by Jen Carter
“Stella!” I yelled to our older sister.
She waved at us from the pier.
“This is for Dad!” I called. I turned to Holly and grasped her hand. “Ready?”
She nodded.
Together, a very-wobbly Holly and I said, “One, two, three!” And we jumped out as far as we could. Arms and legs flailing, we hit the water with a splash.
And it was cold. Cold, cold, cold. It was so cold that I couldn’t breathe for a moment when I broke through the surface.
But that was for Dad.
Marco D’Angelo. Twenty-nine years after he jumped into the Ligurian Sea, we were jumping for him again.
ELEVEN
For dinner, Stella had made reservations at a restaurant right above the rocks where we were jumping earlier that afternoon. She requested the latest reservation possible. That way, we could go down to the pier right afterward to throw Mom’s note into the sea, and hopefully no one else would be around.
Dinner was lovely with the sun setting in the background. I had more pesto, despite Holly urging me to try something new. What if you find something you like even more? she said. I wasn’t going for it. After all, being on the Ligurian coast, we weren’t far from pesto’s birthplace. It didn’t get any better than that, and I wanted my fill while I had the chance.
When we finished dinner, it was dark—and it had been dark for some time. I didn’t know how late it was, but it didn’t matter because Stella’s plan had worked. The pier was deserted when we walked down from the restaurant.
“Okay, everyone ready?” Holly asked as we made our way to the water’s edge. “What do we do first? Share what we want to see for our own futures and then throw the pieces of Mom’s note into the sea?”
I nodded down at the water, which was partially illuminated by the restaurant lights. Logically, it seemed like we should close the door on Mom’s promises and then open our door to the new ones—that was chronological, after all. But it also seemed anti-climactic. Throwing the note into the water seemed like a more dramatic way to end the night.
“You go first, Jill,” Stella said.
I didn’t know why I was the chosen one, but there was no point in arguing. Luckily, the wine at dinner had made me feel courageous. I pulled a folded piece of paper from my back pocket and then sat down cross-legged. I wasn’t going to read to my sisters what I had written—somehow it felt too private—but I did need something to look at while I spoke so that I didn’t have to look at them.
Stella and Holly sat down as well, the three of us forming a little circle.
I needed to make it quick. Writing promises was a good idea, but it required admitting faults, and that was hard and uncomfortable.
“So, as you know, I’m kind of a homebody,” I said. “And while I’m somewhat athletic, I’m not adventurous. I don’t try a lot of new things. When Mom and Dad died, this got worse. I just sort of receded inside myself. And then it got even worse when Shane broke off our engagement and left. You two already knew all that. But you probably didn’t know that Amanda’s been toying with the idea of moving out. She thinks that she’s enabling me because I’m too comfortable with her there. The only reason she hasn’t moved out yet, probably, is because she’s worried that leaving might have the opposite effect and I’ll pretty much disappear inside myself.”
I glanced at my sisters. Neither of them looked surprised.
“So. This might not sound like a big promise to anyone else, but it is a big deal to me. I need to reprioritize, make sure that family is always first, and make more effort to get out and connect with others. And I promise that I’ll start doing that.” Suddenly I felt like I was going to cry, but I didn’t give into it. “I know this sounds dumb. Of course family should come first. Saying it sounds so trite. But I hate thinking that Mom and Dad could be looking down on me and feel disappointed that I’ve let life slip by me because it’s easier to be in my little bubble.”
Stella and Holly leaned over and wrapped their arms around my neck. And then Holly whacked the back of my head.
“You dummy,” she said after she and Stella both let go. “You’re not a disappointment. You just have that mellow gene from Dad that keeps you at home. Which is a bit strange because you also have the opposite gene from Mom that makes you curious and determined to solve problems. Maybe those competing pieces of you just need to find a different balance.”
I nodded. “I think I’m going to tell Amanda it’s okay for her to leave. And I’m going to start coming up to Otto Viti on the weekends.” I looked at Stella. “And I’d like to see Hudson and Thatcher more often, too.”
Stella smiled. “Absolutely.” She leaned over and hugged me again. Then she turned to Holly. “What about you, Hol? What do you want to promise?”
“I didn’t write anything down,” Holly said. “But I will. Before we leave tomorrow, I swear. Overall, though, I’m pretty happy with my life. I like living with Aldo, Guy’s not half-bad, and my dissertation is going fine. So, I promise to keep chugging along the way I have been.” She looked at me. “And I promise that I’ll start hounding you to come visit Otto Viti if you get lazy about it.”
I stared at my younger sister. Seriously? That’s what she was promising? I just admitted something I had been struggling with for awhile. And Holly was just going to keep chugging along?
Stella cocked an eyebrow at Holly. “Always profound, Hol. Always.”
“I aim to please. What’ve you got?” Holly nodded at the paper in Stella’s hands.
Stella dropped her eyes to the paper. I couldn’t tell if she was going to read or, like me, just speak with her eyes cast down.
“Mom and Dad died when I was pregnant with Hudson,” she began. “Jason’s parents live far away, and he’s never been close to them. They’ve visited us twice since the boys were born. I was the first of my friends to have babies, and so the only advice I really got was from the internet. If Mom and Dad had been around, maybe they could have helped me. I had so many questions. I had trouble breastfeeding. Was Mom the same way? Hudson didn’t walk until he was sixteen months old. Were any of us like that? Maybe Mom would have recognized what was happening with Thatcher when he couldn’t keep milk down, and maybe she would have encouraged me to take him to the doctor right away. And then he would have gotten that surgery on his stomach sooner. Maybe when I was at home with the boys, crawling the walls and wishing that I could go back to work—but then also feeling incredible guilt for wanting to go back to work—maybe Mom would have been there to tell me that everything was okay. That I was normal and that lots of women felt that way.” Her eyes flicked to water beyond the pier. “But this terrible, cruel, unforgiving sea took Mom and Dad, and I’ll never know how Hudson and Thatcher’s lives would have been better if that hadn’t happened. I’ll never know. All the mistakes I might not have made, all the fears and sadness I wouldn’t have felt, all the loneliness and guilt—I’ll never know.”
She sniffed.
“I’ll never know,” she repeated. “But in Mom’s note, she talked about letting go. She promised she wasn’t going to look back, and she was going to devote herself to us. That was it. From then on, it was all about us. And so, my promise is to let go as well. All those questions and regrets—maybe even that anger—I just need to let it go. I’m going to try to do that.” She folded her paper in half, her head still hanging over it.
Holly and I leaned toward Stella and hugged her neck. Unlike when I got my sister hug, Holly did not smack the back of Stella’s head.
“I wish you had faith in the mother you are,” I said, pulling away. “You’re amazing. And maybe Mom and Dad haven’t been here to give you advice, but for twenty-three years, they showed you how to be a great parent. And it’s obvious you were taking notes. Those kids adore you, and they’re pretty awesome little guys themselves. That’s because of you.”
Stella nodded, her eyes still down. A tear splashed onto the paper, and she brushed it away.
I almost t
old her what I had been thinking for months—that her family needed to move to Otto Viti so that Jason could be closer to work and they could have a better work-family-life balance. But before I could, Holly grabbed Stella’s hand and squeezed it. “Come on, no crying! Let’s get this show on the road. Time to tear up Mom’s note!” She stood and pulled me and Stella with her.
Stella folded her piece of paper again and slipped it into her pocket. From her other pocket, she pulled out Mom’s note. As she ripped it into three equal pieces, Holly began to sing a song from our childhood.
“Stella, stellina, la notte si avvicina…”
Instantly, the lullaby brought back memories of Mom singing to us. It had been Stella’s favorite song, and I had heard her sing it to Hudson and Thatcher on occasion. Star, little star, the night is coming…
I sang along with Holly as Stella handed each of us a strip of Mom’s note. “La fiamma traballa, la mucca é nella stalla…”
We walked to the edge of the pier, and Stella joined the singing. “La pecora e l’agnello, la vacca col vitello…”
It might have been a song about farm animals going to sleep in the stable—not particularly deep and meaningful—but it seemed perfect in the moment.
We each tore our pieces of Mom’s note.
“La chioccia coi pulcini, la gatta coi gattini…”
We looked at each other, torn pieces of paper clutched in our hand. The last lines of the lullaby were coming.
“E tutti fan la nanna, nel coure della mamma!”
And they are all asleep in the mother’s heart.
We threw the pieces of paper toward the sea, but we couldn’t have had worse timing. Just as the pieces left our hands, a breeze swept them up and back across the pier toward the big, black rocks.
We all scrambled after the shreds of paper, gasping and laughing. Of course that would happen. Of course. Maybe Mom didn’t really want the note in the sea after all.
Or maybe I didn’t have to interpret everything as a sign. Maybe it was just the breeze being the breeze.
“Stella stellina,” Holly began singing again, “la notte si avvicina…”
Stella and I continued laughing and tried to sing along as we chased after the bits of paper. I managed to hunt down about five pieces before I had to straighten up and scan the area for more. Holly and Stella were still hunched over and scurrying about, heading further toward the rocks. The flip-flops I was wearing were not the best shoes for the job.
From the corner of my eye, I saw someone walking across the deserted Piazza Marconi, hands in pockets. He was far away, and in the faint light of the street lamps, I couldn’t tell much more than that—just that he was tall and thin, hands in pockets. And I couldn’t tell if he was looking at us or if he could hear us singing, so I just waved and continued singing. He waved back. A moment later he turned and disappeared down Via Roma. I continued chasing after pieces of paper.
Stella, stellina…
TWELVE
The next morning, the tables had turned. I wasn’t the annoying sister waking up the others. Stella had taken up that role.
There just wasn’t a good reason for her to bang around the tiny kitchen two hours before our train left. She wouldn’t admit it, but deep down, I bet she was just getting me back for yesterday morning.
Before leaving Vernazza, we left the notes we had written in the new post office box, which Stella had pre-paid for the next twenty-five years. After that, we had some time to kill before the train. Part of me wanted to thank Nico once more for all his help and say goodbye. After all, the first leg of our trip might not have gone so smoothly if he hadn’t connected us with Paola. And if he hadn’t been willing to throw a soccer game, we might not have found out about Mom’s parents disowning her.
But maybe it would have been a little strange to say goodbye. We barely knew him. Stella and Holly didn’t suggest it either, so I didn’t bring it up.
The three-and-a-half hour train ride was uneventful. There were two stops, which left Holly a little less than chipper since her naps kept getting interrupted. The whole way there, I found myself feeling a little sad. I loved Vernazza. The restaurants, the hiking, the beautiful buildings, the wonderful wine—it was all so lovely.
Plus, memories of our last night there had me feeling pensive. I hadn’t known how hard these last years had been on Stella. I knew they had been hard, but I hadn’t known that she felt so vulnerable as a mother without the advice and guidance of our parents. Stella was tough as nails. And while I may not have always understood why she was so regimented and strict, I always thought she had been confident in her parenting decisions.
Then there was Mom’s note that we tore up. It may have been gone, but the message in it was loud and clear: she knew what she wanted in her life, and she loved Dad beyond measure. She suffered being disowned to follow her path. Her love for Dad wasn’t a shock to me, but after reading that note, something else was dawning on me.
When Mom and Dad died, I fixated on how Dad wouldn’t be there to walk me down the aisle. It became the symbol of my loss. But the cold, hard truth was that I had been planning to marry the wrong guy. Shane didn’t stick around when times got tough. We didn’t have what Mom and Dad had. Now, I was relieved that Shane and I didn’t get married, though I thought it quite cruel that my parents’ deaths put into motion our break up.
Would I have married Shane if they hadn’t died? Would I have been divorced by now? Would I have continued settling for less than what Mom and Dad had?
Sheesh, this trip was making me face some intense questions. I had expected the emotion on this trip to be limited to annoyance over my sisters’ quirks and habits. So much for that.
***
We stepped off the train in Florence just before one o’clock in the afternoon, and I shook my pensive thoughts away. A new adventure awaited us in Aldo’s birthplace. I wanted to take it all in with fresh eyes and an open heart.
Stella booked a hotel right next to the famous Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, which most people simply called the Duomo. I had seen pictures of the beautiful Gothic cathedral with its ornate white, green, and pink exterior and its reddish-bronze dome. But those pictures, beautiful as they were, couldn’t do justice to the cathedral in person. From the balcony of our hotel room, we had a perfect view of it. After dropping my backpack next to one of the queen beds, I stepped onto the balcony and took in the sight. I couldn’t wait to have coffee out there the next morning. That was going to be a beautiful way to start the day.
But then Stella’s voice drew me from my morning coffee daydream.
“Holly, where’s the scrapbook?” she asked. “Do you two want to do a post office run before we do any sightseeing?”
“Yes on the post office,” Holly said. “And shouldn’t the scrapbook be in your backpack?”
I stepped into the hotel room from the balcony in time to see Stella give Holly an uncertain look.
“No, you had it this morning while eating breakfast in the apartment,” Stella said. “I asked you to put it in your backpack after you were done.”
“I don’t remember you saying that,” Holly said. She sat on the edge of the bed, the look of uncertainty on her face mirroring Stella’s.
“You answered me,” Stella said. She crossed her arms. “You said, ‘okay, sounds good.’”
Holly took a moment to respond. “I don’t doubt that happened. It sounds like something I would say. But I have no recollection of it.”
“So you didn’t put the scrapbook in your backpack? It’s back in Vernazza?” Stella said.
Holly pursed her lips and nodded. “It appears that way.”
Stella crossed the hotel room to her backpack and rummaged through it. “I’ll call Paola and see if she can overnight it to us.”
I looked at Holly. She looked back at me with a guilty, tight-lipped smile. It was her I’m-in-trouble-and-I-better-start-being-good-so-I-don’t-push-Stella-over-the-edge smile.
I smiled back wi
th my yeah-you-better-watch-it-from-here-on-out smile. Although Stella didn’t seem mad about the mistake, Holly and I both knew where this was going. If Stella couldn’t solve the problem in the next fifteen minutes, her frustration would bubble over.
“Oh,” Stella said, pulling out her phone and looking at its screen. “Paola called me and left a message ten minutes after our train left Vernazza. Maybe she found the scrapbook already.” Stella tapped on the voicemail and pressed the speaker button so we all could hear it.
“Hello, Stella. This is Paola from Vernazza. I found a book in the apartment after you left. It has many photographs. I think it must be yours. I will find a way to get it to you.”
“How’s she going to do that?” I asked. Normally Holly was the one to ask annoying rhetorical questions, but Holly wasn’t going to speak unless spoken to. Not until we had the scrapbook back and she wasn’t running the risk of Stella’s wrath, at least.
Stella tapped her phone’s screen and then held it to her ear. “I don’t know. I’m calling her.” We waited as the call connected. “It went to voicemail,” Stella said after a moment.
After Stella left a message and disconnected the call, I said, “We could just go sightseeing for awhile and not worry about it. Or, we could go to the post office and see if anyone knows anything about an old post office box there.”
Stella sat on the little sofa across from Holly. “There’s more than one post office in Florence. I looked it up. Mom hadn’t written down which post office she had gone to, so we were going to have some trial and error ahead of us anyway.”
“You said this is the hotel that Mom and Dad stayed in for their honeymoon,” I said. “Let’s go to the closest one and start there.”