I was sick the next day. All day I dreamed about my childhood. By the time my husband came home, I could no longer tell what was a dream and what was reality.
Perhaps next week, I’ll return to the group. I’ll tell them I’m still depressed about losing my job, that I feel tired all the time, that I’m afraid a woman my age can never find work again. But I’ll never speak about my mother. To whom would I tell her story and why? From the day we came to Canada, we lived a law-abiding life. We went to school, then we worked, then we married and sent our own children to school. Zi Antonio died, and so did my mother. My children have never much wanted to know about the old country.
No, I am the only one remaining who knows the secret of Zi Antonio and my mother. The night I looked in and saw my father so very still that the moonlight on his face could not wake him, I took this secret to myself, without even knowing. Now, because of a few troubled words, I do know. But the secret stays with me. It floats in my mind, detached from all else, the way our little boat floated—a small speck on the waters that lapped the shore of our tiny village, spilled onward toward the bay of Palermo, crossed the Mediterranean, then slipped out to the real sea.
About the Author
After a successful career as an internationally-published romance writer, Rosemary Aubert turned to the world of crime, graduating with a Certificate of Criminology from the University of Toronto and publishing the six-volume award-winning, Ellis Portal mystery series. Rosemary also worked in the real world of crime. She was a security officer at the United States Consulate. She ran the office of a half-way house for men leaving the federal prison system. She served as a Community Relations director assisting women coming out of the prison system. And for ten years, she was a bailiff in the criminal courts.
These experiences introduced Rosemary to a wide variety of people—innocent and guilty, dangerous and safe. These denizens of the real world of crime inspired the characters that inhabit The Midnight Boat to Palermo and Other Stories.
Born in Niagara Falls, New York, Rosemary has long made her home in Toronto, where she has worked as a university instructor, an editor and a bookstore clerk and of course—a writer.
Rosemary Aubert has achieved world-wide attention with her Ellis Portal series. She is a Toronto writer, teacher, speaker and criminologist who mentors fresh mystery writers and treasures classic ones.
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