returning from work. She was working at a law firm not too far from home, but badly connected. She had always to walk a couple kilometers after getting off the subway. In autumn and with the rain it wasn't the best, especially if the rain helped in making a bumpy path.
"Hey Sam, are you here?" she wearily asked while taking off her raincoat,
"Hey Sam, do you think it's time for jokes?"
The lights were off, and Sam did not answer. So Stacie looked for the main switch and turned it on. At that moment the living room lit up and, while looking at the table, Stacie knew the reason of that darkness in a heartbeat. In one second Sam appeared from the kitchen door with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other.
"How can you not realize every time that it's a surprise? This way you're making this so much easier." Sam said smugly.
"I did not want to disappoint you, who know how much effort it would take to prepare all this.”Stacie replied with a hint of irony.
Regardless of the irony in Stacie's words, Sam went over to her and began to pour the wine. She drank it quickly as if it was the medicine that she was waiting for after a day of agony. For Sam, however, the reason of that greed was quite another, and in this misunderstanding background, an evening began which would have ended after a few hours under the covers of their bed.
The following morning Sam got up first. It was early, and after about ten minutes spent in deciding what to do, he put on his clothes, wrote a note which attacked at the mirror, quickly put on his coat and slipped out the door almost afraid that Stacie could wake up and see him go.
He had not a car, so he walked towards the metro which was a couple of kilometers away, but after only a few hundred meters he disappeared in the fog.
In the fireplace there were only smoldering ashes and it was really cold. A few moments after Sam shut the door, Stacie began to notice his absence. She rose from the bed and, using the cover to warm her up, she walked to the door quietly and still sleepy.
Near there, with still sleepy eyes, she saw the mirror in which Sam had placed the ticket shortly before.
Sam had no clear idea of exactly where to go, but that night he had decided that he would go away from home and from that city, and he would return only after arranging his life as Stacie asked for long time.
The fact that he had no clear idea was the only sure thing, as he was certain that he could not stay long without drinking at least one glass of wine.
He walked for hours aimlessly thinking back to all the time spent with Stacie and many years of passion; he thought about how everything had slowly gone dissolving. He could not stand the fact that once finished his studies, he had lost the energy and the desire to do that had enabled him to keep Stacie's pace so far.
It was getting late and Sam stopped at Wine Launge Brother on Cleveland Avenue where he used to share much of his time with Stacie. A place for wine lovers, studied in detail by the owner Sam's friend Harry. They had shared all the College with the only difference that Harry had quickly proved to know what he wanted to do and, shortly after the end of the studies, he devoted himself body and soul to his project.
“Harry today is a really weird fucking day. You really do know your wines. What do you recommend in this case?”
It's written on your face that it’s not a great day, but a good Italian red wine will make it much better.”
Harry knew Sam for a long time and knew his favorite flavors. He also knew that there was no fucking day in the world for Sam that a nice glass of Italian red wine couldn’t beat.
“Give me the