The maid nodded, wiped her hands on her apron, and returned to the kitchen.
The big decision had already been made: whether to make the trip at all.
It had come after her visit to the doctor two months earlier, when what should have been a regular exam turned out to be anything but routine. As she drove home that afternoon she realized that she had to return to Orvieto, and it had to be now, while she still could. What was it she had told her? A year, perhaps more if she were lucky? But the serious symptoms would not become debilitating until close to the end. Some consolation. She had a death sentence hanging over her, but she would not go quietly. Submissiveness was not her style. Never had been. She’d turned her focus to Orvieto, spending hours on the Internet searching for threads that would connect her to that year so long ago. What she found both shocked and delighted her. Thoughts of the trip had already been dominating her waking hours. Now, with this new information, they were seeping into her dreams.
The phone rang. She padded to the table next to the bed to see the number. “Don’t answer it, Anna. I’ll get it,” she called to the other room. She reached for the receiver.
“Hi, Gina. I was just packing.”
“I haven’t started yet, Mom,” said the voice at the other end.
Rhonda noticed something in her daughter’s voice. “What’s the matter, Gina? Are you having second thoughts again? I told you there would be enough vegetarian choices on the menus in Italy. You can eat pasta, can’t you? Or has that moved to the prohibited list too?”
“Don’t be like that, Mom. You know it isn’t that.” There was a pause. “I’m just concerned about you, whether you’re doing the right thing. If you’re making this trip for the right reasons. You can’t achieve fulfillment in your life if you dwell on negatives. You must expel the negative energy inside you that has built up over the years and cleanse your system. This trip won’t do that.”
“I don’t need any of that psycho-babble, Gina. Your friends there in Santa Fe love that crap, but it doesn’t work on me. You should know that by now.”
The heavy breath was audible. “I suppose I should. But please, at least think about what you really are searching for in Italy.”
“Whatever. Don’t miss your flight. Francine and I will be waiting for you in the first-class lounge in Atlanta near the international departure gates. Our flight arrives an hour before yours, so Francine will likely be loaded by the time you get there. We’ll probably have to pour her onto the flight.”
“I’ll be there, Mom.”
Rhonda put down the phone. As loopy as her daughter could sometimes be, she had a point. What was the real reason she wanted to go back? It had been something she’d been wrestling with since getting the news from the doctor. At first she had told herself she needed to return to Orvieto to get closure. Closure? What the hell did that mean? She didn’t need to close the book on that part of her life so she could move on; she wasn’t going to be moving on for very much longer. Did she need to see those people again, look them in the face and let them see that she’d done something with her life and wasn’t just another idealistic art student? She had to admit there was something to that. It was in the middle of the night when it came to her. She had to walk those streets again, the streets where she and Luca had strolled those many years ago. It wouldn’t bring him back, but she needed to do it. Why, she didn’t know. Gina would have some explanation, but Rhonda would never hear it because she would never tell her daughter. This was between her and Luca.
Leaving one suitcase still empty, Rhonda walked to a set of glass doors, pushed them open, and stepped out onto the tiled lanai where her gin and tonic waited. Seeing that the drink was warm, she thought about calling Anna for more ice, but instead pushed it to one side of the glass table. A rich expanse of golf fairway with mountains hovering in the distance should have drawn her eye, but she sat and opened a yellowed plastic photo album on the table. Italia 1979 was printed in a young, feminine hand on the cover. She opened it and slowly turned the pages while her eyes moved from one yellowed picture to another, until she reached the third page. There she stopped.
Chapter Two
The Frecciarossa passed high above their car window like the hare getting a head start on the tortoise. Its high-speed track was set higher than the A1 autostrada as well as the older rail line, as if to emphasize the superiority of the flashy competitor. But it was not a true competition. Those rail users who needed to stop at places between Rome and Florence did not have the option to board the “red arrow,” since it went directly to the Tuscan capital. Instead, they took one of the locals that used the original trackbed and traveled at a more leisurely speed. All three transportation options ran through the Tiber Valley, tunneling under the occasional hill but mostly running flat and fast through green fields near the river.
Rick kept the rental car at an even hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, passing most cars easily. Elizabetta Innocenti—known to all but her traditional father as Betta—leaned her head against the passenger seat, her eyes closed. Sleeping in the car was something Rick had never been able to do, no matter how tired he was. He stared at the countryside, remembering past family trips through Italy. They had usually gone by car, he and his sister packed in the back and complaining about how long it was
