by Kate Jacobs
“She’s at home and I’m here with her now,” said Mitch. “No thanks to you.”
“Five-minute break, everyone,” shouted Lucie. Then she lowered her voice. “Is she okay?”
“For now,” said Mitch. “But who knows what we’ll be dealing with tomorrow or even the next day?”
“Did you come home early from your vacation?”
“We would have had to,” said Mitch sharply. “If we hadn’t already gotten home on the weekend.”
“Mitch, I’m on set, and time is money—and not my money, either,” said Lucie. “Can you give me the condensed version?”
Apparently Rosie had decided she needed some groceries and she couldn’t wait until her middle son, Brian, came over after work to take her to the store. So she walked. And when Brian arrived at six o’clock, she was nowhere to be found. Not at the store, not on the street, not at the neighbors’.
“She just waltzed in the door about fifteen minutes ago,” said Mitch. “I just called Brian back from the police station, where he was going to file a missing persons report.”
“How long was she gone?”
“Long enough, Luce, for Brian to sit here until nine p.m. and no sign of Mom,” barked Mitch. “It was getting dark and she was still out there.”
Lucie could hear the sound of a receiver being lifted, and puffs of breath hitting the handset.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Oh, such fuss we’re having here,” said Rosie. “I go on a walk in my own town and the boys are calling the police on me. They won’t fix my car, and now they’re sending me to jail for wanting to have a loaf of bread. Soon you’ll all be starving me to death. Stealing my food!”
“No one is stealing your food, Mom,” said Lucie. “You could have maybe left a note.”
“For who? For myself? ‘Good-bye, Rosie, see you when you get home. Love, Rosie.’” She made a tsking sound with her tongue. “I was in charge of myself long before the four of you came along, and I’ll be in charge for a long time still.”
“It’s just that we were worried, Ma,” said Mitch.
“My own children treat me like a prisoner of war,” said Rosie. “You know who’s good to me? That Darwin. She and her husband brought their babies to meet me.”
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” said Mitch to Lucie. “Ma, Lucie’s friend didn’t come out here. Now can you please hang up the phone while I talk to Lucie?”
“It’s not right that you call Lucie in Italy to tattle on me,” said Rosie. “I’ve done nothing wrong but live my life the same as I’ve always done. So sue me, I wanted a steak sandwich.”
“The ice cream was completely melted,” said Mitch. “You must have bought it five hours ago. Where have you been since then?”
“I told you,” said Rosie, striking the same tone she used long ago when Brian and Mitch would wrestle too close to her Hummel figurine collection in the living room. “I was walking around.”
“Ma, just a few minutes with Lucie, please?”
“Fine,” said Rosie, drawing out the word until it seemed at least three syllables long. “And Darwin and Dan were here on Friday, before you came home. It’s not my imagination. You phone them and ask if you don’t believe me. A boy who doesn’t believe his mother . . .”
Lucie could hear Rosie making a great deal of noise. She knew that old trick: her mother was pretending to hang up so she could listen in. Oh, she may have been losing her memory, but she was still a sly one, that Rosie.
“This situation is getting out of hand,” said Mitch, assuming he was alone on the line with Lucie. “I think you need to come home.”
“Mitch, you want me to make it go away and I can’t,” said Lucie, trying to keep her voice low so she didn’t attract attention from the crew or Isabella. “Mom is getting older. She had some bad days.”
“Or maybe everybody just got a little too nosy for their own good,” said Rosie quickly, before realizing she’d just given away her eavesdropping status to her son.
“Ma, please,” shouted Mitch, as Rosie harrumphed and slammed down the phone. “I’m going to have a goddamn heart attack, here, Lucie.” His voice cracked. “This is really taking a toll. You don’t see what I’m talking about because you’re not here often enough.”
There was no doubt that Mitch was annoying. Argumentative. Dismissive. Bossy. But he was also her older brother. And, Lucie hated to admit, there might be a kernel of truth in what he was saying. That’s what she hated the most.
Hours later, Lucie wearily returned to her suite at the hotel. Ginger was fast asleep in her bed, and Dakota was dozing on the sofa, yet another incomprehensible Italian drama on the television. They really ought to provide closed captioning, she thought. She took her phone into Dakota’s bedroom, so as not to disturb her daughter, and dialed Darwin.
“Ciao,” said Darwin. “I recognized the number.”
“Save me,” moaned Lucie into the phone. “I’ve just been force-fed a huge helping of guilt.”
“Rosie,” said Darwin immediately.
“Oh my God,” said Lucie. “If you know that already . . . Did you go out and see my mom last weekend?”
“I told you I was going to,” said Darwin. “Last time we talked.”
“I know, I know,” said Lucie. “It just seemed out of context to hear Mitch say your name.”
“He wasn’t there,” said Darwin. “Brian had just left before we got there; he cleaned out the storm drains.”
“You didn’t have to do the whole schlep to Jersey, Dar,” said Lucie, rubbing her eyes. Oh, she was tired.
“Of course we did,” said Darwin. “Your mother knitted us an entire layette for each of the kids. I mean, it was gorgeous.”
“’Cause you know from knitting?” Lucie laughed. Even though Darwin was on her sock jaunt, she was rather infamous in the group for never repairing her mistakes or checking her gauge. In short, she was a sloppy knitter.
“Oh, you wait until you get home,” said Darwin now. “I have moved on from socks, my friend. The kids only have so many feet. Now I am pumping through the Georgia afghans like nobody’s business. I am going to so be the top this year.”
“What about Anita?” said Lucie. “She always makes the most.”
“Well, word on the street, from Catherine via KC to Peri, is that she is making a wedding coat.”
“I see her all the time and I don’t even know this?”
“I guess because you’re always hanging out with that wine guy,” said Darwin. “So any details worth sharing?”
Lucie peeled off her jeans and slid under the covers of Dakota’s bed, hoping she wouldn’t mind.
“No,” she admitted. “He’s very nice. Everybody’s friend. It makes me wonder if I’ve missed too much. Though we’re always surrounded by a ton of other people. It’s like those group movie dates when you’re in middle school. Know what I mean?”
“Not really,” said Darwin. “I never had a boyfriend before Dan in college. But I saw something like that in Saved by the Bell.”
“Well, he seems very interested in Catherine, mainly,” said Lucie. “Which kind of burns me because she always gets what she wants, you know? First she comes to Italy, then a little bit of loving . . .”
“So Catherine is dating him, then?” asked Darwin.
“It’s all a bit odd, actually,” said Lucie. “She broods and he stares.”
“Very dramatic,” enthused Darwin.
“Annoying,” corrected Lucie. “It’s not that I like Marco Toscano. I’m too damn busy for all that jazz. But I like the idea of being pursued.”
“Well,” said Darwin, “it’s not like there’s just one man in Italy. Is there?”
“No,” said Lucie. “He’s just the only one I’ve met.”
“Didn’t you go to Italy because it was going to be great for your career?”
“Yes, Professor,” said Lucie.
“So what’s all this getting sidetracked, ‘Maybe I oughta h
ave a romance’ stuff?” said Darwin. “I get that we all have to eat dinner, but don’t try to twist it into something it isn’t.”
“I might like to have a partner, too, you know,” said Lucie. She wasn’t in the mood for more than one lecture in an evening.
“I thought you said he was a widower with kids,” said Darwin.
“He is,” said Lucie. “He really seems to be a caring father.”
“So you’re looking for a dad for Ginger, then,” said Darwin. “Is this about Will?”
“No,” said Lucie. “I like him. I’m interested.”
“Interested in being a mother to his children?”
The line was silent.
“Are you asleep?”
“No,” said Lucie, though in fact her eyes were closed. “You know I’m not looking for more kids. Ginger is enough. But you never know. We could work our way around it. Or maybe just have a fling in Rome.”
“Oh, don’t give me the old Sound of Music ‘There’s always boarding school’ routine,” said Darwin. “If you’ll remember, that guy ends up marrying the nun with the bad haircut. The one who loves his children. Not the ambitious blondie who lurks about making eyes at him.”
“I’m not blond,” said Lucie, before laughing uncontrollably from nervousness and exhaustion. “That’s Catherine.”
“Luce, any minute now Stanton is going to scream for no apparent reason,” said Darwin. “Are you into Marco the wine guy or not?”
Lucie groaned and rolled over in bed.
“No,” she admitted. “I just like the idea.”
“Is this about Will?” Darwin asked again.
“Yes,” she moaned. “What are you, a psychologist now?” Lucie pulled the covers over her head.
“It was seeing Marco be sweet to Ginger,” she said now. “Got me wondering if I ought to just call up this Will and let him know. Do everyone a favor.”
“If that’s what you want, I’ll be supportive,” said Darwin. “But have you considered he might demand visitation? Are you willing to share Ginger on someone else’s terms?”
Lucie’s eyes flew open.
“I hadn’t quite considered that,” she admitted. “Maybe I’m in over my head. I have too much going on!”
“I know,” said Darwin. “Your mother.”
“Darwin, give it to me straight: What’s the situation with Rosie?”
“She’s good: bubbly, friendly, fussed over the babies,” said Darwin. “But she made a few mistakes. Left the oven on for a while after she took out the cookies, for example. Stuff you and I might do and it’s no big. But then she seemed a bit foggy at times. Dan told me to suggest you or your brothers should visit her doctor, and maybe take her to a neurologist.”
“So Mitch might actually be onto something?”
“I don’t know,” said Darwin. “I’m only the real doctor around here. Dan’s just the M.D. But he can call you when he gets back from the hospital.”
“Not tonight,” said Lucie. “I’m fried. Isabella has decided she needs to wear a piece of hand-knit couture in the video, and in the accompanying Italian Vogue fashion spread.”
“What about the minidress Dakota was making?”
“It’s fabulous,” said Lucie. “Isabella wears it all the time now that hand knits are her flavor of the week. Or month. It’s hard to tell how long her mini-obsessions last. But she’s very insistent. She wants me to find her a hand-knit gown.”
“I hope you didn’t,” said Darwin. “Just because you’re frustrated with Catherine over this Marco maybe-not-even-a-fling-thing, she’s helped you out more than once. Like with the wine? And getting Dakota to come over?”
“What can I do?” said Lucie, her voice tinny from lack of sleep. “‘Isabella’s the flightiest, most difficult person I’ve ever worked with. But this job is lucrative, and it could have a great impact on the type of stuff to come later.”
“So you told her . . .”
“That I know of a gorgeous gown in New York that is so amazing it has its own name,” said Lucie. “I promised I could get her the Phoenix.”
twenty-eight
Anita chose her outfit with care, being sure to wear a pair of earrings that had been her mother’s. Something Sarah would recognize. Something she would have seen often. And for that there was only one option, a pair of mother-of-pearl discs in sterling silver that their mother wore for all dress-up occasions. The Schwartz family had been just fine, but they were not wealthy by any stretch. Luxuries were just that. Besides, most of the extravagances they had in later life came from Anita and Stan; most of her mother’s remaining jewelry were items Anita had given her.
“It’s today,” she reminded Marty, sitting, dressed, on the side of the bed and gently shaking him awake. “We should be sure to get ready with enough time.”
It was five a.m.
There’d been no sleep for Anita the night before, as she tossed and turned yet again, imagining what her sister would look like. Silvery hair, like her own, or would she dye it? What if she was unhappy to see them? What if, what if, what if: Anita had thought of everything.
After the weeks of searching, it had all come down to paying a private investigator and a young student to research government documents—including marriage certificates—and find all the Sarah Schwartzes who were in the city. And then they broadened it to the entire country. They’d looked for women with that name, with Schwartzman and Schwartzmann and any variation on it they could think of, who’d shown up in records between 1968 and now. It was Italy: there weren’t so many. It’s not like they were looking for a John Smith in New York City.
So that was an advantage. They’d gone to the synagogue, of course, a majestic building in the area that had been the Jewish Ghetto since ancient times, many of the shops still specialized even though the neighborhood’s name belonged to another time and place.
And Anita had joined her hired team at the computer, often scrolling through files that had been uploaded over the years. She also pulled on latex gloves—to protect her well-cared-for hands—and dug through the paper files that languished in boxes. They looked for Sarahs who were Schwartzes (and all its variations) in the present and Sarahs who had said surname in the past, before weddings or name changes, for example. And then they’d systematically worked their way through the list, traveling outside of Rome several times over the summer with their hired PI to meet Sarah. Only each and every time, as they knocked on a door and Anita held her breath waiting for the moment when she’d finally see the woman who’d once been her flower girl in a minty-green dress, the woman wasn’t Sarah. Oh, she was a Sarah, of course. Just not the Sarah they were looking for.
But now there was only one name left. And, by process of elimination, she clearly had to be the right person.
Later in the morning, they folded themselves up and into their researcher’s Smart car for the short drive to the suburb of Saxa Rubra, not too far from the city. Anita, although nervous—she’d been clutching a handkerchief so tightly her knuckles were white—was laughing and joking in a way she hadn’t done so far in all of their searching.
“I know it,” she told Marty. “I feel in my bones that I will see Sarah again.”
At a cozy café, the group fortified themselves with cups of espresso before climbing the steps of a tidy suburban home in Saxa Rubra, a row of white flowers set underneath the windows.
“Very clean windows,” said Anita, pointing them out to Marty. “Sarah was always a neatnik.”
They knocked and waited. Then knocked again.
“Buongiorno,” said the woman, who appeared to be in her sixties, looking at them curiously. “Can I help you?” she said in accented English, something about their clothes or mannerisms pegging them as non-Italian. “Are you lost?”
Anita couldn’t help it: the tears flooded out of her eyes and down her cheeks and she felt wetness on her face before she was even aware she was bawling.
The woman frowned, a kindly look of concern.
“Do you need me to call a doctor?” she asked Marty. “Is she okay?”
She turned to their research assistant. “There is a hospital about ten minutes away,” she said. “Your grandmother might need someone to help her.”
Anita, who’d maintained such composure when Stan had died, when she’d lost Georgia, when Nathan bellowed, when Dakota sulked, had finally lost it. All the bitterness and fear and regret and anger that she’d swallowed seemed to bubble to the surface all at once, and she was incapable of holding it back any longer.
Anita knew, and then she didn’t know. How it would feel.
“It’s your sister,” boomed Marty. “From New York!”
The woman shook her head, closed the door a few inches, as though reminding herself to be wary of the trio of strangers on her doorstep. Who knew what could happen in this day and age? Even benign-looking American tourists from her own generation could be scam artists—or worse.
“I don’t have a sister,” she said as she tried to shut the door. Marty put up a hand as though to hold back the door and stop this woman from closing off their last chance, his heart breaking as he guessed what Anita was about to say.
“It’s not her,” was all Anita could get out before losing all composure and sitting down on the step. Marty sat next to his love, his arm around her, as she cried it out and poor, confused Sarah Schwartz—same name, but from a different family altogether—watched the odd American strangers from the safety of her living room window.
There was no need to be late, Anita told herself. She had cried in the car, she’d cried in the bathtub, she had cried in bed, she’d cried over dinner and again at breakfast. Marty was alarmed, she could see that. Well, there was disappointment, she told him. And then there was devastation.
She hadn’t realized quite how much her confidence had tricked her into thinking all she had to do was the right set of steps—like solving a math problem—and that once she’d done the hard work, then the gift of finding Sarah would follow.
