A Handful of Happiness Read online

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Penguin Random House LLC

  Copyright © 2016 by Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.P.A.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Rodale Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  crownpublishing.com

  rodalebooks.com

  RODALE and the Plant colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This work was originally published in Italian as 25 Grammi Di Felicita by Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.P.A., an imprint of Mondadori Libri S.P.A., in 2016.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781635652642

  Ebook ISBN 9781635652659

  Cover design by Yeon Kim

  Cover photograph by Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

  v5.3.1

  prh

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Photo Insert

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  INTRODUCTION

  The pages ahead tell a story that’s true to its core: the story of Massimo Vacchetta and his hedgehogs. I met Massimo by chance—though who knows, maybe nothing happens purely by chance—and immediately wanted to write about him. About his hedgehog world and La Ninna Hedgehog Rescue Center. I wrote a two-page feature for a weekly magazine I contribute to called Confidenze tra amiche. The response was enthusiastic.

  Then came a request from publisher Sperling & Kupfer: “Can we make this into a book?” And here it is. Massimo told me everything over hours, days, weeks, and months on the telephone. As he talked, he looked after his hedgehogs—our phone conversations did not distract him from their care for a single minute. I, on the other hand, just listened attentively, so as not to miss anything. Even to the words he did not say. And especially his feelings, in all their light and shadow, so as to convey them to you, the reader. Trying not to use a filter of my own. I tried my best, but sometimes the heart, in secret, slips in, and you don’t even notice.

  Like him, I have loved animals since I was little. My husband and my son have, too. We have four dogs: Luna, Mare, Blu, and Mostrilla. And a ginger cat who comes to visit us every day. Charmed, we always welcome him with open arms. His name is Pimky. We also have fifteen goldfish in a pond we built ourselves. Some frogs have made homes there, and their croaking fills the air every summer.

  We’ve never seen hedgehogs in our garden, but we’re sure they come out and scamper around at night.

  But back to Massimo. If every person on this earth is unique, Massimo is a little bit more so. Between one story and the next, I found myself thinking he would never grow old. He has the soul of a poet and the eyes of a child. That’s why he sees beauty even where others do not. That’s the way he is, as you are about to read. Sentimental and a dreamer. With his mistakes and faults, which he doesn’t hide. With his regrets. With his sorrows. With his joys. With his insecurities and his convictions. And with his desires to do and to give, which are irrepressible. At least as long as there are hedgehogs forgotten by the world that need him. At least as long as he lives.

  Antonella Tomaselli

  1

  May 2013. Spring was in full swing, yet it was passing me by. Its sights and scents seemed faded and far away. I was lost.

  An urgent need for change was burning inside me. My desire to pursue a new dream hadn’t waned. Despite everything. Despite the wounds I’d borne and battles I’d lost.

  I brushed my hair off my forehead, as if to push away those intense thoughts, and opened my closet. Matching colors with meticulous care, I picked out a pair of pants, a light turtleneck, a blazer, shoes, socks. I added a nice watch. Dressed to the nines, I looked in the mirror. Everything was right, down to the last detail. I went into the living room. Greta was there, curled up on the sofa. She looked up from her tablet.

  “You look nice,” she said, pleased.

  As she looked at me, her bright expression faded. “But your eyes always have a little sadness. Even when you smile,” she added, almost whispering.

  I let out a little sigh in response.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I said and, grabbing the car keys, went out. I drove slowly through traffic, while sensations and reflections alternated and intermingled in my mind. I was dissatisfied with my work and with my life. I felt like I was groping my way through a dark, empty room, with nothing to orient me. I needed something I could get excited about. Something that would give me the desire to live that I was hungry for. Greta pushed me, thinking she was being helpful. But I didn’t want to go in the direction she suggested. It was hers, not mine.

  I decided to become a veterinarian as soon as I graduated high school. To everyone around me, even me, it seemed like a random choice. But it wasn’t. I only realized later that it had deep roots in my childhood. Maybe I was simply born with a desire to help animals. Who knows.

  All the same, after years of doing that job, there I was, feeling like something wasn’t right anymore. Something was missing. A great absence whose weight I could feel without knowing its name.

  Greta had insisted pragmatically: “Try doing something different. For example, you could start working with small animals. Dogs, cats. All pets. You’d earn a lot more, you know. And you need to think about retirement. An extra pension. Or life insurance.” It was like talking to my father: Do this, do that. But that’s not how I was or am. I’m the opposite of someone who plans out his life. It wasn’t my style. I couldn’t see myself closed inside a clinic going back and forth between vaccinations and microchips. I was used to different situations, more extreme ones.

  But.

  Following her advice, I’d started working at two small animal clinics. Just a couple of times a week. I was on my way to one that day—I had to take over for Andrea, the owner, for the weekend. When I got there, after saying hello, he launched into all the instructions. He explained everything there was to do as we exchanged banter about ourselves and work. Before we parted ways, he showed me a box. Inside was a little animal. It was tiny.

  “It’s a baby hedgehog,” he said.

  I looked at the little creature, curious.

  “A woman found it in her garden. It’s an orphan,” Andrea continued. “She brought it here because she didn’t know what to do with it.”

  The little thing still had its eyes closed. And pink, hairless skin. The spines were white and soft, a bit disheveled. They started just behind his tiny ears
and ran all the way down his back.

  “It was born two or three days ago. It weighs less than an ounce—only twenty-five grams,” Andrea said.

  “Twenty-five grams is nothing,” I remarked.

  “Yeah. You’ll have to feed it several times.”

  “Which milk is the best substitute for its mother’s?”

  “I was recommended goat’s milk. Cow’s milk doesn’t work because it has a very high level of lactose, a sugar that hedgehogs don’t tolerate well. You’ll have to feed it by syringe, one drop at a time.”

  “How unusual!”

  I took the hedgehog and set it on the palm of my hand, to observe it more closely. I paused to look at its front paws: Its slender toes made them look like little hands. I was struck by that similarity. But, pushing away the sentimentality that was starting to wash over me, I suggested to Andrea, smiling, “Let’s take some pictures of him and put them on Facebook.”

  We took a number of selfies with our smartphones. Me, him, and the baby hedgehog. Me and the hedgehog. Him and the hedgehog. We chose the best ones to post. We said good-bye. And I went back home, where Greta was waiting for me.

  The next morning, I got ready with my usual care. I put on a pair of jeans and a blue linen button-down. I went through my jackets and chose one that was casual yet impeccably cut. Light tan color. Paired it with loafers. I checked myself thoroughly in the mirror. My physical appearance was important to me. I was aware of having a certain appeal, and I cultivated it.

  As arranged, I went to Andrea’s clinic. I wanted to see to the hedgehog again. That odd little creature had gotten to me the day before. I opened the door and stood there, frozen. It was whimpering. A soft, small whimper. Like a chick. A baby bird. A constant, tiny wail broken up by brief pauses. It went straight to the heart. It stung. It hurt. A tear-shaped sound, faint yet shrill.

  The little hedgehog was crying for help.

  I approached the box filled with wood shavings where it was contained. I took the critter out and set it on the nearby table.

  The hedgehog was cold. It was the chill of life slipping away, moving aside for death. I felt infinite sorrow for that little animal. I was assailed by feelings that were familiar to me yet new, as if they’d been roused from a slumber that had kept them hidden or trapped for ages. I was accustomed to animals in pain. I had built a shield around myself that allowed me a certain detachment. That shield shattered at the sight of that creature.

  I looked at the urchin with new eyes. I saw how it was an orphan. I imagined its mother getting hit by a car while searching for food. Maybe flattened on the asphalt. Or left incapable of returning to her den in another horrible way. I imagined the baby, waiting in vain. And its fear. Probably, desperate, it had emerged from its nest to search for its mother. And in an instant, like a thunderbolt, I felt its solitude. Complete. Boundless. I recognized it. It was like mine, mine as a child.

  2

  My maternal grandparents had played a significant role in my childhood. They lived in the country. They were farmers. Two easygoing, supportive people. Arms to take refuge in.

  I often stayed with them, especially during school holidays, because my parents worked. Nonna Caterina was simple. Transparent as glass. She was goodness itself. A limited culture and a certain degree of illiteracy, mixed with the mentality of that era and those places, didn’t stifle her gentle ways and beauty. Sometimes she took me with her to the stable. I was little, and she’d put me in a basket. She sat next to me and knitted while telling me stories. I listened. And watched the cows and calves. And the swallows that had their nests there in droves.

  When I was a little older, I’d go with her to the fields, trying to help her out. After, we would head for the row of trees at the edge of the yard. We sat on the grass, in the shade. She’d pull out lunch or a snack from the basket she’d brought along. We ate, enveloped in the scent of hay. And all was calm. Sometimes we fell asleep to the soundtrack of crickets and cicadas, making the slow rhythms of the country, those days, that season, our own.

  My grandfather was an extraordinary character. He never raised his voice, yet he was resolute, even tough at times. A man of the country, of the utmost integrity and a sharp mind. He always kept his head firmly on his shoulders. And he put it to good use. He was calm on the inside and dynamic on the outside. Active. He had an asthma problem, and his breath was accompanied by a constant wheeze. After three steps, he’d have to stop for a moment, to catch his breath. It was an enormous issue that he tolerated well but didn’t want to be too affected by. My father, who was fixated on medicine, was always there to give him his inhaler, to take care of him. He’d say, “I’m extending his life.” And it was true: It was of great help to him. At my grandparents’ house, there was also Osvaldo, my mother’s youngest brother. Not just my uncle, he was a brother to me too. A big brother. At the end of summer, I would go back home with Mama and Papa. Our farewells were like a funeral. Nonna cried. So did I.

  Yet I encountered loneliness even with my grandparents. Absence. My father and mother often stopped by to see me in the evening. I waited for them. The moment darkness fell, I would plant myself at the kitchen window, standing virtually still. My eyes anxiously scanned the headlights of every approaching car. I waited in silence. I missed my mom. A lot.

  Back home in the fall, I returned to school. I attended a parochial school run by nuns. At the sound of the bell, all the children would be off, squealing and laughing as they headed for home. Only I stayed. Long, interminable afternoons. Until four-thirty or five when my mom came to get me. At school I waited at the window, too. The hours were endless. I was all alone. I often drew. Sister Francesca told me I was good. Each time she looked at my drawings, an “oh” of wonder was stamped on her face.

  If it was nice out, I was allowed to wait in the school courtyard. It was all right. There was a garden at the end. I rode around on my bicycle. Back and forth. And in circles. Forward, backward, and around. Sometimes I would stop, one foot resting on the ground, the other still on the pedal, to look at a butterfly. Or I’d drop the bike and chase a lizard. I watched ants and other insects I couldn’t name. Every day the same, with the fear that my mom wouldn’t come. Ever.

  Then she’d appear. I ran to meet her. She smiled. She took me in her arms. She put me on her bike seat and pushed it while walking. That’s how we would go home while we talked about our day. In June, classes ended. But my parents didn’t take me to my grandparents’ right away. I stayed at school until it was completely closed for the summer. I was the only child who stayed. I spent all day riding my BMX in the courtyard. Forward, backward, around, and past the horse chestnuts.

  I was always terrified of losing her, my mom. I’d absorbed this fear from my father: He was a hypochondriac, and his topics of conversation often revolved around sickness and death. Every day he came out with a new one. “I’m sure I have cancer. I won’t make it to thirty,” he’d declare. I was little. In time I understood his problem. But not then. I believed he was really going to die by age thirty. I was filled with sadness. I drew in his anxieties all the time. They inevitably became my own, and I projected them onto my mother. And then Dad and Mom didn’t get along. They threatened to separate. It was terrible for me. I was scared of losing them. Yes, I was going to lose them to divorce or to illness. One of the two. There was no avoiding it. And my child’s heart was frightened. My childhood was shadowed by this fear of abandonment. By absence. By loneliness.

  There, at Andrea’s clinic that Saturday morning, watching the little hedgehog cry, I instantly understood his fears, his desperation. Because I knew them myself.

  3

  That little animal no longer had anyone in the world. There was just me to help him. For the first time in my life, I found myself talking to a hedgehog. “I won’t abandon you, little one. I won’t leave you here in this box to die of cold and hunger. I’ll do everything in my power to save you.”

/>   I had to think fast. First, it was crucial to get him to recover some body heat, so I filled a hot water bottle with warm water and put it beside him. Then I rushed over to my laptop. I wanted more specific information. I didn’t know a thing about hedgehogs, except four or five basic notions. I started to search online. I found a forum about them. The contact was someone named Giulia. I called her, but there was no answer. Once, twice, three times. Nothing.

  Worry.

  Finally she answered. I showered her with a river of words, one after the other virtually without pause: “Giulia my name is Massimo I have a baby hedgehog that weighs twenty-five grams I found it yesterday we’re giving it goat’s milk but I have the impression that it’s not doing well”—tiny pause for half-breath—“now the little thing seems very cold I think it needs some kind of treatment but I don’t know what help me.”

  Her sweet voice and placid tone seemed to exist for the sole purpose of calming my nerves. She began to speak, softly yet precisely: “Well, your intuition is right, goat’s milk isn’t ideal. It’s hydrating but not nutritious enough, you know. Mama hedgehog milk is much more concentrated, with lots of protein and fat and almost no sugar. You should give him puppy formula. Not just any one. There are only two good kinds. Neither is the same as its mother’s milk, but they’re better than goat. Get one of those.”

  “Where can I find them?”

  “Lots of pet stores. Even some drugstores.”

  “Okay. And how do I administer it? With an insulin syringe? A miniature bottle?”

  “An insulin syringe is fine. You have to make sure the milk doesn’t go the wrong way. The hoglet could die from aspiration pneumonia. You have to give it to him very slowly. Then you have to massage his genital area to stimulate his bowels. That’s what his mother would do. You have to take care of him like she would. But since you’re not a hedgehog”—she paused for a second, for a little laugh—“take a little soft cloth or, better yet, a cotton round, the kind for taking makeup off. Put a little almond oil on it, wrap it around your finger, and massage him softly. It’s essential. In their first three weeks of life, approximately, hedgehogs are unable empty their intestines or bladders on their own, and if you don’t help them, they can get a dangerous blockage.”