Faith, Fate, and Friendship

The cafe was packed with people on a Saturday morning, and even before I took my first sip of coffee, the foam had already risen to the brim of my cup. I looked around and spotted an empty table by the window, which was occupied by a man in his early sixties with a neatly trimmed white beard and wearing what appeared to be an expensive suit. I headed towards him.

“Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” I asked politely while gesturing to the seat across from him. He looked up at me and smiled broadly in acknowledgement. I grabbed my coffee, sat down and started to take a sip when he said, “You know, that guy over there is staring at us!”

I looked over at a young man who was sitting at one of the tables in the corner – he had long black hair and appeared to be holding his cell phone in one hand while having a bite of something in the other. His stare was fixed on me and he did not seem to have noticed that the older gentleman had just spoken to him. The older gentleman took out his wallet from his pocket, reached inside for some money and threw it at the man in front of us; we both watched as the bill landed neatly on top of the other man’s cell phone. The young man seemed startled by this sudden action and looked up at us quizzically as he instinctively picked up his cell phone only to realize that there was now a five Euro note on it. He then put his cell phone down again and continued to stare at us with an obvious look of disgust on his face. The older gentleman now turned back to me with a cheeky smile but I wasn’t sure whether or not we were supposed to laugh at this situation.

“On a serious note, I think you are looking very well today, Marta! You don’t look like you’ve aged at all! How old are you now? Fifty six? Fifty seven?”

“Fifty eight” I replied, smiling back.

He smiled again warmly “Well, you still look like you could be my daughter! And you haven’t changed a bit either… What about those kids of yours? Are they still living in Italy? Are they married? Do they have kids yet?”

I began telling him about my two boys who were now living in England and working hard so that they could bring their families over from Italy as soon as possible. My husband had passed away last year after years of battling cancer so it had been difficult for me to raise my two boys alone while trying to keep myself busy enough not to fall into despair. ‘There are times when I miss him so badly but then I get angry all over again because it shouldn’t have happened this way! It was such an awful disease… I wish somebody would invent a cure for cancer!’

The older gentleman listened intently as he stared at me through his brown eyes which were starting to cloud over with age. Then he said quietly: “Maybe God will give us a cure for cancer soon…. But it won’t be soon enough for me anymore…. There is something important that I need tell you about Carlo…. He died four years ago…. We buried him next to my wife…….. In fact… if you look behind you… you will see his picture hanging on the wall behind where we are sitting….. That’s our family photo taken right here in this cafe…….. So…. If he died four years ago …why is he staring at us now???!!... Doesn't he realize how creepy that looks!!??!?!!?"