Moving to Italy: Arrival-c

As we milled about greeting each other, I decided not to put Margaret Ann, with her white shoes, down into the mud and chicken droppings of the courtyard, so I shifted her weight to my other hip.  Paul, 5, and James, 3 ½, stood dazed beside me watching the chickens pecking at pebbles and listening to the babble of sounds around them.  Matthew pulled on George's hand and splattered both their pants with mud as he strained to run and greet the dog.  Visions of large dog bites and small children plunging from unsafe balconies flashed before me as I smiled politely at the loud-talking relatives.  I was tired from our journey.  I just wanted to get inside.

 Zio Silvio approached the front door with a long, slightly rusty key.  As I watched him insert it, I shook off my fears and moved forward, eager to release the burden of my wriggling daughter.  Chattering and hauling suitcases and bags of food, the cousins scraped the mud from their shoes on the bar beside the door, then bustled inside and disappeared into the dim light.  As my eyes adjusted to the gloom I saw a long, steep flight of stairs directly in front of us.  Everyone was moving upwards.  In my overactive imagination I saw only my small children hurtling downwards, banging their heads on each of the ancient, worn, stone steps.   Paul and James were already climbing.  I cautioned George to watch out for Matthew, while I supervised Margaret Ann’s crawl up to our new home.

I was not only tired, but my uneasy feeling had returned. The fact that George was familiar with the farm didn't lessen my fears of the dangers that might lurk behind every door. With my mother's sudden death just four years before, I knew how easily a life could end. We had toddler-proofed our home in California, so I could be reasonably sure that the children would not get hurt if I turned my back for a few minutes, but when we arrived at the farm, I saw all the hazards that lay in wait to snare my babies. That made me wonder what I couldn't see, or what I wouldn't know to look for. But I was determined--nothing if not determined. I wanted to start a new life in a new country as I had seen my parents do twice in the previous fifteen years. As I mounted those stairs, I summoned up my reserve of strength and willed myself to meet the challenge.