The Guncle Abroad

Patrick O'Hara removed the cloche from his room service breakfast with a flourish it did not deserve, then grimaced at what lay beneath.

*You have to hand it to the Italians,* he thought, settling onto his terrazza overlooking Lake Como. *They hit lunch and dinner so hard there's never anything left for breakfast.* Unless you counted the driest pastry imaginable as a meal—and Patrick did not. This particular brick looked like it belonged on display in Pompeii. He sighed. Neither the pastry nor the acrid coffee accompanying it would alleviate the pounding in his head or the uneasiness in his stomach. He ached for a good, greasy American breakfast to help sop up the disaster that was the previous night.

"Why is your coffee so small?" Grant bellowed from inside his uncle's hotel room.

The boy was eleven now and had mostly outgrown his lisp, even if Patrick's trained ear still caught echoes of it—*tho thmall*—every now and again.

"Why is your voice so loud?"

Grant and his sister, Maisie, possessed a magic ability to amplify Patrick's every hangover symptom. Patrick took a sip of his *caffè normale* and winced. The boy's question was decent (as far as his inane questions went), but it had an easy answer: the espresso was so bitter he wouldn't survive a full cup. He was so hungover, even his hair seemed to hurt.

"What's wrong with you?" Grant asked.

"I prefer a French breakfast, if you know what I mean."

They didn't, so Patrick scrapped the rest of the joke—a roll in bed with some honey. It would likely go over their heads, and he didn't have the energy to explain double entendres.

Grant lifted the room phone from its cradle. "I'll see if they offer one." The kid had become far too adept at ordering room service over the course of their travels.

"See if they offer euthanasia."

Below, two passengers made their way down the hotel's docks and stepped onto the back of a wooden speedboat. Patrick squinted as diamonds of sunlight rippled off the lake. Slowly, his brother, Greg, came into focus, as well as Livia, his brother's soon-to-be wife. Or maybe *soon-to-be* wife. Too many things remained unresolved in the wake of a disastrous rehearsal dinner.

He watched as they settled onto the boat's rear vinyl seat. Livia fanned her patterned Marimekko dress as she crossed her legs just so; Greg extended his arm around her, whispering in her ear until she giggled. They seemed genuinely happy. Patrick had to hand it to her. The night before, he was certain Livia was a cooked goose, but she was an absolute bird of paradise in the fresh light of day.

Patrick narrowed his eyes further until he could see his brother pouring two flutes of prosecco from a bottle that sat in an ice bucket between them. Greg extended his arm, as if reaching for a glass. Patrick's best hope was a little hair of the dog that bit him. But as the boat's motor gurgled and churned, the only bubbles before him were in the water as the vessel pushed back from the dock.

"Look at them," Maisie scoffed without glancing up from the phone she'd been given when she turned fourteen.

"Oh, you are talking to me."

Maisie had been giving her uncle the silent treatment all morning, mortified by the absolute spectacles they had made of themselves at dinner. Of course, the kids had an excuse: it was difficult watching their father remarry. Patrick, as the adult, did not.

"How can you eat at a time like this?" Maisie's question dripped with teenage judgment.

Patrick took a bite of the pastry, and it disintegrated down the front of his hotel robe. "Not well, clearly." He let the dry crumbs roll off his tongue. Then, in his most confident tone, he said, "We can fix this."

"Why would we want to?" Maisie asked.

Patrick motioned toward Grant, who approached them with his game console. Her brother was the reason why.

Grant sidled up next to his uncle. "They didn't have what you asked for, but I got us a pitcher of grape juice."

"Wonderful. I'm sure the conversation it inspires will be just as intoxicating." Patrick stood to wipe himself clean over the edge of the terrace before taking a swig of Acqua Panna, turning what little of the pastry was left in his mouth into some sort of wallpaper glue.

"Don't you have any feelings?" Maisie had finally looked up from her phone.

Patrick laughed, recalling Goldie Hawn's answer to that question from *The First Wives Club*. "Yes, I have feelings. I'm an actor. I have all of them." His niece didn't think that was funny.

They were at the Grand Hotel Tremezzo, an iconic Art Nouveau masterpiece on the western shore of Lake Como, for four nights of a planned six. The wedding was to be that evening, followed by a day of rest, and then Patrick would take the kids home to the States while their father and Livia honeymooned in Greece. Or at least, that had been the plan. Patrick had a hard time grasping that any of this was real. The wedding. The setting. His whole family in Italy. Now it was all one big mess.

Maisie tucked her phone into the shallow front pocket of her cutoff shorts; it did not fit all the way inside.

"Did you finally reach the end of TikTok?" Patrick mocked, though in all honesty, he should thank the Chinese for keeping her calm.

Maisie leaned awkwardly in the doorway with one arm at her side, her left hand clasping the wrist on her right. She looked not out at the floating pool in the lake—which was an incredible sight for its unnecessary opulence (a swimming pool in a lake?)—but instead like she'd rather disappear from this place. "I just don't see it. Dad and Livia?"

Everyone needed a nemesis; Patrick had instructed Maisie well. And if Walt Disney himself had taught children anything, it's that stepmothers are wicked, even if Patrick no longer found Livia to be all that bad. But it was long past time for his niece to ease up.

"The connection between two people is not always something others are meant to see." Patrick thought of himself and his ex-boyfriend Emory, and how many on the outside could think them mismatched. "Like fireworks in the daytime."

Since ending their nearly five-year relationship, Patrick had never felt so alone. It used to be his default setting, but now solitude was an ill-fitting garment that once-trusted cleaners had shrunk.

Grant's game console made a sound like something swirling down a drain, and he groaned. "Why can't Dad marry Palmina?"

Speaking of nemeses, a cold chill ran down Patrick's spine. "Palmina's a lesbian, you know that."

Grant didn't seem to view that as disqualifying. "Yeah, but gay marriage is legal now."

"Yes, for gay people to marry other gay peop— Why would you want your dad to marry Palmina?"

Grant shrugged, but they all knew the answer: Palmina was the very definition of *sprezzatura*. In every way, she exuded an effortless cool. "Maybe you should marry her."

"Gay men can't marry lesbians," Patrick said, appalled.

"Oh no. Here come the Guncle Rules." Maisie stuck out her tongue in protest.

Guncle Rules were Patrick's little *bons mots* and instructions for living that he previously doled out like candy—*brunch is awesome, when a gay man hands you his phone look only at what he is showing you, bottomless mimosas are not the same as pantless mimosas*. Those sorts of things.

Grant pressed, undeterred. "Why not? She's gay, you're gay. You just said!"

"BECAUSE THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!" Patrick swallowed the rest of his coffee like a bitter pill and motioned for Grant to sit. "That's not a Guncle Rule, that's just common sense."

As their gay uncle, Patrick had once been the apple of their eye. Now he had been swept aside in favor of Livia's younger lesbian sister, Palmina, who just seventy-two hours earlier had crashed down on his world—an asteroid wiping him out like the dinosaur he was. Over was the era of the guncle; behold the dawn of the launt.

Grant circled three times like a dog and plopped down next to his uncle with such force it caused Patrick to rise an inch off the cushion. "I want you to understand something. Your mother would welcome this day. She wanted your dad to be happy. It's been five years, and that's a respectable amount of time. We should celebrate your father and Livia."

Maisie disagreed. "Mom never could have imagined this day."

Patrick glanced up at the sun's yolk; colors seemed more saturated in Italy. "Well, no. Not this day, exactly." Even he could not have foreseen his lawyer brother representing the American business interests of an Italian noble family, then falling for his client's daughter, a marchesa of all things, and Patrick's imagination was quite robust. But Sara, his best friend from college, had planned for a lot of contingencies that others had not, including his summer with the kids in Palm Springs immediately after her death, when Patrick had been thrust into the role of caregiver, cementing their special bond; he was loathe not to afford her due credit. "But I know she would have been happy about it. Remember, I knew her before any of you."

Maisie held firm. "I don't like the way I feel inside."

Patrick tried to make light of it. "Too much pasta and formaggio. That has nothing to do with your father."

Maisie's face soured. "It's not that."

Patrick had been warned by Maisie in stark terms not to inquire about her period again. But it was all still new, and some things couldn't be helped. "Do you need another . . . 'women's aspirin'?" He grimaced as he pulled the bottle from his robe pocket and tossed it for her to catch; it landed like a baby's rattle on the floor.

Maisie stomped her feet, and Patrick jumped, knocking over his tiny coffee cup. "I swear to god, if you say women's aspirin one more—!"

"Okay! I'm sorry. I just want you to know I'm an ally. I've read almost everything by Judy Blume."

"Who's Judy Blume?" Grant asked.

Patrick's head pounded anew as he reclined back onto his chaise. *Are you there, God? It's me, Patrick.* But he was also clearly relieved. If it wasn't Maisie's period, it was grief, something he was more adept at handling, as he'd helped the kids navigate so much of it when he had custody of them in Palm Springs.

"That pit you feel in your gut, that's just love persevering." He looked solemnly at the kids to make sure each understood. "Remember our summer together? In many ways, that was just the beginning."

"And this is, what? The end?" Maisie sneered.

That was the thing about grief; none of us wanted to travel with it, exactly, but the suggestion that we would or should be over it was somehow an even more unwelcome passenger.

"Of course not. Maybe the beginning of a new phase."

"When does it end?" Grant asked, nestling against Patrick's side.

Patrick tousled his hair and imagined that his nephew was still six. This is the kind of question that would have thrown him for a loop when the kids first walked into his life, but now he was able to answer honestly.

"It doesn't end. Not really." Patrick spoke from experience. His first love, Joe, died in a car crash fifteen years prior. In the wake of Patrick's recent breakup with Emory, Joe had been on his mind again. "But here's the good news. You get so much stronger."

He tackled Grant, and the boy burst out in fits of unguarded giggles. It made Patrick happy, as if it were proof that Grant survived the last five years with his childhood intact. "Now drop and give me ten."

Grant flexed his biceps, his arms two noodles like always. He then fell to the floor and completed seven push-ups, then three more from his knees. "TEN!"

"Come on. You can't be this unhappy. I mean, look where you are! George Clooney has a house just down the shore, and he could live anywhere." Patrick gestured at the crystalline waters and then across the lake toward Bellagio. "And yeah, I know—who's George Clooney." He'd walked himself into a trap. "He's like the reigning Spencer Tracy."

Patrick stood to his full height, tightening the hotel's robe over his sleep pants, and then held a finger aloft before Grant could inquire about Spencer Tracy. "Look. You remember the Bellagio hotel when I took you to Vegas? The one with a lake built in front?"

"It had dancing fountains." Grant's eyes grew wide with the memory. "That was a great lake!"

"That's this lake! Or it's supposed to be."

"This lake has dancing fountains, too?" Grant ran to the edge of the terrace, as if he might have to fight for the perfect spot to catch the next water show.

"No. Just that lake has fountains."

"You said that lake was this lake."

"A re-creation of it."

Grant peered down over the edge, having lost total interest. "Oh. Then that lake was better."

"No, this lake is better because it's the real deal. The other one is for tourists who wear matching tracksuits and need to breathe oxygen from a tank." Patrick scuttered into the shade.

"We're tourists," Maisie pointed out.

"We're not tourists." Patrick said it with the disdain the word deserved.

"What are we, then?" she challenged.

Patrick leaned in the doorway of his suite. "Well, wedding guests, for one. Beyond that, itinerants, birds of passage . . ." Patrick disappeared inside to look for a cold compress and instead stumbled upon the room service menu Grant left on his bed. "The French would call us *bon vivants*!" He wondered aloud if a Bloody Mary, light on the tomato juice, might do the trick.

"Why do you need a drink at ten o'clock in the morning?" Maisie asked, following him inside.

Patrick gave her a loving jab at the nape of her neck. "Because I suffer from a rare condition where my body doesn't produce its own alcohol."

There was a knock at the door. Grant's pitcher of grape juice.

"Un momento," he said as he fished for euros to tip. The door opened, and his sister, Clara, waltzed in.

"Patrick. It's not even noon. What a surprise to find you upright." Clara's look had softened since her divorce (with Patrick's help she'd found a hair color and style that worked), and Italy had done even more to suit her. His sister's demeanor, however, was sharp as ever, as she was wearing a surprising amount of makeup.

"What's with the war paint?"

"Oh! Livia brought in a makeup artist for the wedding party." Clara touched her face gently like a silent-era star. She was clearly ready for her close-up.

"Does that mean . . . ?" Patrick asked. Maisie braced herself for an answer.

"I talked to Greg, but your guess is as good as mine." Clara gently tucked Maisie's hair behind one of her ears. "But it never hurts to be ready. Perhaps they have a bronzer they could use on you, Patrick. You look tired."

Patrick glared at Clara. "That's because you and Harvey Wallbanger kept me up half the night."

Even under Clara's makeup, Patrick could see his sister's face redden; it was unlike her to have one-night stands.

"You heard us?" she asked, horrified.

"We share a wall. Not that it matters. Belgium heard you."

Grant tugged on his aunt's sleeve. "Aunt Clara, can we go to the buffet?"

Patrick saw an opening and nudged his family toward the door. "Yes. Take these ankle biters down to breakfast and secure us a table. The pastry they brought to my room leaves something to be desired."

"Only if we can find seats in the shade. I don't want my face to melt."

"Like in *Raiders of the Lost Ark*!" Grant pumped his fist. Face melting was right in his wheelhouse.

"All of you, out. I promise I'm right behind you." He closed the door on his family, revealing he was anything but.

Silence at last.

Alone, Patrick ran a washcloth under cold water and pressed it against his forehead, then stepped out onto the terrazza and inhaled deeply. He gripped the balustrade, his fingers curling tightly over the edge, and looked intently over the lake. He watched as a young couple ran across the narrow street toward the lounge chairs near the beachfront. Beach club employees were just starting to raise the umbrellas for shade from the intense July sun, their orange-and-cream-colored stripes and scalloped edges looking like delicious ice cream treats from above.

"Would you be happy about this?" he whispered to Sara, less certain now that she would be than he was before. Yes, he thought, of course she would. What was good for her family was always best for her. But he wished he could know for sure that she agreed Greg and Livia were a match. It was the sad truth about losing someone—your certainty about who they were faded with memory.

Patrick stepped back into his room and frowned at the side of the bed where the kids always sat with their shoes. Their European adventure was drawing to a close. Soon he would be returning to the States to start over, at the age of forty-nine, alone.

A knock on the door startled him. Grant's grape juice at last. Again he tightened his robe, and as he reached for the door he instinctively stepped aside to allow his server to enter. Except it wasn't a porter standing in front of him with a pitcher of juice, but rather someone else—someone who took his breath away.

"It's you."