Part 2: Orphanage in Milan: My Experience

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In Italy, there's a legend that when a child loses a tooth, if they put it under their pillow before bed, a mouse (or the tooth fairy, depending on the region) will come during the night, take the tooth, and leave money in exchange. I vividly remember the day I lost my first tooth. The caregiver on duty suggested I place it under my pillow and told me the story of the mouse, also recommending that I write down if I had any special wishes. I felt excited and a bit scared at the idea of a mouse coming at night to take my tooth and leave me money. I wondered: why would it give me money for a tooth? And what did it do with the tooth anyway? I found no answers and decided to ignore those questions. Instead, I wrote a note asking if the mouse could leave me enough money to buy a new toy car at the market. I phrased it as a question: "Could you leave me 1000 lire for a new toy car?", or something like that.

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I checked under my pillow. The tooth was gone, but the note was still there. Opening it, I found the 1000 lire I had asked for. Next to the question I'd written, I saw a "YES," but it was written in a strange, almost shaky way. The mouse had replied! Overjoyed, I ran to the caregiver to show him the money and the note, asking why the "YES" was written in such a shaky, dotted script. Smiling, he answered, "That's how mice write." I was on cloud nine, and I could see the envy in the eyes of the other kids. That Saturday at the market, I'd have 2000 lire - double my usual amount.

Coloring toy cars with markers wasn't our only fun. At the C.B.M., we were also big collectors of soccer stickers. Each of us had the season's album, and we traded our duplicate stickers with friends. To be honest, I don't remember much about how the girls had fun - toy cars and soccer stickers were boy things. We almost always played separately, boys with boys and girls with girls.

From time to time, "the visitors" would arrive. They weren't our parents but strangers who brought toys and candy. We would try to take as much as we could, including their attention. Only later did I understand that these visitors were parents interested in fostering or adopting someone. That explained why, from time to time, one of us would suddenly disappear. Looking back, it almost felt like describing a kennel, where a couple would come to look at the dogs in their cages, pet a few, but in the end, only take one home. Not always, though. Not always.

Then my turn came. One day, a couple arrived with the usual candy and toys, but this time they were particularly interested in me and another girl. Her name was Giada. She was younger than me and, without a doubt, more charming. I was happy that a couple was giving me so much attention: they asked me questions, picked me up, and wanted to know what I liked. I felt like the center of the universe, but I had to share that moment with Giada. A few days later, Giada was gone. I didn't even see her pack her things. The visitors had chosen her.

Not long after, they told me that a family would be coming to take me. It was the same couple who had showered me with attention. Giada, however, had been taken in by another family. They said it would be a temporary placement, and when Franca and Silvano came to get me, they took me out to the countryside for the weekend. I only remember eating lots of sweets. At the end of the weekend, they brought me back to the C.B.M.; I cried. I cried a lot, but Franca comforted me, saying she would come back. I didn't believe her. I thought it was just something she said to make me stop crying. But I was wrong; fifteen days later, she came back, and this time it was to take me home for good. A new life was about to begin for me.

Franca and Silvano loaded my little fabric suitcase into the car trunk. It was a dark blue minivan, the kind you saw everywhere back then. Through the windows, I caught a final glimpse of that Fiat Duna parked outside the C.B.M. entrance, the one that took me to the market every Saturday morning. During the ride, Franca listed all the things we would do together: she described the house, her daughter Barbara who was waiting for me, and their dog Camillo. She also told me I would have to repeat the first grade because I had failed due to too many absences. I was about to turn seven and would have to repeat the year. My absences were partly due to my parents' neglect, but also because of several hospital stays after asthma attacks.

We arrived in front of an automatic gate that opened with a remote Silvano kept on a shelf in the minivan. We followed a path inside a complex of tall buildings surrounded by gardens. Finally, the car went down a steep slope into the underground garages. I was so excited to see my new home, but I never could have imagined what awaited me. After parking the car in the garage, we took a stairwell that led us into one of the tall buildings I had seen from the window. We took the elevator to the ninth floor, the top floor of the building. Barbara, Franca's daughter, opened the door, eager to meet me. She was a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl. Tall, with dark hair, big hazel eyes, poised, polite. She took my hand, introduced herself, asked me a few questions, and then gave me a tour of the house: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a small, tastefully decorated modern kitchen. The floors were carpeted everywhere except the kitchen. I started playing with Camillo, the dog, a brown cocker spaniel who, after a few minutes of excitement, went back to minding his own business. But it was when they showed me the balcony that I couldn't believe my eyes: San Siro! The San Siro stadium was just a few hundred meters away, and from up high, I could see it in all its glory. This also meant that I wasn't far from via Preneste, and I tried to figure out in which direction it was, using the stadium as a reference point. San Siro was right there. I felt at home.

During the 1987 summer transfer window, Inter brought back Aldo Serena. The striker returned after a two-year stint with the black and white of Juventus. That year, the Serie A championship was won by Maradona's Napoli.

End of part two

To be continued…

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Even though I still think that what I have to share might not interest anyone, I hold onto the hope of finding people who can relate to what I share, regardless of their life experiences. I hope you'll follow me in the upcoming parts of my story and give me the chance to win you over with real and authentic facts. Everything I write is true: I will omit some details and change names to protect the identities of individuals or avoid issues, but every single fact will be genuine. Lastly, I want to clarify that I do not use artificial intelligence to write my stories; I use technology for translations because, with my limited knowledge of English, I wouldn't be able to translate as well as I write in Italian.