by Lynn Stevens
“I never knew. I thought she didn’t love me. I thought she left because of me,” I cried, admitting the one thing I kept deep inside for years. It tore through my chest, ripping open the scarred wound. Anger, hatred, love, regret all seeped into my words, my skin. “I thought ...”
“Wrong, honey,” he said softly. “You thought wrong. So did I.” He swallowed hard and pulled away to see my face. “All these years, I thought ... it doesn’t matter what I thought. I’m just sorry you’re going through this. And that is my fault.”
The back door opened, and Angela stepped into the kitchen. “Oh, good, everyone’s here.” She put her suitcases, two of them on the floor, not even noticing the ones that were already by the back door. “My apartment’s being fumigated.” She raised her hand dramatically. “I thought I could stay in the empty suite above the garage for a few days, Eliot.”
Her grin faded quickly as my father glared at her.
“I guess, maybe, I should’ve called first,” she said. Her gaze darted between me and Dad. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and widened her eyes. “Is something wrong? Rachel, honey, are you okay? Did that boy hurt you? Eliot, I told you he was no good for her.”
“You don’t get a say in anything having to do with my daughter,” Dad said, far calmer than I felt. His gaze had turned boardroom cold. He stood tall and kept his chin lifted as he glared down his nose at her. “And you’re not welcome here. Take your bags and get out.”
She stepped farther into the kitchen. “I don’t understand.”
I clenched the letters tight in my hand, not wanting her to touch them ever again, but I lifted them so she could see what I held.
“What are those?” Her voice ticked up a notch as her face paled.
“You know what they are,” I said.
“In light of recent events, you need to find employment elsewhere.” Dad crossed his arms. The vein in his neck throbbed, a sure sign he had moved past the anger stage and was in full rage mode. “Your key card, passwords, and status has been fully revoked. Security will escort you to your desk to clear out your things. The bank has frozen my accounts with your name on them until I return, at which time, they will be closed completely. The code to this house will be changed as well. If you step foot on any of my properties, you’ll be arrested. Am I clear?”
She paled further. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand?” Dad took the letters from me and slammed them on the counter in front of her. “In the ten plus years that you’ve worked for me, you think I’m that stupid that I don’t recognize your fucking handwriting?”
“No,” she squeaked, stepping back from him.
“What was your goal, Angela? Why would you do this to me? To my daughter? To my family?” His nose flared, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “I gave you a job even though you had no skills. I offered you the opportunity to better yourself. Westbrook Pharmaceuticals paid for your degree on my recommendation. And this is how you treat me?”
My eyes widened. I had no idea Dad had done so much for her.
“I love you,” she whimpered.
Dad snorted, and I just wanted to run from the room. This was not something I needed to hear. I knew Angela wanted to cement herself in our lives. I even knew she cared for Dad as more than a boss. That didn’t mean I wanted to hear it. But I was frozen to the stool.
“You love me? I’m old enough to be your father, Angela,” Dad said, shaking his head. “Francesca warned me not to hire you. I should’ve listened to her then.”
“Eliot, everything I did, I did for you and Rachel,” Angela pleaded. Tears started, and her face turned from pale to blotchy red. “She left you. I stayed. Even when I had better offers, I stayed. For you. Your wife left. But I didn’t. All these years, I stayed. Don’t you get it? She left.”
“And I should’ve gone after her then.” Dad’s anger deflated, and his shoulders lost some of their power. He slouched as the weight of what happened pressed down on him. “Now I’ll never get that chance. Get out, Angela. Never cross my path again. I can’t even look at you.”
He turned and stalked from the room. Angela turned her gaze toward me.
“Rachel,” she said softly. “You understand, don’t you?”
“I understand that you stole my mother from me.” I stood and walked to her. My rage was unchecked. My teeth ground together. I clenched my fists. Even my toes curled in fury. “I understand that you stole my family.”
Angela shook her head, all pretense of regret gone. “You’re such a brat. You lost nothing. You have everything the world could offer. You want for nothing. But don’t you ever forget she left you too.”
I slapped her as hard as I could. It felt great and useless at the same time. My mother was never coming back and hurting Angela wouldn’t change that. “She’s dead, Angela. My mother is dead, and I’ll never be able to talk to her again. I’ll never be able to understand why she left, because she will never be able to tell me. So, fuck off and get the hell out of my house.”
She held her hand to her cheek. My palm stung with glorious pain. If she didn’t leave, I was going to hit her again just to make her hurt as bad as I did. Angela backed away from me. Something flashed in her eyes. Maybe real regret, but it was only there for a moment.
“What did you do with the rest of the letters?” I asked as she picked up her bags. “The ones you didn’t send back.”
Angela dropped her bags and walked to the back staircase. She pushed a panel and it popped open, revealing a small storage space. Joanne’s comment about looking under the stairs came back to me. This was what she was talking about. My heart shriveled. I hadn’t looked. She had told me, but I hadn’t looked.
I waited while she reached inside and pulled out a storage box. She handed it to me. Inside were hundreds of letters, more than Nonno had brought with him. Mom had kept writing even though I never responded.
“I couldn’t throw them away,” Angela said. She had the gall to look contrite. “One of the maids caught me. So, I started tossing them in there when I realized nobody knew there was a space under the stairs. I was going to give them to you one day.”
“One day?” I asked not daring to look at her.
“After Eliot and I were married.” My head shot up in time to see her shrug. “But it went on and he never even kissed me. I was just a kid, just twenty, when your dad gave me a chance. I wanted to prove to him that he hadn’t made a mistake. That I was worth the risk. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone who will never love you back, Rachel.”
She turned on her heel and walked to the back door, picking up her bags. Then she was finally gone, finally out of my life.
In her last desperate attempt at honesty, she told me more than she realized. She was wrong. I knew what it was like to love someone who didn’t love me back. And I hated it that I could relate to Angela on some level.
I reached into the box, touching the letters. The last one was postmarked a month ago. Mom had never given up on me even after I had given up on her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Our flight was smooth. It was unusually quiet with my cell phone off. Dad had made sure we had international calling on, but I shut it down when the flight attendant ordered us to. I hadn’t turned it back on, and I didn’t really want to either.
I read through Mom’s letters, starting with the earliest. Most of them were about the hotel and restaurant the family owned. About six years ago, her tone changed.
Dearest Rachel,
I miss you my child. Things are well there, yes? I imagine you’re playing basketball for your high school now. Your father has been busy. I read about him when I can. The company has always been his life.
This time I write with news of my own. I have met someone. He is kind and gentle. We are to be married in the spring. It would mean the world to me if you would come to my wedding. I will understand if you do not wish to. I love him, Rachel. He is a good man.
Please wr
ite me back.
Love,
Mama
She didn’t write for a few months, or if she did, those letters were lost or destroyed. The next one detailed her wedding. It sounded magical. I would have loved it. They married at the hotel overlooking the Mediterranean. Everyone wore white, even the groom. The flowers were white and so was everything else. They tied the knot at sunset. It sounded just like my mother, always the romantic.
I closed my eyes and imagined it. For my mom, it would have been perfection. She would have settled for nothing less.
“You okay, Ace?” Dad asked as we taxied to the gate.
“No,” I said.
He put his arm around me and pulled me close. “Me either.”
Nonno waited for us as we got our luggage. His smile brightened every time he looked my way, then a sudden sadness set in and drew his smile down. It wasn’t about me. I knew that, but I felt like an intruder in his life. A welcomed one and an unwelcomed one at the same time. Mom was Nonno’s youngest daughter. I looked so much like her.
Dad picked up the rental. We drove north then west toward the coast. The ride was familiar, but it was different. It was weird how things stayed the same and changed at the same time. Italy was beautiful. The rolling hills, the lush greenery, and the ancient mixed with the new. Tarquinia was the most beautiful of all.
That was what Mom always said.
Dad slowed as we got closer. He’d met my mother on a tour of the country when he was still in college. His group stayed in the family hotel. When they moved on, he didn’t. He spent the summer in Tarquinia with her. They’d married and returned to St. Louis together. It was a whirlwind romance. I glanced over at him as he drove. He looked like he was in another time. A tear slid down his cheek. Not for the first time did I wonder if Dad had ever gotten over Mom. If he still loved her.
I shook that thought from my head. How can you love someone who left? How can you love someone who doesn’t want to be with you? How can you love someone who doesn’t love you back?
He drove through the ancient city passing the piazza. Mom once sat me under the obelisk and told me stories of the city. There was a café where we’d sit together. She’d sketch in her journal, and I would watch her. When I was a kid, I loved Italy. I had looked forward to visiting every summer and sometimes over winter break. Tarquinia was a glorious city in its day, but now tourists came for the Etruscan tombs.
Nonno didn’t speak from the backseat. I turned to look at him and he met my gaze.
“Rachel, you look so much like your mother,” he said. A sad smile lifted his face. “She was only a few years older than you when she met your father and married. It is as if I am looking back into the past.”
“Would you change it?” I asked.
Dad stiffened next to me.
Nonno shook his head. “It brought you into the world. Why would I change that?” He put his hand on my father’s shoulder. “You never change love, even if it hurts you.”
I swallowed and a fresh round of tears filled my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Dad put his hand on mine. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I’ve hated her for years.” I sobbed and pulled free from Dad, burying my face in my hands. “I never knew.”
Nonno touched my shoulder. “You cannot change this, but you can learn to love your family again. We are still here.”
“I’m sorry, too, Ace,” Dad said as he maneuvered the car into the valet station at the hotel. We climbed out and a porter took our bags. Dad and I stared up at Nonno’s hotel. “I could’ve done more to reach out to her. To keep her in your life.”
“She loved you fiercely,” Nonno said, standing behind us. “More than you realize.”
Dad turned and smiled at Nonno. “But she loved Italy more.”
“Ah, not true. She loved her mother.” He raised a finger. “May she rest in peace.”
That was how it started. Why Mom wanted to go back to Italy. I’d forgotten that. Shame sunk like a boulder in my chest. How could I have forgotten that.
Mom had cried when she got off the phone with Nonno. Nonna was sick, and they didn’t know what was going on with her. Mom booked a flight for the next day. I remembered overhearing her tell Dad. She was flying to Chicago then to Philadelphia before taking a train to New York for another flight. Dad was angry. I delved further into the memory. He wasn’t angry she was heading home. He was pissed she didn’t talk to him first so he could take time off and we could go with her.
“You never take time off work, Eliot,” Mom had said. She was sad, I remembered. “And I could not wait for you to decide family was more important than that company. This is my blood. I must help her.”
“I understand that, love,” Dad had said. The anger was gone, replaced by a sadness matching my mother’s. “I just wish you would’ve talked to me first. I could’ve gotten a direct flight in a few days.”
“In a few days?” Mom huffed. I had peeked around the corner and watched them in Dad’s study. “That’s not soon enough. She could be gone before we even leave here.”
“Francesca—”
“No, Eliot. I have put my life aside for yours for too long. I will not let you take my mother from me.” Mom had turned and stormed out of the room.
I had moved before she could spot me, hiding behind a potted plant near the door. Mom didn’t see me as she ran up the stairs. I glanced back into the study. Dad sat behind his desk with his head in his hands.
Mom was gone before I woke up the next day.
“She thought I didn’t care,” Dad said as he put his hand on Nonno’s shoulder. “As much as I love her, she never thought I cared enough. I would’ve moved the world to make her happy.”
Nonno nodded. “She knew that, I think, but ...”
“In the end it didn’t matter.” Dad let his hand fall from his former father-in-law’s shoulder. “This town, this hotel was her true home. Had I stayed here instead of going back to the States, things might have been different.”
“But we cannot change the past, my son,” Nonno said. He motioned toward the front doors. “Let us mourn together as family and turn our attentions to the future. Rachel should meet her brothers. They will be waiting”
Brothers? I followed them into the lobby. By the desk were two boys in Italy soccer jerseys. One looked to be around six, the other no more than four. They both had dark hair and dark eyes and wore matching expressions of doubt.
“Rachel, this is Gino and Alfonso, your brothers.” Nonno motioned to the boys who stepped forward instantly. “This is their father Matteo, your late mama’s husband.”
I stared at them for a moment, taking in their shirts and shorts. They were my brothers. I had two younger brothers. And they looked like me. Like Mom. I spun on my heels and ran out the front door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I walked around for an hour. The ancient buildings sheltering me in an oddly comforting way. This was almost home. We’d spent our summers here, and when Dad would leave for work, I’d stay with Mom. Memories rushed back, ones I’d pushed down along with the pain. This was all so much at once, too much. I recognized places we used to go together. A dress shop, a café, a jeweler, art supplies, and a bookstore, all exactly as I remembered. There were new businesses and some that had shuttered. I didn’t know what I was looking for until I rounded a corner to the piazza.
The sign only said Café. Two sets of bistro tables stood outside, one on each side of the door. We came to this place in the afternoons two or three times a week. It was our little secret. Our café. Swallowing hard at the lump in my throat, I strolled over and sat at one of the tables.
A woman smiled then her mouth formed an O. She rapid-fired Italian at me. I could only pick out a few words such as alive and you. Tears welled in my eyes and burst free. I sobbed into my hands. Would I ever stop crying? Did I want to?
She waited quietly. Once I got myself under control, I glanced up to tell her I didn’t speak Italian anymore and d
idn’t know what she was saying. But she was gone. There was an espresso in a tiny white cup on a saucer on the table beside a plate with two biscotti. It was my mom’s usual order.
I dipped the biscotti into the espresso, savoring the sweetness as it met the bitter brew. Coffee wasn’t really my thing unless it had a ton of sugar and creamer. Mom had taken hers black. Maybe this was why. It reminded her of home. This tasted like heaven. The woman came back out to check on me and smiled.
“You are Francesca’s daughter,” she said in halting English. “I am sorry I made you cry. You look just like her when she was a girl.”
“I do?” I’d heard it before from my father, but this was someone who knew my mother in a different life.
She nodded and sat in the empty chair. “I was sad to hear she died. You... how do you say... startled me when you sat. In this town, there are many ghosts that walk. I thought you were another.”
I smiled at her. I’d heard the ghost stories before, but it had been so long. Too long.
“You are here to mourn her, yes?” the woman asked.
“Yes.” I felt the tears begin to prickle and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry. My Italian is rusty.”
She patted my hand. “It will come back to you. It is part of your blood. You will see.”
“I would like that.” I sipped my drink. “Did Mom come her a lot?”
“She would drink her espresso and nibble her biscotti, writing her letters.” She pointed to my seat. “Almost every time she sat there. She also had a book she wrote in.”
“Like a journal?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.
“I do not know this word.”
“A diary?”
“Ah, yes, a diary. That is it. She would draw for hours.” The woman smiled wistfully. “My best customer she was.”
“When I was little, we would come together in the summer.” I picked up my last biscotti and dipped it in the espresso. The memories returned stronger. I’d remembered coming to this café but not what we did. I would color while my mother would sketch. Sometimes we would make up stories. I wished for a journal now to write the memories down before I lost them again.
