Chapter 12

TWELVE

OCTOBER 2019

Wednesday

A short time later, Callie was upstairs in her third-floor guest room. It was small but quite pretty. There was a full-size bed neatly made with cool white linens and an array of pillows in crisp, scalloped pillowcases. An antique wooden dresser with a honey-gold finish was positioned against the wall, alongside a slim writing desk with a gleaming wood surface. A small, upholstered loveseat in a gold brocade fabric was adjacent to a round, glass-topped coffee table on a black iron base. An arched glass door opened up on to a narrow balcony with a filigree iron railing.

Pushing aside her suitcase, Callie unlatched the balcony door and stepped outside. The air was cool but not too bad for late October, and the view from this height was lovely. Below she could see the street she'd walked along earlier, the brown and orange buildings aglow from the slanted rays of the late afternoon autumn sun. A sweet scent—partly citrus, partly floral—flowed up from the bushes and plants on a low stone wall by the cobblestone road. Beyond the streets she could see the pitched roof of the train station, and in the distance, the turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea. According to the map Emilia had given her, those waters flowed south into the Mediterranean, which was dotted with small islands, including Parissi Island—the island Callie had read about, the island where Emilia had spent those five heavenly weeks with her sisters and her uncle before returning to face the horrors of the Nazi invasion.

Callie came back inside, leaving the door open so she could continue to breathe in the pleasing scent of the air. She supposed she should start to unpack. Because in the moments after Emilia had commented on those old photos, Callie had grown increasingly sure that she wanted to stay. It wasn't so much about Emilia's puzzling resentment toward Callie's grandmother and her own sisters. It would have been easy for Callie to say that the girl in the picture was her grandmother. She could have shown her grandparents' wedding photo as proof. Maybe Emilia would have revealed something, maybe not. Either way, Callie could have left Caccipulia with as much information as Emilia was willing to share. She could have rebooked her flight home for tomorrow, scolding herself for traveling so far when she might have saved herself a lot of cost and time by writing emails or calling the hotel and asking to speak to Emilia.

But then she'd watched Emilia turn back to her binder. And she noticed what Oliver had been trying to tell her. He was right—she came across as tough, but there was so much pain underneath. Callie had watched the elderly woman shuffle behind the desk, her lips pursing as though each step took an effort she didn't want to acknowledge. She'd watched as Emilia donned a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, her fingers trembling, and tipped her head to the right while squinting to study her handwriting on the pages. The inside corners of Emilia's eyes were bloodshot, and the skin at the base of her chin was inflamed and peeling.

Thinking about that moment, Callie felt her eyes well up. How did she ever think she could go into this place, guns blazing, and demand information? How could she insinuate herself into this woman's deep, troubled feelings, introducing information about her grandmother without even knowing if it would be welcome or not? People were often not nearly as strong as they made themselves out to be. Especially when it came to family. And sisters. Sisters could hurt one another even in the most veiled of ways. Even when it seemed they were in the right.

It had happened so often that way between her and Pam.

She remembered the weekend she'd come home for a visit when Pam was six months pregnant. That's when Pam had told her that Joe's parents were coming to live in the guest cottage in the back of the yard. It had been a shock, the way Pam said it, tossing it out in an offhand way. A done deal.

"Joe's parents are moving into the cottage," she'd said as they prepared dinner, Pam marinating the chicken breasts for the grill and Callie cutting up vegetables for a salad. It was as though she was simply updating Callie about something routine, the way a person might mention that they'd stopped for a dozen eggs, so no need to add that to the weekly shopping list.

"Sure…isn't that where they always stay?" Callie had asked, thinking Pam was planning their visit for when the baby was born. They'd moved to Arizona years before, when Joe's father had retired. What had Pam thought she expected—that they'd stay in a hotel?

"No…I mean for good," Pam said. "I need the help, and they don't need a big place. It makes a lot of sense. It's empty now, and it doesn't need much, just maybe an upgrade to the heating system. I wanted to tell you, because it belongs to both of us, you and I, at least for now. Until Joe and I finish buying you out."

"They're staying there long-term?" Callie had asked. "Like…forever?"

"What do you mean, forever?"

"That this will be their home? Permanently?"

"It's hard, having a baby," Pam had said. "And you don't intend to be around much. That's fine, of course. You deserve to live your life. But don't you see that I'm going to need help?"

"What? Well, sure."

"Good. I knew you'd understand."

They'd continued with the preparations, and by the time they brought the chicken and veggies out to Joe to grill, the conversation had moved on. Pam seemed very solicitous, asking her about her job, her travel, her friends, her new assignments, living in the big city, and so on. She told stories about work and her apartment, and Pam and Joe laughed where appropriate, and cheered her, and acted like she was the most interesting person they'd ever met. She'd felt the attention was patronizing. They were trying to butter her up.

Later that night she'd stopped Pam in the kitchen. Pam was having trouble sleeping and often roamed around downstairs at night. Callie wanted to continue their talk. It felt so wrong, so insulting. She couldn't really explain why. Pam and Joe were in the process of buying the whole property. That's what they all had agreed. And Pam had a right to make the best decisions for herself and her child. But still, Callie had the sense that she was losing out. And she knew Pam understood this, which was why she'd so craftily brought up the topic, her tone artificially casual. She'd apparently known Callie would have a problem with this decision, even if Callie couldn't articulate what the problem was.

"So…they're moving into the cottage?" she said as she sat at the table in her pajamas, and Pam brought over a quart of milk and two glasses. Callie waved her off, and Pam shrugged and filled her own glass.

"Yes." She took a sip.

"And then what?"

"Then they'll help with the baby. I have to go back to work. I get three months off and that's it."

"What about the furniture that's there?"

"They'll use that. It's nicely furnished."

"What about their own furniture?"

"They'll sell it. Or put it in storage. Or keep it and rent their place. I don't know."

"So they may be here for a long time? Like, just living there?"

"I suppose at some point they may offer to buy it."

"They'd buy it?" Callie asked.

Pam put her glass down and rolled her eyes. "What are you going on about? It's just sitting there."

"But it's ours."

"But nobody's there. What…you're going to come home to live there?"

"I don't know… maybe…"

"Please. You know you're not coming back to this town."

"I might."

"And live in the cottage?"

"Maybe. I like to know it's there. Just in case."

"And you'd rather have it sit empty, just in case, than have family there to help me?"

"I can help you out."

Pam laughed and shook her head. "Yeah. Right. You're going to give up your career to watch my baby while I go back to work."

Callie bristled at Pam's sarcasm. It was mean and unjustified. "So they're just going to stay there rent-free?" she asked.

"Do you want me to charge them rent?"

"I don't know… we could rent it out, you know."

"You never said that before."

"We could make some money."

"I need their help more than I need money. Without them, I'd have to get a sitter or put the baby in day care. Which would be fine, but expensive, and since they're available, I'd rather have her grandparents take care of her. At least while she's an infant."

"I thought Mrs. Greenbaum was going to help you."

"Well, sure, she'll help. But she can't watch the baby every day."

Callie pressed her lips together and nodded slightly. "So you just decided all this on your own? You and Joe?"

"And I'm telling you about it."

"Long after I could do anything about it."

"What would you want to do about it?"

Callie stood. "If you don't know why this is so upsetting…then fine. Forget I said anything. I'm going to sleep."

She'd gone upstairs but hadn't fallen asleep for hours. She didn't know what had gotten into her. She knew she was wrong. And it was cruel for her to torture Pam like this. Pam was right about everything: yes, she needed help; yes, the cottage was empty; yes, this was a great solution that would save Pam and Joe money and allow the baby to be cared for by her grandparents. And no, Callie had no intention of coming home.

Still, there'd been something about the news that had gotten under her skin. She felt betrayed. Overlooked. Like a rug had been pulled out from under her feet. Like she no longer had much of a voice around here. The request for her buy-in had been perfunctory. Pam had never treated her that way before—as a "less than." But she'd done that now.

Callie had sensed that same feeling in the lobby when Emilia had accused her sisters of abandoning her. And betraying her. Emilia was ninety-one, according to Oliver, and Italian, and Callie was American and sixty years younger. But once again, as had happened when she'd read about Emilia online, she couldn't shake the feeling that they were alike. Sisters are the closest relative there is , Pam had liked to say. Which meant, Callie now saw, that they could hurt you in a way no one else could. And the hurt didn't go away, no matter how many years or decades passed.

Callie scowled as she contemplated her situation now. It felt as though Emilia's anger had brought her own to the fore. She was mad at Pam for leaving this family mystery for her to solve and for never telling her about it. She was mad that Pam had planned to trick her into taking this trip, to shove an airline ticket into her hand, assuming she was scattered enough, had few enough responsibilities, and could just take off. Maybe it was true, maybe she was pretty much free right now, with no job or other obligation there in Philadelphia; but still, she didn't like being judged that way. She didn't like that Pam thought she had Callie's life pegged.

The whole situation wasn't fair. It bothered her that she couldn't ever know what had been in Pam's mind when she gathered those items and put them in the box, locking it with Callie's birthday as the code. It infuriated her that Pam may actually have known a lot about what went on between their grandmother and Emilia, and that she couldn't ask Pam about it. And the memory of that argument about Joe's parents only reinforced how very divided she and Pam had been.

She wished so much that she could speak to Pam just one more time. One last conversation. To tie up all the still-loose threads.

But since she couldn't, it seemed the only way to move forward was to get to know Emilia. To develop a bond. She wanted to know how Emilia came to hate her sisters as well as Callie's grandmother, and why that feeling was still so ripe even after so many years. And she wanted to know what role her grandmother played in the story of Emilia's family.

Now she understood what Oliver had been trying to tell her. She wasn't going to get answers by demanding them. Just from the few minutes she'd spent with Emilia, she knew Emilia wouldn't respond well to that. No, she would get answers by being patient. By waiting until Emilia trusted her. And believed she could be a friend. Even though she had less than a week to do it.

She opened her suitcase and took out the wooden box. She slipped it inside one of the dresser drawers.

She didn't need it now. She would retrieve it when the time was right.