Epilogue

EPILOGUE

SEPTEMBER 2022

"Pamela," Callie cooed as she bent over the crib, tickling the baby's round belly. "It's time to wake up. We have a big day."

She reached into the crib and lifted up her eight-month-old daughter, whose fine, brown hair resembled those of her namesake. But those long eyelashes—those were her father's all the way.

Callie brought Pamela over to the dressing table in her sunlight-filled room and changed her into the dress she'd bought especially for today, a pale-yellow dress dotted with pink and purple carnations. Pam's favorite flowers.

Just then she heard footsteps from down the hall. "Daddy's coming," she said.

A moment later Oliver walked into the room, looking so handsome in his jeans and blue button-down shirt. Marriage and parenthood agreed with him, she thought. As it agreed with her.

He put his arm around Callie's waist and leaned over to plant a kiss on Pamela's nose. "Ready?" he asked Callie.

"I feel like I've been ready forever," she said.

Oliver scooped up the baby and they walked downstairs to the expansive living room. Callie never would have believed it, but she loved living in this farmhouse. Not too long ago, she would have thought it too remote. In fact, that's exactly what she'd believed when she first saw it, back when Meg and her family were living here. But when they'd returned to the States last year so Gustavo could accept his new position at Stanford and were looking for someone to rent the house, she and Oliver were quick to grab it. They'd been living in Oliver's small apartment over the coffee bar in Caccipulia since they'd married a few months earlier, and with a baby on the way, they needed to move. They didn't know how long they were planning to stay in Italy, but for now, it suited them perfectly.

Callie didn't want to be anywhere else but close to Emilia. She wanted to take care of her, for as many years as Emilia had left. She'd felt that way as soon as she'd finished breakfast with her that morning in Caccipulia. At dinner that night, she'd told Oliver all about it.

"Emilia told me her whole story, and I told her mine," she'd said. "And I don't think I'm ready to put her story behind me."

"I don't think I'm ready to put our story behind me," he'd said.

She'd nodded. She, too, had thought there could be so much more to come.

She took Pamela from Oliver and brought her to the living room, where Joe and Chloe, now four, were working on a puzzle. She was so glad Joe had wanted to take some time off from work to visit. Joe had been wonderful to her from the moment she came home from Italy three years ago. She'd had surprises for him—the story of her grandparents and Emilia. And it turned out that he had surprises for her as well.

"Of course, I knew Pam had that trip planned," he'd told her as they sat down in the living room the evening she returned, after putting Chloe to bed. "I helped her plan it. I didn't tell you when you came home for the funeral because…well, I was a wreck that week. I barely remember any of it. It was the last thing I was thinking about, that trip. But if you had shown me what you found that day up in the bedroom, I would have told you all about it."

"I didn't think that you knew," she said. "I was sure you would have talked about the trip with me at some point if it wasn't a secret."

"We found the supper club card and the old photos when we were remodeling the bedroom for Chloe," he said. "Pam learned that Emilia taught cooking, and she wanted to go there to learn and also to find out more about your grandparents. She wrote Emilia a letter all about us and Chloe and how your grandparents were from Italy and came here during the war. And that's how it all started."

"But she hated to travel. She never left home."

"She didn't hate to travel. She just loved being here. She wasn't as much of an adventurer as you, but she wasn't a hermit, either."

"But if you knew all about it, why did she hide the stuff in the box with the code that only I would know?"

"She thought it was the right thing to do," he said. "After all, it was your story too."

"Then why didn't she tell me what she was doing?"

"Callie, she wanted to tell you. She wanted to invite you to go with her. But you seemed to be avoiding her, especially when you decided to move to Philadelphia. She didn't understand, but she thought that if she got you to come home, she could entice you to take the trip to Italy on the spur of the moment. You were pretty spontaneous in those days. And, you know, she did have your passport."

Callie looked away. "I was horrible to her. I just couldn't face her back then. But it never occurred to me I'd never see her again. We were on such bad terms when she died."

" I guess," Joe said. "But Callie, she loved you. You were her sister."

Callie put Pamela in her infant seat on the floor to watch her cousin and her uncle finish the puzzle. She watched Oliver give Pamela her bottle, then went into the kitchen.

Emilia was there, preparing the most glorious feast imaginable. She'd closed the hotel last week so she could be here preparing for five full days. She'd been up since before dawn to complete the spread. There was fish and chicken and pasta and all kinds of savory vegetable dishes, with plenty of cakes, cookies, and pastries for dessert. Enough to feed a small army. Which was just about the size of the crowd they were expecting. Oliver had helped her all week as well. He still loved Italian cooking, although he'd never made it back to Boston to open a restaurant with his friends. Because a better opportunity had come up. He and Meg had decided to open a new restaurant in Caccipulia on the site of Callie's great-grandmother's restaurant—the one Philippa had closed back in 1943, due to the war. The one that Callie now knew was pictured among the photographs she'd found in Pam's locked box.

And Callie had gotten a dream job, too. She'd learned that the Parissi Museum—the historical museum on the site of Parissi Castle, where Emilia and her sisters had spent that fateful summer of 1943—was looking for apprentice curators to help with its painting and sculpture wing, devoted to artists who'd spent time at Parissi Castle. She was working remotely part-time as she completed a degree in art history at the University of Rome.

And when she started working for the Parissi Museum, that's when Callie learned how Emilia came to have enough money to rebuild the town of Caccipulia. Many years after the war, she'd been identified by the Italian authorities as the sole living heir to Parissi Island. She'd gone there to look around, but had found she wanted nothing to do with the island or the castle. The memories were just too sad. So she'd accepted a settlement to turn the whole island over to a nonprofit company with plans to develop a museum there. And she'd used the settlement to recreate the town she loved so much.

Callie watched Emilia at work, her big, white apron reaching almost to the floor, protecting her new blue dress. Her hair was combed into a beautiful, sleek bun, and she'd put lipstick and eye shadow on. She was so excited about today. Everyone was. Including Meg and Gustavo, who had arrived a few days ago with their boys and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter named Gabriella, to help with the preparations.

Suddenly, Oliver called from the living room. "They're here, they're here!" And Callie and Emilia ran to the window where he was. It had taken many, many months of research, but finally Callie and Oliver had traced what had happened for sure to Emilia's sisters. And while they'd both been on Parissi Island when the Nazis arrived, it turned out neither of them had been killed in the ambush that had taken the lives of so many. The eldest sister, Annalisa—the sister that Oliver's grandfather had fallen in love with on Parissi Island long ago—had eventually made it to the United States, married, and settled on Long Island. Sadly, she'd passed away but she'd left behind a granddaughter named Mia, a researcher with a Ph.D. in cardiology, who lived in New York with her history professor husband and two small children. And remarkably, Mia's husband, Leo, was also a grandson of that famous composer who had fallen in love with Annalisa. He and Oliver were distant cousins. They'd even met a few times when they were children.

As for the middle sister, Giulia, she was still alive, and had moved with her husband to New York just as the pandemic hit. They'd wanted to be closer to their granddaughter, Tori, a dressmaker, and her family—a musician husband, a teenage daughter, and a pair of young twins.

The pandemic had delayed the reunion, but finally, the entire family had arrived from the United States that morning. There had been so many of them that Callie had chartered a coach to transport them from the airport.

Now as she looked out, she saw all the people—women, men, children, babies—start to descend from the coach onto the driveway. And then she saw a young man hold out his hand—and a very old woman slowly make her way down the steps.

It was Emilia's sister, Giulia. A beauty, just as Emilia had described her. With wavy white hair and large eyes, and a sweet, heart-shaped face. Here to see her younger sister. After almost eighty years.

Emilia, her hands trembling, removed her apron and slowly made her way out through the front door. Callie and Oliver followed, along with Meg, Gustavo, and their children. Outside, everyone fell silent. It was as though time stood still, while the two sisters made their way to one another. They paused for a moment and then embraced, their arms tightly around each other, their bodies swaying. At one point Giulia took her baby sister's face in her hands and shook her head, as though she couldn't believe they were together again. And then they hugged some more.

Callie felt herself start to cry, as Oliver came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She sniffled and looked up at him. "It's unbelievable," she whispered, and he nodded and held her.

And it was unbelievable. A lowly Jewish tailor and an Italian heiress had fallen in love and married against all odds. And look what they had created, she thought. Look what came of those two lives—this crowd of families, these people who had fallen in love and made babies and were pursuing great careers, sharing with the world their talents and expertise. Living with hope and purpose and love. Embracing happiness despite the horror that had sadly consumed their ancestors—or maybe because of the dreams they'd never given up on. And Callie, too—Callie was a product of that brave couple from long ago. She was here thanks to their youngest surviving daughter, Emilia, who'd helped her grandparents start afresh.

Joe came out just then with Chloe and Pamela, and he handed Pamela to Callie. Callie adjusted her position so Pamela could watch the sisters embrace. She hoped that in some way, her baby would remember this moment. Or just absorb it deep inside of her.

Yes, this was a day for family. But it was mostly a day for sisters.

Callie thought of Pam as she watched Emilia and Giulia hold onto one another. Sisters are the closest relative there is , Pam had always said.

"You were right, Pam," she whispered. "You were so right."

* * *