«We need more people like my daughter in the community and in families. More boys and girls who don’t turn away when they see their parents arguing.” Alfonso Oliva, entrusted to the San Vittore farm in Andria, is convinced: if seven years ago his little girl had not immediately called the police, now she and her sister would no longer have a mother and he would have spent life in prison. And for this he will never stop thanking her.
After the wedding, Alfonso, now 47 years old, originally from Taranto, moved with his wife first to Bologna, then to the province of Ferrara. For work he travels the world, “neglecting – he says – his partner and two daughters”.
A few days after one of his brief returns to Italy, jealousy blinds him and he argues with his wife. A clash arises between the two, not only verbal but also physical: “I was no longer myself.” Her eldest daughter (at the time, in 2017, just under twelve years old) witnesses the scene and calls the police: «A few moments before I “turned it off”, providentially they arrived and stopped me». At that point the measure of preventive removal from the home for six months is immediately triggered and the man, alone, takes refuge in alcohol: “My only objective was to destroy myself by drinking, to return home, to sleep and not think.”
He hits rock bottom when he is arrested for a robbery along with another person. At that point he goes to prison in Ferrara to serve the last crime and the attempted femicide against his wife: over eleven years of imprisonment, which later dropped to nine. Thanks to his good conduct and work in the penitentiary institute, last November he was entrusted to Masseria San Vittore for the “Without bars” project of the diocese of Andria. On the slopes of Castel del Monte, prisoners with definitive sentences produce taralli.
He resumes (telephone) contact with his ex-wife and daughters: «Despite having almost killed her, he is allowing a bond to exist between me and all of them. “Who am I that can’t give my father another chance?”, one of my little girls told me», says Alfonso. “I’m better now, yes, but I know – she says – that inside me I will always think about what I did.”
With his voice breaking with emotion, he adds: «If God told me that I had ten more years of life I would ask him to take nine from me and give them to another person. I, on the other hand, would like to live just one with my family as if nothing had ever happened. But I know that won’t happen. And then I have to move forward, paying for the mistakes and trying to rebuild relationships. To others I say, make time for important relationships and be present. It is a time – concludes Alfonso – that never returns. And then, let’s forgive ourselves.”
