I am so excited! Papa’ is leaving for America this morning. My older sister, Cristina, and I race ahead to the fountain intersection where the bus will take him and two other men to Naples to board their ship. At the fountain we look back at them walking abreast, each carrying a small suitcase. I cannot stand still and keep hopping from foot to foot waiting for them.
The bus comes, they board, we wave enthusiastically, as the bus departs. Cristina is sniffling, upset that Dad has left and she doesn’t want to run home with me. I shrug and keep skipping. At home Mum is subdued attending to my younger sisters, Giovannina and 3-month-old Carmelina who is crying. I go out to play with my friends. At sundown, on the roadside, I scan the villagers coming back from the fields, looking for Dad.
Mum calls us home and I ask “Where is Dad?”
“He’s gone to America.”
“But it is night time and he comes home at night.”
“He will not be coming back. He has gone very far away in a ship.” Mum explains. What’s a ship? I don’t understand and crestfallen I go to bed.
In the morning, I go out and look for the furtherest place I can see – a town on top of a hill – it must be ‘America’. Dad must be there. I head to the plateau, and wave energetically shouting good morning to him. In the evening, I again go to wish papa’ goodnight. Cristina laughs at me, “He’s not there.”
I must have kept up the greetings most likely until I started school and learned what ‘America’ meant – anywhere overseas including Australia where he had actually gone. Even now when I am back in Molinara and the hilltop town, San Giorgio, comes into view I still secretly wish papa’ a good day.
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