DIANE VALLERE

CHAPTER 1

 

Nobody told me we’d be staying at a villa.

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“I thought you said we were staying at Monica’s place?” I asked Nick under my breath.

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“That’s what my dad said,” Nick whispered back to me. “Dad? I thought we were staying at Monica’s place.”

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“This is Monica’s place,” Senior said. “You two are supposed to be well-adjusted adults. Don’t embarrass me by acting like you just fell off the potato truck.”

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“More like the pommes frites truck,” I said to Nick.

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“That’s French. We’re in Italy.”

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“What’s potato in Italy?”

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“Po-tah-to.” The two of us dissolved into laughter like a couple of ten-year-olds.

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“Knock it off back there,” Senior said. “If you can’t act like adults, I’m going to have to separate you.”

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At this, we laughed harder.

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Under most circumstances, my husband and I acted like perfectly respectable adults (though if you’ve already met me, you may take issue with this comment). But after six hours of flying from California to Pennsylvania (after an extended Christmas visit with my parents) and a couple of hours of driving to New York (where we waited in the airport before our flight to Italy departed for our vacation with Nick’s dad), we were both a little punchy. Nick Senior—Dad to Nick and Senior to me—had had the luxury of sleeping on the flight, thanks to two glasses of champagne and a reclining seat in business class. The trip was Senior’s treat, but we kids opted to sit in coach so we could hypothesize about his motivation without him knowing.

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It was four days after Christmas or two days before New Year’s Eve, depending on which way you looked at it, but no matter which holiday you chose as your tentpole, it was the end of a whopper of a year. Months ago, Senior considered buying a dude ranch in New Jersey as a potential retirement diversion. We all went to check it out, and during our stay, we learned details about the ranch that made it less attractive as an investment. We’d thought Senior had gotten his wanderlust out of his system, until he gave us our early Christmas present: round-trip tickets to Italy for the lot of us—him, us, and Bardot, his French bulldog companion.

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Senior kept the details of the trip close to his vest, but from what I’d ascertained through a series of polite inquiries and invasive questions, we were going to Monza, a city north of Milan, to stay with Monica Lombardi, a woman he knew from his days running the footwear company Nick inherited. Monica’s daughter, Isabella, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer when she was in her teens, but she’d come out the other side. Thanks to what some might call extreme generosity from an anonymous sperm donor, she also had a daughter who, not uncoincidentally, shared Senior (and Nick’s) DNA.

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Maybe now you can understand why we spent the flight hypothesizing about the visit.

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I was tired and punchy and hungry, but for Senior’s sake, I pulled my act together. After collecting our luggage at the airport in Malpensa, we located the driver we’d hired to drive us to our destination. When it came to Italy, I was familiar with Milan, thanks to my experience as a shoe buyer, but we’d left that city behind. The driver had taken us on a journey through rolling hills, Italian countryside, vineyards, and past a few castles, if my eyes hadn’t deceived me.

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After about an hour, he pulled onto a gravel road that led to a creamy stone villa. The building was set off with clay roof tiles and a surfeit of greenery. The structure sat behind a two-foot-tall wall and locked gate. A Fiat and a rusty car of an unfamiliar make were parked to the left of the entrance, and across the narrow street sprawled a field of olive trees bearing fruit.

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I’d lived in neighborhoods smaller than this.

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Senior turned and slung his arm over the back of his seat. “Go ahead and ask. I know it’s killing you.”

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“Are we there yet?” we asked in unison.

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He cracked a grin. “Yes.”

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As the driver pulled our luggage out of the back of his car, Senior clipped a leash onto Bardot and set her onto the ground. The French bulldog nosed around the grass, periodically looking up at him. I was a little envious that he’d been able to bring Bardot while I’d had to leave my cat, Logan, at home, but whenever I pictured Logan on an extended vacation that included more than one six-plus-hour flight, I knew my cat was better off being looked after by my friend Eddie back home.

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Like Nick and Senior, I was happy to be out of the cramped car. We each stretched our limbs, shook out our legs, closed our eyes, and inhaled the scents of Italy. 

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An unfamiliar voice called to us in Italian. A few moments later, a pretty woman with a printed silk scarf stylishly knotted over her head came out of the building.

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“Benvenuto!” she called. She waved, showing a broad, welcoming smile, before saying something to someone behind her. She blocked my view of who she’d addressed, but she quickly turned back to us and said, “Chiara is on her way to greet you.”

After hours (and hours and hours) of traveling, I’d been looking forward to saying hello and then excusing myself for a restorative nap, but as soon as the door to the gate was opened, revealing a seven-year-old in a red velvet dress, white tights, and black patent leather Mary Janes, I woke right up. 

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Chiara charged toward Nick and launched herself at him. He scooped her up and kissed her on the cheek.

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She was a well-adjusted Italian girl with friends in the States. Nick and his dad had brought Chiara to live with us last year while her mother underwent an unexpected round of cancer treatments because of a recurrence. At six years old, Chiara had just the right amount of curiosity to benefit from a broader worldview. Nick had been as surprised by the situation as I had. While he was looking at footwear factories and attending to the sale of his apartment in Milan, Senior had had his own adventure, returning to their hotel room the day of departure with a six-year-old girl in tow. Despite a battery of questions and only the barest of answers, we got the message: Chiara would be nothing but a welcome guest to any of us. Aside from a minor language barrier (not a problem to my bilingual husband and father-in-law), Chiara acclimated to American life easily, and I’d been sad to see her leave. Nick and I had flirted with the idea of starting our own nuclear unit, but it wasn’t in the cards.

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From what I’d noticed, nobody seemed to care very much about her lineage. Chiara was a well-adjusted child with an attentive family, and that was more than a lot of people could say. Nobody complained about receiving too much love.

While Nick and Senior took turns catching up with Chiara, the woman in the scarf approached me. “You must be Samantha.”

“And you must be Isabella.” I extended my hand for a formal meeting, but she leaned forward and pressed her left cheek against mine, kissed the air, and then repeated the air kiss on the right side. I wasn’t unaccustomed to Italian cheek-kissing greetings, thanks to years spent traveling to Italy for my job as a designer shoe buyer (and more than one Fellini movie), but since I knew this encounter would be a personal meeting, I hadn’t been sure what to expect. Isabella’s reception was like being zapped with a warming ray of sunshine.

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“Come inside. You must be exhausted from your travels.”

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Nick set Chiara down, and she grabbed the handle of my rolling suitcase with both hands. Using all her might, she pulled it alongside her and toward the doors. I hoisted my tote bag over my shoulder, grabbed another suitcase, and followed. Nick and Senior dealt with their luggage. We were planning on staying for two weeks, and neither of the men had said a word about how much I had packed.

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I mean, Italy. For two weeks. In December.

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One of my suitcases was empty, because… Italy. For two weeks. In December.

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The property was made of rich, creamy stone, with a large patio covered in lush green plants. A bisque-colored gate stood open at the top of a wide stone staircase five steps high, leading to a set of imposing slate-colored doors. The windows were covered with metal trellises that allowed natural sunlight to enter.

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I followed Isabella through the front doors and marveled at the interior. Blond wood floors in a chevron pattern warmed the foyer. Arched doorways trimmed with matching wood allowed the rooms to flow into one another: sitting room into dining room, dining room into kitchen. The balcony doors were closed now, and sunlight filtered through blue-and-orchid panes of glass on the art nouveau design. We passed an office with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, a stately wooden desk, and a white conference table surrounded with modern white chairs. The walls held paintings and tapestries, juxtaposing modern furniture elements with old-world charm.

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“Where is your mother?” I asked. “I’ve heard so much about her, and I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

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Isabella’s body tensed. She looked over her shoulder at a set of closed doors. “She’s—she’ll be out to greet you in a moment.”

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As if on cue, the closed doors opened, but instead of the woman who had invited us to her villa, a man in a dark blue uniform strode out. He held his hat in his hands. At the sight of us, his face twisted into a scowl. He turned back and said something to the woman, who followed him out of the room. She replied in rapid-fire Italian, then she slapped him across the face.