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“Let’s go to Italy,” Will said, as if it were the most ordinary suggestion in the world. As if he were talking about a weekend out of town, not about a place Nico carried inside himself like an unhealed wound.
The marriage was new. Nico still hadn’t gotten used to the wedding band on his finger, to the word husband, to the fact that someone chose him every day, consciously. As a child, he had never even dared to think about marriage. Even less about marrying a man.
Not when, for the first eight years of his life, he had grown up in conservative, religious Italy, where certain things were not spoken aloud, and others were not even allowed into one’s thoughts.
And yet everything had happened suddenly. Unplanned. Will had appeared in his life just as unexpectedly as he had later taken over his heart. The turbulent high school years, the first year of college, and finally the moment when Nico no longer had to live on campus. In May, just after the end of the second semester, they moved in together.
A year and a half later, it was Nico who proposed, and Will, laughing, said that he had wanted to do it first. The wedding was small, intimate. Family, closest friends. No fireworks, but with the feeling that this was exactly right.
They postponed the honeymoon until summer. And now the topic had surfaced and Will, calmly and naturally, threw out Italy. As if it weren’t a trip to another continent. As if it weren’t a return to a place Nico missed so deeply, and to which he hadn’t been able to return for so many years.
For Nico, it wasn’t an ordinary trip. It was a return to a country he loved. That he had abandoned. That could no longer be the same without Bianca and without his mother.
Thoughts swirled in his head: was he even allowed to go back? Did he have the right?
Will sat across from him at the kitchen table, in their small kitchen. He was smiling warmly, tenderly just like always.
“We could go to Venice. You could show me your country, your city,” he added, interrupting Nico’s inner monologue.
“Your country.”
The words rang in his ears.
“Yeah… you know, I guess we can,” Nico replied, trying to sound normal. Coherent. Like someone who didn’t feel like collapsing into the ground and never coming back to the surface.
He wasn’t sure if he could still call Italy his country. He had spent fourteen years in America. Most of his life. Now he wasn’t sure of anything anymore not even whether he had done the right thing by agreeing.
“I need a passport,” he finally said, looking not at Will, but at the wall behind him.
“But you have a passport. And I know it’s valid.”
“I need an Italian passport.”
He lowered his head. He looked at his hands, at the chipped black nail polish. He didn’t even know why he needed it. And yet he did. As if he had to prove something to someone that he hadn’t stopped being Italian, even if he had lived somewhere else for fourteen years.
Will didn’t ask questions.
“Of course. If that’s what you need,” he said simply, smiling at him.
And Nico was grateful to the world for Will. For someone who didn’t demand explanations. Who accepted him.
Getting a new Italian passport turned out to be harder than he had expected. First came registration in the system for Italians abroad that was the easiest part. Then the documents: the Italian birth certificate, faded stamps, the old passport, his mother’s documents.
When he went through the boxes with her things, a wave of emotion nearly overwhelmed him. Photos. Journals. Jewelry. Recipes written in her handwriting. And at the very end documents. Her documents. His old passport.
Then photos. The consulate.
Plastic chairs. Silence. Numbers changing on the screen. The Italian consulate in Manhattan looked like any other government office, and yet for Nico it was a minefield. He clutched the folder of documents tightly, as if someone might take them away and never give them back.
What if they said he had been abroad for too long?
What if they refused?
When his number appeared on the screen, he approached the desk, trying not to show his nervousness.
“Do you have all the required documents?”
“Yes. Everything,” he replied, handing over the folder and his American passport.
“We also need fingerprints and a signature.”
His fingers were shaking. The signature came out crooked.
“The passport will be ready in a maximum of two weeks.”
He stepped out onto the street. The noise of Manhattan hit him immediately, but Nico barely noticed it. He pulled out his phone.
“So? How did it go?” Will asked.
“In a maximum of two weeks.”
“Then it’s time to look for flights.”
Nico didn’t know whether he should be happy.
The flight was long. Nico sat by the window. He slept briefly, restlessly. The closer they got to Italy, the harder it was for him to breathe.
Venice airport was full of people, even though it was already evening. The lights reflected off the pale floors, and the Italian language hit Nico almost physically—too loud, too close, too familiar. He hadn’t heard it with such intensity in years. For a moment he felt as if he had gone back in time, as if he were eight years old again and didn’t fully understand what was happening to him.
The smell of coffee, short, clipped conversations, hand gestures everything was different from New York, and at the same time painfully familiar. Nico’s heart began to beat faster. This airport was the last place he had seen before leaving for America. Back then, everything had been taken from him: the language, daily life, his sense of safety. He had been taken to a country he didn’t know, to a man who said he was his father.
“Let’s meet at baggage claim,” Nico said without looking at Will. He needed a moment alone. One small space where he could fall apart in silence.
“And passport control?” Will asked, frowning slightly.
Nico pulled out the new Italian passport. The cover was still stiff, almost untouched. He showed it to Will, as if he needed to make sure this was really happening.
“Right. At baggage claim,” Will replied with a warm smile before heading toward the long line for non-EU citizens.
Nico moved toward the gates for Europeans. Every step felt heavier than the last. His hands were damp, his fingers trembling. His thoughts refused to settle: what if something is wrong? what if they say it’s too late?
When he stood at the counter, he felt his throat tighten.
“Buonasera,” (good evning) he said, handing over the passport.
Italian sounded strange in his mouth, like an old record that hadn’t been played in a long time. The words were familiar and foreign at the same time. The woman behind the desk looked at the document, then at him. Nico held his breath.
She didn’t say anything. No questions. No surprise.
“Grazie e buon soggiorno.”(thank you an have a good stay)
She handed the passport back to him.
And that was it.
Nico walked a few steps away and only then allowed himself to breathe. Nothing had been taken from him. No one had questioned his presence. He was here legally. Normally. Like anyone else.
Only after a longer moment did Will find him at baggage claim.
“Jesus, they asked me so many questions,” he groaned when they finally left the arrivals hall. “Do I look like someone who wants to overthrow the Italian government?”
“No,” Nico replied quietly, then added with a barely noticeable smile, “You look like someone who wanted to sleep with an Italian in high school.”
Will burst out laughing.
“Well, I did. And now that Italian is my husband.”
Nico felt something in his chest loosen, just a little.
The way to the apartment was short, but for Nico it felt endless. The tram, ticket machines, people’s voices. The Italian language surrounded him from every side. Every word stirred memories dinners with his mother, Bianca’s voice, the smell of home.
Will was excited about everything. He asked questions, pointed things out, smiled broadly. Nico tried to answer, but the words got stuck in his throat.
The apartment was small, cramped, very Italian. Cool tiles under his feet. A narrow hallway. Wooden doors.
And then the emotions caught up with him.
He stopped in place. He felt something break. Tears ran down his cheeks before he could stop them.
Will turned around immediately.
“Hey… Nico?”
He wrapped his arms around him without asking. Nico cried for a long time. Without words. When he finally calmed down, he wiped his cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Will interrupted him. “I just want to know if you’re okay.”
“Yes. It’s just… this country. This city.”
His voice faltered. “I missed it so much… and now I don’t know if I can call myself Italian.”
Will took his face in his hands.
“Nothing will ever make you stop being one.”
Nico wanted to believe that.
“I need to go to the cemetery alone tomorrow,” he said. Will only nodded, not asking any unnecessary questions.
The next morning he went to the cemetery alone. The tram ride to the island was quiet. The cemetery was quiet in a way that didn’t exist in New York. It wasn’t complete silence rather the kind where every sound seemed clearer, as if the world were speaking in a whisper so as not to frighten anyone away. Nico’s footsteps echoed dully against the stone ground. Each one seemed to lead him deeper not only into the island, but into himself.
He hadn’t brought flowers. He couldn’t. It felt too official, too orderly for the chaos he carried inside. Besides, he couldn’t remember what flowers his mother liked. Or maybe he remembered far too well, and that was exactly why he was afraid to name them.
The crypts rose one above another tall, cold, almost indifferent. There was no space for candles, for the kinds of tokens of remembrance he was used to in America. This place did not invite lingering. And yet Nico knew this was exactly where he had to stop.
When he finally stood before the right spot, his heart tightened painfully. Two photographs. Two smiles, frozen in time. His mother and Bianca. They looked exactly as they did in his memories too alive for people who were gone.
For a long moment he just stood there. Breathing shallowly. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. As a child, he had knelt here with his nonna, folded his hands, repeated prayers whose meaning he didn’t fully understand. Now the words of prayers felt empty. Nico was no longer religious. Or maybe he was simply afraid that if he started to pray, he would hear only silence in return.
“Non credo che saresti fiera di me, mamma”(I don’t think you’d be proud of me, Mom,” he finally said quietly.) His voice trembled, as if it were betraying him at the worst possible moment.
The words hung in the air. Nico felt the familiar stab in his chest the guilt he had carried for years. For leaving. For learning how to live somewhere else. For not coming back.
“Non sono stato qui per così tanto tempo… „(I haven’t been here for so long…) he continued, swallowing. “Per così tanti anni. A volte mi sembra di averlo abbandonato”(For so many years. Sometimes it feels like I’m the one who abandoned you.)
He knew it was irrational. He had been eight years old. He hadn’t had a choice. And yet the guilt had grown along with him, taken root, become part of his identity.
He looked at Bianca’s photograph and suddenly it struck him that he was older than her. That he had lived longer than she ever got the chance to. That awareness was a weight he had never been able to fully carry.
“A volte ho paura che se restassi qui ancora un po’, tutto mi travolgerebbe”(Sometimes I’m afraid that if I stayed here a little longer, everything would overwhelm me,) he whispered. “E se me me vado di nuovo mi setirò un traditore. „(And if I leave again, I’ll feel like a traitor.)
He clenched his hands into fists. This was the split that had followed him for most of his life. In Italy, he was the one who had left. In America the one who never fully belonged.
“È giusto chiamarmi italiano dopo tanti anni all’estero?”(Is it even right to call myself Italian after so many years abroad?)
The question was quiet, almost shy. Nico didn’t expect an answer. Maybe he just needed to finally say it out loud.
The wind moved gently between the crypts, stirring his hair. It was soft, unobtrusive. Nico closed his eyes. For a moment, he imagined his mother’s hand on his shoulder not overly tender, but firm, as she had always been.
His mother had been proud of being Italian. She had nurtured that in him and in Biancathe language, the customs, the small gestures. Nico suddenly understood that none of it had disappeared. He had carried it all with him, even if he hadn’t always known how to name it.
He stood there for a long time. In a silence that was no longer overwhelming.
Italy had been his first home. America had become the second.
Both places had shaped him. Both were real.
When he finally left, he felt lighter. Not because he had found answers but because he had finally allowed himself to ask the questions.
And that was enough.