Chapter one

"Mama Mia, what a beautiful girl. She placed the baby on Paula's breasts, and the little one immediately began to search for the nipple. Have you thought of a name yet?" The midwife looked at the baby, who had just been cut off from her mother's umbilical cord, the mother, who was sweating and exhausted from the difficult birth.

"She does not have to give her a name; at the institution, they will take care of that." Paula looked at the two women standing by her bed and whispered, "I want you to name her Alba." It was just dawn, and it was pouring rain outside that hit the room's window. Lightning pierced the sky, followed by a tremendous thunder that shook the building; so terrifying was the noise that the baby burst into tears, frightened from everything around her.

Many years had passed when I first heard the story from Paula herself when she tried to explain to me the reasons that led her to hand me over to a stranger. I was already forty-six years old, and I had been in a relationship with Rosanna for about thirty years. But I would like to tell you how things turned out.

I remember exactly everything that happened to me from the age of five, but everything that happened before has been erased, except for a few particular cases that come to my mind as a vague dream. Whatever it is, I am a very disorderly person, as everyone will testify, and therefore, there may be some confusion in my story, but this is me, but you will find some order in a mess. Just so you know, in my relationship with Rosanna, I am the woman. That's why I speak about her in the masculine form, so try not to get confused.

Paula is my biological mother; you already understood that, a member of a Catholic family of ten brothers and sisters from the small village of Scorzarollo on the banks of the Po River in the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy.

At the age of thirteen, my mother became pregnant without knowing by whom, apart from the teacher, she fucked all the male children in the class. She finally ran away from home with a young man from the town where they lived to the big city of Bologna.

Life has not been easy for the young couple. At first, they lived in public parks. Then, they started stealing; they settled in the train station and robbed the passengers' wallets, sometimes a camera or a wristwatch. Then they started breaking into shops and even houses. When Paula's stomach swelled to dimensions that made it difficult for her to 'work,' she abandoned her boyfriend and returned to her parents' house. Her father threw her out of his house on a stormy night. Their neighbors picked her up and called the social workers from the nearby town who brought her to a shelter where the birth started.

I was born prematurely but healthy in natural birth. Paula, this is my mother, fed me for one whole night. The following day the two social workers came and separated me from her for forty-six years.

I grew up in a good family in the city of Bologna. My adoptive parents took me from the shelter the day after I was born. My father, Antonio, whom everyone called Tonio, was the manager of a local bank branch. He was a plump little man, bald from a young age; in fact, I always remember him with a shiny watermelon-shaped head, always smiling and his cheeks red from excessive drinking or high blood pressure. Even the doctors could not explain what killed him at forty, the drinking, or his high blood pressure. My mother Alicia was thin and shapely, a handsome woman by all means, and on the street, charming men turned their heads gazing at her, but she refrained from looking back at them, especially when Dad was around.

They did not name me Alba as my biological mother wanted, they called me Graziella after a grandmother I never knew, and I was not too fond of the name, so at the age of fifteen, when I got my first I.D. I changed it to Giusy. But I liked my last name Fiordibosco, which means forest flower, which sounds very romantic and has become significant in my life.

At that time, we lived in a condominium in the old town very close to Due Torri. The apartment was huge, and I had my own room.

At the age of five or a little more, I fell in love for the first time. It was a cute kid who lived not far away, and we got to know each other in the nuns' kindergarten where I went for the last two years before elementary school. Even though he was a snob, I really liked him, and he only talked to me when no other friends were around. No one knew I was an adopted child, nor did I share my secret with anyone. I do not remember precisely when I found out, but it came naturally when Dad spewed it out while having a conversation at a family dinner. I remember he talked about animals adopting the offspring of other animals that were preyed upon or abandoned "like the woman who gave birth to you and could not raise you, so we took you, and now you are ours." The truth is that it sounded strange to me at first, but I thought to myself I was fortunate because who knows? Maybe my biological mother was needy, and I would suffer a lot; I would not have nice clothes and my own room.

So let's go back to Maurizio, the boy I fell in love with, but we were not real friends. Once, when we were playing in the sandbox alone, he suddenly came up to me and kissed me on the mouth and then spat, "I just wanted to feel what it was like; I had no intention to become your boyfriend," he said. So yes, as you understand, love was one-sided and disappointing.

By the age of six, I already knew how to write, and my parents considered sending me to school, but the teaching nun objected and said I was not mature enough yet. What did she understand? She herself was not really grown up. Once she was asked why she has a wedding ring?, she answered that she is married to God. Does that sound like an evolved person to you?

Once, I noticed a woman standing outside the kindergarten for hours and watching us playing; I was sure it was my biological mother who wanted to kidnap me. I was scared and told my parents. After that, I never saw her again. Ever since my parents told me I was adopted, I have had these fears, but I kept them to myself.

Once when we were in the yard of the house where I lived, Maurizio wanted to compete with me, who could urinate farther; only then did I see that we had different organs for the first time. He was very curious about the way I urinated and laughed when I bent to do it. I admired him for being the smartest in the class, and I was happy every minute I could be alone with him; that way, he was just mine. But the love ended when we entered first grade in two different schools.