“She was? Oh, I’m so sorry you lost your daughter. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”
Luciano watched Isotta, an expression of gentle sadness in his eyes.
She frowned. “But, aspetta. That means you are Margherita’s grandfather.”
Luciano slowly nodded.
Eyes narrowing Isotta asked, “How could I not know this? Why did no one tell me? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been going on and on about my family, and you are a part of that family?”
“Allora, when Giulia died, my grief . . . it was an abyss both impossible and uninteresting to explain. Then, soon after I lost my daughter, my wife passed away. A double loss. I didn’t deal with it well. I shut myself away. Truth be told, I drank. Too much.”
The chokehold around Isotta’s heart loosened, as she remembered her first glimpses of Luciano, his lost eyes and his rumpled suit. “I understand. I mean, I can’t really understand, that much sadness is hard to even imagine. But of course, grief would create a wall between you and the family. I’m happy to build a relationship back, I’m sure Margherita would love to know you as her grandfather and—”
“No.” Luciano held out a hand to forestall her. “I apologize, I don’t mean to be short. But I’m not asking anything of you. Quite the opposite, I fear.”
He took a breath, trying not to look at Isotta’s face, devoid of color now as she waited.
“Have you by chance seen any photos of Giulia?”
“No. Why?”
Luciano took the towel off the tray to reveal a picture frame. Slowly he picked up the frame and handed it to Isotta. “I believe it is time you see this.”
Isotta, her face twisted in confusion, took the photo. It was scratched and there was no glass in the frame. “But, that’s me. That’s me and Massimo, when was this taken?”
“No, cara,” Luciano said gently, “That’s my daughter. That’s Giulia.”
At the ringing shut of the empty mailbox, the front door flew open. Elisa’s hands shielded her face. Her mother scanned the street to see who was watching, nodded at the lack of neighbors, and then yanked Elisa indoors by the shirt.
“WHAT IS THIS?” Concetta began, snapping a piece of paper that Elisa assumed was her report card.
Elisa closed her eyes and cried, wildly shaking her head back and forth and moaning, “Noooooooo . . .”
“I TOLD you, Elisa! I TOLD YOU. But you are such a DIMWIT apparently you didn’t even understand my very simple ‘YOU MUST NOT FAIL’!”
Elisa crumpled onto the floor as Guido ran into the room. “What’s going on? I have a test tomorrow I need to study for—”
“Tell that to your waste of a sister who can’t even pass her idiotic classes! She FAILED. FAILED MATH.” Concetta collapsed onto the couch across from Elisa. Arms clasped between her legs she raised her eyes to her son. “What are we going to do . . . your father . . . I can’t, Guido, I can’t . . .”
Guido crouched beside Elisa and put his arm around her, which only made her howl harder. “I’m sorry, Mamma! I’m sorry! I’m doing better, I am! Look!” She clutched at her backpack, her sweaty fingers flying off the zipper until she wiped her hand on her shirt and tried again. “Guarda, Mamma? See? Dieci! I got full marks, and the one before this I got an eight! It’s getting better. I’m working, I’m trying!”
Guido took the test from Elisa. “Wow, nice job Elisa. Is this what you were studying for all weekend?”
Elisa sniffed and nodded.
“And no doodles! You must have been very focused.”
Elisa knew her brother was teasing her to make her smile, she only sagged against him. “I just needed help. I have help now, I’m doing better.”
Concetta narrowed her eyes. “Help? What do you mean, ‘help’?”
“A tutor, I was getting tutored, I told you . . .”
“You never did.”
“I did! I did!”
“We have no money for a tutor. How are you paying this miracle worker?”
Guido interrupted. “Mamma, stop talking to Elisa like that. If her grades are improving, she won’t be held back.”
“But now, Guido. What do I tell your father?”
“What do you tell me about what?” The square of draining light behind the figure at the threshold disappeared as Elisa’s father shut the door.
Isotta ran through the street, desperate to get back to her house.
She hadn’t been able to stay at Luciano’s for even a minute after he had shown her the photograph. One look at Massimo gazing adoringly at a woman who looked like she could be Isotta’s twin had been enough to turn her insides to water. Everything about the last two months clicked into a new pattern. Massimo’s sudden interest, his insistence on their rapid marriage and her taking up the mantle of Margherita’s mother. Margherita . . . is this why the child bonded with her so quickly? Did Massimo marry her just to give his daughter back the mother she’d lost too early? So that they could both avoid grieving a past that couldn’t ever be changed?
She couldn’t think, she couldn’t think. He had to be wrong—that photo, it must have been manipulated. Luciano seemed like a befuddled, harmless man, but maybe this was all some scam, some trick. Someone helped him, doctored the photo. Maybe he was angry that she was with Margherita when his own stupid drinking had denied him that privilege.
Finally, her front door. She wrenched the doorknob and shoved the door open, slamming it behind her and rushing to her room.
But it didn’t feel like her room. It felt like the room of a fiction, a story. A story that was distorted and grainy, and only getting more so as the minutes ticked by. There was nothing here. And Anna could be home with Margherita at any moment.
She spun on her heel and strode down the hallway into Anna’s room. Flicking on the light,
