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Chapter 5

The early years, the “adoption” of Luigi and Guido

Emilio and Mary McFadden-Banafasi’s parents weren’t happy with no grandchildren and certainly let them know their feelings. Martina, Emilio’s mother, was the most vocal.

“You know that your wife’s biological clock is tick, tick, ticking away, and soon you must have children to keep our family name going. It is your responsibility, as a true Italian, to have many children!”

Emilio, nearly in tears, said, “I know, Mama, it’s not me. I should have tried the merchandise before I married her to make sure she is capable of keeping the proud name of Banafasi going. I will continue to do my best. Maybe I should drink more to make sure the fluids are flowing the next time I come home late from the Ima Jally Aler.”

Mary overheard this conversation and felt guilty and prayed that there would be a sign. That night, they talked together in the sanctity of the bedroom.

“Mary,” started Emilio, “I know that we have tried for weeks now to get you pregnant. What is your problem?”

Mary, with her Irish hair now raising on her neck, answered, “Emilio, why is it that every Italian male blames the woman for all their problems?”

“I really don’t feel that it’s my biological workings.”

“Why don’t we get one of those fertility tests we read about in one of your porn magazines?”

Now it was Emilio’s turn for hair on the neck raising. “First of all, why are you reading my literature, and second, the tests are mail order, and I don’t want to spend the money on some dumb test that will tell us what I already know! Let’s stop talking about this for another week and then we will visit the medic, Giacomo, in town and see what he says, even though I know he will say it’s your problem!”

Mary, stuttering, said, “I don’t like your attitude and accusing me, a fine Irish woman from a family who understands the need to grow the Christian religion by producing a wagonload of children, of not being fertile! Time will tell, and I plan to go beyond your loyal Giacomo for an answer.”

“I will shut up and not bring it up till next week.”

“You are also sleeping on the floor till then.”

It was six days later that Luigi and Guido entered their lives. The twins were found at a Mormon mini-temple in the outskirts of Pissaccotta, Italy, by two Mormon missionaries.

The mini-temple was only occupied during times when a stake president in the US sent their least-liked missionaries. This was a well-known practice among the local stake and area presidents and was always humorous conversation at the annual area meetings over nonalcoholic drinks. Although since the church had not enforced use of caffeine, they were now drinking heavily caffeinated sodas.

It was now occupied for over five months since a Mormon ward in North Carolina decided that two of their least favorites would go there for their mission trip.

The two Mormons were on their two-year mission being sent to this dirt-floored mini-temple in hopes that they would see the light of Morona and become better Mormons.

Rupert and Gilly were the unlucky missionaries. Their daily routine was to bike-ride into town looking for any eye contact that could signal someone to talk to and record their names for their weekly written reports.

After a long three hours of noncommitment, they went to the community facilities on the outskirts of Pissaccotta and got ready to head back to their tent inside the mini-temple. As they rode up the road to their “home,” they saw a woman dressed in all-black burlap quickly leaving their area. They tried to catch her since they thought she was looking to convert to become a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. When they yelled out to her, she simply gave them the international sign for personal dissatisfaction. They didn’t take this as an answer and decided to ride faster to catch her and give her the Book of Mormon. As they were starting to stand up to race toward her, they heard the sound of a baby crying in stereo.

When the two missionaries got back to the small tent that they had set up inside the mini-temple, they heard, then saw two babies, very close together. In the middle of them, an attached note said, “Sorry, had to give them up. Please name them Luigi and Guido.”

They each tried to lift one to check them over and found that they were conjoined at the toes. No way to tell them apart since they were identical with deep black hair and bright dark olive-brown eyes.

It was a serious dilemma for two teenagers. They were discussing what to do or was it a sign, and if it was, what did it mean. Mary and Emilio were walking on a path around the town having a lively, animated discussion about no children and on their way to visit Giacomo, the town medic.

They were on a seldom-used shortcut nearing the small valley where no one goes since it was close to the Mormon mini-temple. They were walking past the Mormon mini-temple and heard a baby crying and two young voices arguing.

Voice 1 said, “Rupert, I don’t care what you say, we just can’t leave the babies here when we go out to find people to preach to. It’s not fair, what would happen if someone came by and took them?”

Rupert sniped back, “Look, Gilly, they will be okay. No one comes in here anyway. We will just give them some water before we leave, let them nap, and we will be back in three hours anyway. That would be enough time to tell the ward back in North Carolina that we did our job today.”

“Then we can figure out what to do with them while we have a few Italian beers.”

“I don’t know if it’s right to do that,” an angry Gilly answered. “Why don’t one of us ride into town, at least get some milk, give it to them in the bottle that lady left.”

“Okay,” Rupert snapped back. “Let’s look around town and see if anyone is looking for a baby with toes together.”

“If we can’t find anyone, we’ll bring them to the local midwife and see if she will take them.”

“We can’t bring them back to the US since we don’t have any passports or paperwork since the Italy ward president took our passports and little money to keep us from leaving early! Plus, the parishioners at the ward will think they are ours.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Gilly spat out. “We’re screwed. We have some obligation to take them somewhere. We just can’t leave them here. Maybe the spirit of Joseph Smith is testing our commitment to doing right. Shit, shit, shit.”

When Mary and Emilio were close to the mini-temple, Mary saw that the front door was open with two tired-looking young men in white shirts holding small bags, standing next to their designer bicycles, which later will be stolen by a roving gang of gypsy cycle thieves. The boys stopped talking and just looked at them.

Emilio asked what was going on. The boys recognized him as the well-known pig massager they saw as they peddled around town.

Gilly and Rupert, in rapid storytelling, said, “We were in town preaching and looking for lost souls in need of converting and contributing to our mission. When we were done, we rode back here to conclude our afternoon prayers since we are devout Mormons, and we saw this lady hurrying away. We went to chase her on our bikes since we thought she was looking for us to convert her when we heard the babies crying, and we didn’t know what to do and we thought that they were hurt, so we went into our mini-temple and saw them lying in our tent, so we went over and tried to pick them up and found that their toes were stuck together, and we didn’t know what to do, so we were discussing what to do when you walked up.”

Emilio saw this to be an easy decision. He said [in English], “Tell you whata I ama gonna do. We are gonna take thesa babies from youa so thata you can continua your selling youra Bibles and religion.”

Mary continued Emilio’s start, “You lads don’t tell nobody about this as it surely would not speak well of your mission here.”

“We will bring them to our small home and tell everyone that they are my sisters from the old country, who recently died at the hands of Irish hooligans and that we are taking a lifelong look-after as my sister would come to expect.”

The Mormon boys were now smiling at their good fortune.

Being well-schooled Mormons and realizing that life brought many opportunities, Gilly asked them for a donation to maintain their mini-temple.

Emilio, looking confused as he felt that they should be paying him to take the babies from them, said, “Ima gonna tella you this: we no gotta no money and ifa we did, it no go to you. Ima goina no mention this to nobody that you boysa trying to take advantage of usa poor locals.” He continued, “I will tella you this, when youa gotta farm getting animals, I coma and rubba your pork for youa at a reduced price.”

The boys put their heads together and thought about praying over their decision yet were afraid this couple would leave. Gilly looked at them. “Tell you what, we have received our sign from Joseph Smith and his council. We will let you take the two babies, and we will deny that they were every here. Deal?”

Mary, filled with excitement, said, “Yes, indeed, deal!”

“Here is the note that the woman left us to give them these nice Italian names.”

Once Mary and Emilio had possession of the twins, they knew that they had to find a way to separate them, discreetly as Pissaccotta is a small village. The only medical care they had without driving two hours and filling out many forms was the former army medic Giacomo.

Giacomo was a highly undecorated former army dental medic from Eastern Italy. He was blind in one eye and was missing a finger on each hand from misuse of his first aid instruments.

When Mary and Emilio brought the twins to Giacomo, he said, “Noa problemla, I can do without youa driving to the big city.”

“Let’s savea money and time.”

“I willa doa for 250 lira.”

It was okay with Mary and Emilio. They saw this as cheaper than nine months of pregnancy and cost of birthing. To “unconjoin” the twins, he simply took a scissor (a little hard to do with missing fingers and only one eye), snipped, and they were two separated twins!

Now all they had to do was convince their parents of the sister story, based on parents. Of course, it wasn’t the best way to do it. They did worry about foul ups in the future, but the parents never talked to each other and the chance of them ever getting together was remote, very remote.

When they were unconjoined, it did leave Luigi limping to the left and Guido limping to the right, making people laugh at them as they crawled, then walked down the street. Wobbling soon became the most often mimicked walk in the area but only behind their backs.

From the start of their family lives, Guido and Luigi were told that they were a gift from God, and Mary and Emilio were their heaven-sent parents.

This avoided any questions from them. The locals all believed the sister’s children story since there was no way to keep the twins isolated for already a few months.

Their parents also believed the story that it was the other parents daughter—they never interacted with each other, so chances of figuring it out were minimal.