Love & Gelato

Ren is a handsome Italian American attending the American International School of Florence. When Lina first meets him at the soccer field, she’s attracted to Ren’s athletic build and his casual toss of his wavy hair, his deep-set almond eyes, and his dazzling smile. However, what Lina comes to love about Ren is not his good looks, but rather his empathy, kindness, determination, and sense of fun. In replaying her own mother’s choice between the man for whom she feels strong physical attraction (Thomas Heath) and the loving man she needs (Ren), Lina ultimately makes the right choice: depth over surface.

In sharing in Lina’s grief over her mother’s death and later in sharing the intimate revelations of her mother’s journal, Ren reveals an unsuspected depth of caring and support that has nothing to do with physical attraction—demonstrating The Difference Between Love and Passion. Ren loves Lina enough to break off the on-again-off-again relationship with the selfish and materialistic Mimi. Ren senses the genuineness of Lina’s character from the moment they meet. When he momentarily cups her hand when he gives her his phone number, Lina feels a “teeny butterfly” that tells her Ren is something special (79). His willingness to drop everything and take her on the trip to Rome to meet her biological father reveals that he understands what tracing her roots means to Lina. He respects her love for her mother and the depth of her grief and loss, intuiting how lonely Lina feels and how terrifying her world has suddenly become. Welch positions Ren as the right fit for Lina in the same way that Howard was the right fit for her mother. In choosing Ren, Lina finds love for herself and a kind of redemption for her mother.

Howard Mercer used to be a history professor and is now a cemetery caretaker. Seventeen years after meeting the only woman he ever loved, Howard, a student of history, understands what it means at last to meet Lina, the daughter he never knew Hadley had.

For most of her summer in Florence, Lina pities Howard. She’s initially disappointed in him as her father. He seems strange, living alone for decades far from his rural South Carolina roots, tending the ghosts at a national war cemetery, and listening to his oldies music collection. An expatriate American in a country whose language he has never learned, with his mild demeanor and his corny humor, he seems somehow out of place and sad—and now, Lina fears, she must tell him he is not her father, which she is sure will crush whatever spirit is left in him.

As Lina reads Hadley’s account of her decision to abandon Howard, she sees a parallel to her own attraction to Thomas. Howard offers virtues that are not necessarily flashy: unconditional support, empathy, and unwavering loyalty. His unrequited love for Hadley alters his life. He understands the devastation Hadley feels in Matteo’s rejection. Knowing that Lina is not his biological daughter, he offers his home, his support, and his love to Lina, content to make good on his love for Hadley by taking care of her daughter. During a summer of tectonic revelations, nothing upends Lina’s perception of love more than Howard’s revelation that he knew all along that Lina could not be his biological daughter and yet extended to her the warmest of welcomes and showed her kindness. Howard offers first Hadley and then Lina a love that is sturdier than the incendiary impulses of passion.