Driven to you - OP81

Bridges across borders

Oscar was still relatively new to the complexities of Italian culture. Cocco had invited him to come visit her family during a school break, and it was his first real taste of life in Italy. When they arrived, everything felt foreign to him, from the food to the language, to how fast everything moved. Her family greeted him with warmth, but he could see how her father was a little reserved, his eyebrows furrowed as he sized up the "Australian boy."

Oscar was excited about the trip at first, but soon, the over-the-top nature of everything overwhelmed him. Every meal was an event. Her father made sure to bring him into long conversations about Italian politics, making Oscar feel as though he needed to be as passionate as the rest of them.

One evening, her mother insisted that they stay up late for some obscure Italian TV show. Oscar, who had always been used to a much simpler lifestyle, just couldn't handle it. By midnight, after an exhausting meal followed by loud, spirited conversations in Italian, he was about to explode from sheer exhaustion.

"This is insane," Oscar muttered to Cocco once they finally snuck away from the family. "How do you do this every day?"

She rolled her eyes, a smile dancing on her lips. "It's not insane. It's just... family. This is what it's like."

Oscar looked at her incredulously. "You seriously enjoy all of this? It's too much."

"I love it," she said, grinning.

Oscar sighed, realizing that no matter how different their worlds were, they couldn't deny the connection between them. Still, he found himself missing the quiet simplicity of his Australian life. He had to admit to himself—he wasn't sure he was ready for all the intensity of Italian family dynamics, but Cocco? She fit right in.

When they were finally back in the UK, Oscar couldn't help but voice his frustrations.

"I don't think I can do that again," he confessed. "It's just so... much. The family, the food, the noise. I can't keep up with it all."

Cocco's lips pressed together in thought. "You don't have to 'keep up' with it, Oscar. You just have to... be there. It's not about fitting in, it's about being present. You don't always have to say anything, you just have to be there with us."

Oscar, still processing, nodded slowly. "I'll try."

Afterward, it became a tradition for Cocco to return to Italy every holiday. Oscar would often join her, sometimes for a week, sometimes longer, to spend time with her family. Every time, he felt the same mix of fascination and alienation. Her family would call him "the Australian boy," but over time, they warmed to him, and he to them. Yet it never truly felt like home to him.

In contrast, Cocco would return to her second family—Oscar's in Australia—with a much different perspective. When she first visited, the contrast between her Italian family and Oscar's was stark. His family was quieter, more relaxed. There weren't as many late-night conversations, no loud discussions about politics, just long stretches of silence with the occasional hum of the radio in the background.

And when they celebrated Christmas under the blazing heat of a Melbourne summer, Cocco was initially bewildered. Everyone kept talking about "barbies" and "esky" this and "prawns" that, and she couldn't quite get over the fact that they didn't even have snow.

But over the years, she learned to appreciate the small differences—like how Oscar's family didn't need to make a big deal out of everything. How they were okay with just being together. It was a lesson she hadn't expected, but one she grew to love.

Now, years later, the differences that once sparked debates or quiet misunderstandings have become a kind of shared language. A balance, not in halves, but in harmony.

Oscar still teases Cocco for needing a hundred different kinds of olive oil in the kitchen—but he's the one who goes hunting for the good Parmigiano when it runs low. And Cocco, once scandalized by the idea of going outside in loungewear, now goes around the garden in flip flops, her sunglasses pushed up in her hair, completely unbothered.

Their mornings often start with Italian cartoons playing quietly while the twins, sprawled across the couch with their little feet tangled together, switch between accents as easily as breathing. Cocco points out grammar in both languages. Oscar translates the silly parts in real time, laughing harder than the kids.

Sometimes the house smells like garlic and rosemary. Sometimes it smells like Vegemite toast. Sometimes it's both.

They've built a rhythm that's theirs. Pancakes and pasta. Espresso and Milo. Lazy Sunday breakfasts that begin with English lullabies and end with Italian nursery rhymes.

Love, in their home, doesn't ask for one way or the other—it folds both into the everyday. And somewhere between the mismatched idioms, the back-and-forth teasing, and Oscar learning how to properly pronounce "gnocchi," they've built something that's not just multicultural.

It's deeply, unmistakably theirs.