Love & Gelato

Using the information the academy provides, Lina phones Francesca. The woman remembers Hadley Emerson. She tells Lina about Hadley’s disastrous relationship with Matteo Rossi, an art professor at the academy. Francesca has no idea where Professor Rossi lives now or whether he is even alive. But Francesca is interested in how Lina is 16 and Hadley abruptly left Italy 16 years ago. Lina is now sure this Rossi must be her father. Finding Matteo Rossi is surprisingly simple. An internet search leads to a website offering photographic tours of Rome with Matteo Rossi as the guide. The website’s photograph of Rossi stuns Lina—she looks just like him.

Lina is determined to go to Rome to meet Matteo Rossi. She secures the address of Rossi’s gallery and photography school from the website. Ren insists on going with her. The two take the train to Rome. They spend the 90-minute ride reading Hadley’s journal together. Lina is impressed by how much Ren cares about her mother.

With X so suddenly and so completely out of her life, Hadley turns to her friendship with Howard. He tries to find work in Italy to stay and finish his history studies. They both love Florence and spend their days exploring the city and sampling its food treats, most notably gelato. Hadley continues to work on her photography project but understands her time in Italy is running out. Howard, for his part, accepts a position as superintendent of the American Cemetery and Memorial just outside the city. As her appointment at the academy ends, Hadley accepts Howard’s kind offer to stay with him at the superintendent’s residence until she figures out her next move. Hadley finds the somber beauty of the cemetery “strangely comforting” (268). Hadley feels being with Howard is somehow the “right place” (268), but she cannot stop thinking about X.

Why, Lina wonders, did her mother never tell her any of this?

In the chaos and traffic of Rome, Lina and Ren head directly to the Rossi Gallery and Photography School. They wander about the halls of the school while they wait. Lina is stunned to see a framed portrait of her that her mother must have taken when she was five years old among the gallery’s exhibits. Why did she send it here? Just when Lina decides surprising Matteo Rossi is a bad idea (has she learned nothing from her mother’s own attempt to surprise him?) and that she should talk with Howard first, Matteo himself appears and invites Lina into his office.

Lina is suddenly alone with her biological father. Matteo tells Lina he knows who she is: “You’re your mother in a pair of skinny jeans and Converse sneakers” (283), he says. He dismisses Lina’s mother as a “stupid child with a crush on her instructor” (284). He rejects the idea that he is Lina’s father or even the mysterious X in the journal as “an elaborate fantasy,” claiming her mother was delusional and an “unbalanced liar” (284). Matteo suggests Hadley’s journal is little more than an elaborate fiction. He tells her Hadley misconstrued his efforts to encourage her meagre talent. When she told him that she loved him, he gently but firmly rejected her. When she threatened to go to the academy’s administration with the journal, Rossi felt compelled to resign. “Afterwards,” he tells Lina heartlessly, “she began sleeping with any man who looked her way. I’m guessing you’re a product of that” (286).

Lina runs from the office in tears, with Ren following her. Howard is not her father, and Rossi does not want to be. When she tells Ren what Rossi said, Ren dismisses it as a lie. Suddenly, the two lock eyes, and Lina stops thinking about her mother.

Ren and Lina kiss. The kiss is amazing, but Lina immediately thinks about Mimi even as Ren pulls back. She apologizes for the kiss and assures him that she has “never ever, ever” thought of him as anything but a “friend” (291). In that moment, she realizes both that she’s in love with Ren and also that she is giving him up.

The long wait for the train back to Florence is awkward, and Lina is still reeling from the painful encounter with Matteo. Lina tries to bring up the kiss with Ren, but Ren tells her not to worry about it.

On the train, Lina returns to her mother’s journal. Hadley is now staying at the cemetery caretaker’s residence with Howard. Howard tells Hadley that he knew about her affair with Rossi all along. Looking into his kind eyes, she opens up to him about her hurt and her anger. On Hadley’s 22nd birthday, Howard gifts her with a thin gold ring he had found in a secondhand shop in the city. Overwhelmed by his thoughtfulness, Hadley writes how she loves Howard’s kindness, his selflessness, and his compassion. While walking through Florence, they share a magical sunrise and a kiss. Hadley understands that Matteo was like a storm that uproots everything. She realizes she actually wants Howard. Even when Francesca tells her that Rossi has been trying to contact her and she hands Hadley his business card, Hadley does not care. “X could appear on a white stallion carrying a dozen roses and a perfectly crafted apology” (302), but she still wants Howard.

Then, Lina reads a page in the journal with a single Italian phrase written over and over: “sono incinta.” Lina shows it to Ren and asks what it means: “I’m pregnant” (303), he tells her.

In the journal, Hadley, now pregnant, wonders what to do. Is the pregnancy a sign she and Matteo were meant for each other? She calls Matteo—he is in Venice on assignment. She decides to go to him—the ever-loyal Howard drives her to the train station. She meets Matteo, and they go to a small apartment he is renting overlooking the canals. They have a romantic dinner, but Hadley cannot bring herself to tell him her news. She is aware she is still wearing Howard’s gift ring. When Matteo kisses her at her hotel room, Hadley misses Howard. She tells Matteo she is pregnant. He erupts in anger and denies the baby is his. He storms out of the room. Hadley makes her choice. She cannot stay in Italy because she fears Matteo might make a legal move on the baby, and she cannot expect Howard to resign his new appointment to leave Italy to help raise a child that is not his.

Lina closes the journal—she had no idea how much heartache her mother had been through and the sacrifices she had made. When the train arrives in Florence, Hadley knows she must tell Howard everything—tell him she is not his daughter and break his heart all over again. Ren drives her home on his scooter and departs.