Beautiful Secret

by Dana Faletti

  * * *

  His body moved slow like honey over hers, gliding over and into her again and again until she was more malleable than putty, as fluid as milk, more liquid than solid at the climax of their togetherness. Afterward, his kisses skimmed over her neck and chest, coating her with the very essence of fulfilled peace.

  Later, they ambled sleepily from the quiet bungalow and onto the beach. As they slept on the warm pebbles at Saline, Michel’s head resting on her flat belly, a soft snore escaping his lips, Tate dreamed of nothing. And when she woke to see the sun setting beyond a sputtering Mount Etna, leaving streaks of violet and rose across a golden sky, she let the fullness of empty settle over her.

  She’d done what she’d come here to do.

  And more.

  She thought of Arturo’s face, his thick black mustache curling over his tranquil smile.

  A sudden spray of pebbles and water surprised her, and when she turned over, she saw the same little blond girl she’d watched climb the rocks the first time she’d set her eyes on Saline. The girl rushed past, her tiny body dripping and splashing as she ran away from the dark-haired chubby boy chasing her. Perhaps he was her brother or her cousin.

  “Sofia! Gino!” a tiny dark-haired woman in a black bikini called out to the children. “Andiamo a casa.” Let’s go home.

  Tate watched as the woman shoved beach supplies into a large red tote and began folding blankets and chairs.

  Without warning, the children appeared in front of her, smiling their uncomplicated smiles, still coated with the sea.

  “Ciao,” said the chubby boy. He reached out to hand her something.

  Tate eased Michel’s head from her lap and pushed herself into a kneeling position to greet her unexpected visitors, little rocks digging into the skin of her knees. “Ciao,” she said, noticing the beautifully even tan of the girl’s skin, the deep blue of her eyes.

  “Americana?” the boy asked, his hand still outstretched.

  “Yes,” Tate nodded. “Do you speak English?”

  The little girl giggled and shook her head.

  “A little bit,” the boy replied.

  Tate laughed, remembering those first words Michel had uttered to her in Zia’s basement kitchen.

  “For you, signora,” the boy said, unwrapping his fingers to reveal a dark gray rock sitting in his palm.

  “Grazie,” Tate said, unsure of the meaning of this strange gift. When she took it into her own hands and studied it, she noticed an imprint on its face that looked strangely like a sunflower.

  Her brow furrowed. “Did you carve this?” she asked in Italian.

  “No,” he said. “We found it in the sea.”

  “Oh, Sofia, Gino! Sprigare!” Hurry up, the woman yelled to the children from farther down the beach.

  Tate started to tell them how beautiful it was, to thank them again, but they were off, racing toward the dark-haired woman, pebbles flying every which way around their little feet. She took another look at the fig-sized rock, turning it around and around in her fingers.

  A sunflower.

  Randomly impressed onto the face of a sea stone.

  This was Italy.

  “Tatiana.” Michel’s sleep-slurred voice scratched the surface of her awareness, and she turned to him. “We should go back now.”

  She stood, dusting the tiny stones from her legs, and reached out a hand to help Michel up. As the sky changed quickly from golden to gray-blue, they walked hand in hand from the beach, the cool sea stone tucked inside the bikini top she’d borrowed from Michel’s bungalow. As they reached the beach house, she pivoted to take one last look at the sea, now a murky reflection of the evening sky.

  “There’s no smoke rising from the volcano,” she told Michel as he kicked the sandals from his feet.

  He turned to take a look. “Yes, cousine, you’re right. The volcano sleeps,” he said, pushing open the screen door and starting inside. “Tomorrow, she will spit fire, I think. After the calm…no?”

  A sickly sweet taste arose on Tate’s tongue as Michel spoke. She swallowed and placed her hand over the sea stone, over her heart.

  “Don’t look so afraid, bella cousine,” Michel told her, grinning as he pulled dry shorts over his long, thickly muscled legs. “I am teasing about an eruption. Do not worry.”

  Do not preoccupy yourself, she thought, hearing Colette’s bright, bubbly voice speak the words in her memory. But, as she tied her hair back into a ponytail, a flutter of preoccupation tickled her mind. She squashed it, reminding herself where she was.

  “What time should we be back at Valanidi?” she asked, her eyes heavy with lust as she watched him slip his arms into a collared shirt.

  Angling his body to face her, he shot her a wicked grin, and his hands moved from his shirt buttons to her still bare shoulders.

  “We have time,” he told her, and drew the curtains closed.

  Chapter 35

  Tate

  “What can I do to help?” Tate asked Elena, the housekeeper who’d arrived in Valanidi to clean the house and prepare some meals for Zio during his stay.

  “Prendere l’acqua, grazie,” Elena told her, handing her two empty one-liter bottles and shooing her out of the kitchen to get water.

  It was near nine o’clock, and the table was set for dinner on the veranda. Tate and Michel had returned from Saline an hour earlier, and she’d been trying to be of assistance in the kitchen ever since. Elena, however, did not seem to appreciate Tate’s meandering around in her territory, her beady black eyes sizing Tate up every few minutes.

  As Tate pushed through the gate and crossed the street to the square, she saw that the village water fountain was unusually quiet. The small brick structure which housed the spigot that brought fresh water to every family in the village was also a local hangout. In the mornings, old men in their fedoras and suspenders lined the stone benches inside the little open-air hut, discussing everything from tobacco to women to politics. After the sun went down, la fontana became a meeting place for the young—girls in short dresses, barely sixteen; adolescent boys with pimples and wandering eyes.

  Tonight, though, there was no one at the fountain. Maybe it was still too early. Kids were probably having dinner with their families at the moment, and in an hour or so, they would start to appear.

  Tate held the first bottle beneath the cold and constant flow, then the second, until both were full. She tightened the lids and turned back toward the house.

  His shadow swam toward her before she heard his voice.

  “Dio mio,” my God, he said.

  Tate jumped and tossed a plastic water-filled bottle at the stranger who’d scared the shit out of her. He juked out of the line of fire and put his hands up as if to show her just how harmless he was.

  “Sorry,” she said, chasing the scurrying bottle and scooping it from the ground. “You startled me.”

  “You are Maria Saccone’s granddaughter,” the old man said, seeming to speak more to himself than to Tate.

  She eyed him strangely, this man with the bright white shock of hair and warm slits for eyes. “Actually, I’m Maria Domani’s granddaughter.”

  He shook his head. “Yes, of course. Maria Domani,” he said, edging closer to Tate. “So sorry. I knew her before she left for America.” A wistful look crossed his face. “I knew her well.”

  Tate’s eyes widened, and her stomach tensed. What did this man know of her Nana? “Who are you?”

  “I am Pietro Nigro, and I believe you have a package for me.”

  * * *

  Tate snuck back through the gate and into the backyard, her toes wet with the splash of fountain water. Stepping lightly across the cracked stone patio, she tried to not gain anyone’s attention. She’d left Signore Nigro sitting on the bench at la fontana and promised to be right back with her delivery.

  Hurrying toward the lemon tree behind which she’d left her purse, Tate lifted her eyes to check that no one was watching her. The last time she saw
him, Zio was in the house, engrossed in a television program. Elena was surely still in the kitchen. Confident that she was alone with her great-aunt’s secret, she placed the two water bottles on the dining table, then squatted beside the tree to open her purse. Tingling fingers closed around the thick, scratchy envelope.

  “Tatiana?”

  She gasped at the sound of her name, but then relaxed. It was only Michel.

  “Shh,” she told him, placing one finger to her lips and discreetly holding the envelope out to him.

  Michel furrowed his brows. “What are you doing?”

  Tate pushed her purse back against the tree and stood to approach Michel.

  “He’s here,” she whispered. “Signore Nigro is out at the fountain. He came to collect his package, and he says he knew my grandmother before she left for the States.”

  “Go and talk with him.” Michel tucked a stray curl behind Tate’s ear, then smoothed an open palm over her cheek. “If my grandfather asks for you, I will tell him you are speaking with a friend.”

  “Thank you, Michel,” she murmured.

  He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “Go, cousine.”

  Tate’s legs trembled with the foretaste of discovery as she approached Signore Nigro at the fountain. He sat alone in the glare of the naked yellow bulb that hung from the brick ceiling in the little structure.

  “Signore?” Tate’s voice leapt from her throat, eager and unsure at the same time.

  When she spoke, Pietro Nigro pushed himself to his feet with an air of calm. Tate noticed the broad, tall structure of his body, so uncharacteristic for this pocket of the world where both men and women tended to be small but mighty.

  Silently slipping the golden package into his open hand, she peered into his cloudy hazel eyes.

  “Grazie, bella.”

  “You’re welcome.” Tate’s mouth was wet with curiosity, dying to drench this man with questions. “My aunt Luisa asked me to give this to you.”

  The old man’s deep wrinkles stretched into a silent grin. “Does she still have the temper of a wild stallion?”

  “She does.” Tate nodded, breathing laughter through her nose.

  “I suffered many harsh lashings at the tip of your aunt’s sharp tongue. She is a strong woman, your Luisa.”

  “And my grandmother?” The words jumped from her, daring to be spoken. “Did she have a temper, too?”

  Pietro regarded her then, and although his eyes were fixed on Tate’s flushed face, they seemed to be seeing something else altogether. Tate’s pulse quickened, a sense of revelation raining softly on her shoulders.

  “Your grandmother rarely reacted in anger,” Pietro said.

  Tate knew this to be true of the woman who’d helped to raise her.

  “But,” he continued, “she was a passionate woman.”

  Tate waited, altogether impatient for him to continue. She watched as he tore the corner from the envelope and pushed a finger along the edge, opened the package and removed its contents. A thin stack of pictures fell into his hands, along with what looked like a thick letter and a brown metal key on a beaded chain.

  Pietro fingered the dull bronze key, a faraway stare settling over his eyes.

  “I gave this to your grandmother.”

  A charged confusion lit the corners of Tate’s imagination. Her belly flipped. “Why?”

  “Ah, bella, the story is a long one.” he said, shaking his head and rifling through the contents of the package. “And it is a story I am not sure you want to hear.”

  Tate bent to rescue a photograph that fell from the stack Pietro was flipping through. In its creased and fingerprinted image, a beautiful woman leaned against the trunk of a tree, her long blonde hair cascading onto sharp shoulders. She was gazing lovingly at the man standing beside her, his fingers tangled into hers, his eyes locked serenely into her stare.

  Tate looked from the picture to Pietro, waves of comprehension crashing onto the muddied shores of her consciousness.

  As she watched Pietro unfold the pages of the letter Tate was quite sure her grandmother could not have written, a disconcerting chill ghosted across her shoulders. The man seemed lost inside the words, completely oblivious to Tate’s voyeuristic presence. His eyes traveled the pages, tears bubbling inside them, and when he looked back up at her, wiping the wetness from his cheeks, Tate saw something that shook the ground beneath her feet. The world began to spin as she stood still, all too aware of the gravity that tethered her to the small square of earth where her feet were planted.

  Pietro sniffled and sighed before clearing his throat. “So, she’s gone?” he asked, looking at the wet ground beneath him.

  Tate nodded, nausea pooling in her belly at the reminder of her grandmother’s diseased death. Nana was so alive here in this place, where her stories jumped into animation at every turn; it seemed out of place to even say the words she died. Somehow, though, Tate thought, this strange old man had knowledge of a different story. A story Nana had never told.

  “She asked Luisa to pen this letter to me before she died,” he said.

  “Why did she want to send you a letter, signore?” Tate asked, feeling the answer stir the blood inside her veins even as the words left her lips. “And, this picture,” she said, holding it up for him to see. “This is my Nana.” Tate paused, taking another look at the photograph of two people who were obviously very close, and then pointed to the man standing next to the young version of Nana. “And this is you.”

  In the photo, Pietro had the same look in his eyes that she’d seen in Michel’s: a look of longing so obvious, it spoke loudly to Tate’s assumptions.

  “Yes, bella, that was your grandmother and me many, many years ago, when life was a gorgeous daydream every moment.” A sad smile hovered on his lips. “We had only to breathe and be together in those days. It was the last time I was happy,” he said.

  Tate’s eyes widened as she began to comprehend exactly what he was telling her.

  “And then, bella,” Pietro said, tucking the letter back inside the envelope, “my world came to an end.”

  Chapter 36

  Maria

  After our marriage ceremony, Giuseppe left for America. All of the family accompanied him to Sicily, to bid him farewell at the port. There was no kiss good-bye or any other gesture of fondness. Our parting was formal, him outlining his plans to me as if they were the details of a contract—which, in a way, they were. Under penalty of Nicolina’s wrath, the terms of her arrangement would not be broken.

  When his ship sailed from view, the breath burst from me like the popping of an overblown balloon. I was free. The weight of being Giuseppe’s wife slid from my shoulders like an unneeded overcoat, and the lightness of being just Maria, just Domenico’s mother, allowed me to stand a little taller. As weeks and months passed by with no word from him, it became quite easy to forget I’d ever married Giuseppe Domani.

  Some nights, I would dream of his face, of packing a suitcase with strange items—tomatoes, pebbles, a black revolver. I’d wake with my heart beating like a gong in my ears, an alarm to jolt me from my serene oblivion and remind me that the life I was reveling in was just a holding zone for a time. The dreams were a warning to not get too comfortable.

  I did, though.

  I loved my life with Domenico, Luisa, the Domani clan. The idea of building a life in America with Giuseppe seemed so far-fetched. It became buried beneath plans for today and tomorrow, overshadowed by the joys of feeling accepted and needed despite my mistakes.

  For a while, I was the talk of the town: the girl who’d stolen her cousin’s husband. The blood on my hands may have been invisible to those around me, but not a day passed that I didn’t see its crimson stain behind my eyes. My mother’s smile. Concetta’s sweet laughter. Their ghosts took residence in crinkles of my conscience, coloring every other thought that crossed my mind. Daily, I climbed the stone steps to San Nicola to make confessions; always the same sin, always the same penance. My rosar
ies became worry beads.

  I prayed for forgiveness from God and his saints, asked Him to watch over Gio, who was said to be involved in many kinds of untoward activities in Reggio. I didn’t know for sure how much of it was true, but there were stories of Mafiosi in the town. It terrified me.

  While I said my Acts of Contrition, Giuseppe’s brothers taught Luisa to play practical jokes. Her favorite was to wait in an upstairs window with a bucket of water from the pump, as Nino had instructed her. When one of the brothers would walk across the terrace beneath, she’d blast him with the icy shower. Once, when Carmelo got her back with a taste of her own medicine, she didn’t speak to him for weeks. Luisa loved to tease, but she wasn’t a good sport. She, too, had fallen into step with the Domani clan, bending easily into her role as Nino’s wife and Nicolina’s daughter-in-law. Her sharp tongue earned her more respect than disdain in Valanidi. She fit effortlessly into life on our mountain.

  And so, daily life in Valanidi carved out an identity for me, a place among its people, a purpose upon its dry, rocky paths. I had come forth with all of my imperfections, and the mountain had opened its arms to me, shame and all. Without question, I thanked God for the vacancy and the second chance and folded myself into the flow of my days. Although the heaviness of my guilt haunted me, there was a peace in being naked for all to see. I was no longer hiding behind convent walls, trying to find a place to fit in.

  I had a home.

  I had a family.

  I grew comfortable in my forgetfulness, not pausing through my daily tasks to wonder when Giuseppe would return—if Giuseppe would return. So much time had passed, I think even his own mother had begun to doubt he would come back. And I certainly wasn’t holding my breath waiting for him. Quite the opposite. With him gone, I was enjoying the breath of freedom.

  And then, one day in late January, between the raindrops of the wet season, he appeared.

  I’d just finished my daily task of baking bread for the groceria. This work suited me well, as I enjoyed the quiet in the bread house. Every morning, I’d rise at four and make my way to the little stone hut where a giant hearth sat waiting for me to work out all of my thoughts before its flames. Rolling and kneading and shaping the balls of dough into long, perfect braids—it filled me with an unexplainable pleasure to make something so tangible from a simple dust of flour. In the dark of too-early morning, I’d pray and bake and bake and pray, and I’d emerge from the bread house feeling less heavy than when I’d gone in.