Chapter 4

FOUR

OCTOBER 2019

Tuesday

The next morning was sunny and warm, and after having breakfast with Joe and his parents, Callie took Chloe to the neighborhood playground. As she pushed Chloe on the baby swing, she watched her fine brown hair blow in the breeze, and listened to her giggle, and felt so sorry that Pam wasn't there to enjoy her sweet little girl. From the time she was young, Pam had loved being home with family. She'd adored their grandparents and was so considerate of them, even though Callie often found their tastes old-fashioned and their rules unreasonably strict. Like Pam, Nonna and Nonno lacked spontaneity—and spontaneity was what Callie always craved. Still, they were good people, Callie reminded herself now. Loving and nurturing. And utterly devoted to their granddaughters.

Thinking about them, Callie couldn't help but wish her grandmother was here right now to hug her and make her some hot soup and soft biscuits, the food she always used to serve when Callie wasn't feeling well. And she wasn't feeling well now. She was grieving—not in the same way Joe was, but grieving still. And unlike Joe, she had no one to comfort her. She had no parents, no grandparents, no husband, no children. Pam had been her family. And now she had no one.

Pulling herself together, she brought Chloe back to the guest house and got ready to leave. She had been strong and independent before now, she told herself, and she could be that way again. Pam's death was a nightmare, and she was going to be sad for a while, but she would get through it. As Joe went to start the car to drive her to the train station, Callie said goodbye to his parents and hugged Chloe. It should have felt normal, rote, she thought, to say goodbye to Little Bridge, her hometown. Leaving home after short visits was something she'd been doing since she'd started college. Still, this time it seemed strange to be leaving so soon. She'd expected to stay for a while to help Joe with Chloe, not realizing they would be taking off right away for Michigan. But it made sense. There was something so right about Joe being in a place he'd known since he was a child, surrounded by his parents' love. It would be good for Chloe as well, to see her dad finding comfort.

As she said goodbye to Joe at the station, she promised again that she'd be here in two weeks, when he returned from Michigan. And she'd stay as long as he needed her to. Then, climbing out of the car and going around to open the trunk, she pulled out her rolling suitcase and hoisted the tote bag up over her shoulder. The bag felt surprisingly heavy, and she wondered why she hadn't noticed that when she came here. And then she remembered.

It was heavier now because it held her sister's locked wooden box. She was leaving for Italy tonight. And she was taking it with her.

She'd had to bring it with her, she thought as she found a seat on the train and pushed her suitcase onto the overhead rack. And she had to keep it a secret. She assumed that Joe would have mentioned the Italy trip to her this morning if Pam had told him about it. She figured that Pam had decided it would be fine to leave Joe and Chloe for a few days to take this special trip with her sister, knowing that Joe's parents would be available to help out. So Callie had decided to keep the tickets from him. She didn't want to put any news or questions onto his plate, when he was already dealing with so much pain and so much concern about his baby daughter. She'd tell him about the trip later, after it was over.

She'd snuck back to the house late last night to get the box, after all the guests had left and she'd returned with Joe and Chloe to the guest house, loaded down with leftover containers of hot food, cheeses, cut-up fruit, and fresh rolls and muffins. It had moved Callie almost to tears last night as she helped wrap up the food, the way so many people had offered to go grocery shopping or prepare food or watch Chloe or do whatever Joe would need in the difficult weeks and months ahead. Joe and Pam had such a strong and loving community. As the train lurched forward to pull out of the station, Callie grimaced, thinking that there was no one for her to call and talk to about Pam. She'd only been in Philadelphia for three weeks, and hadn't yet made any friends. No one knew her except her landlords—the couple who lived upstairs from her in the duplex. And she didn't have any close friends from her previous job in New York. She had had a boyfriend, for a time. But he wasn't someone she would call now. Or ever again, for that matter.

She thought back to how she'd returned to the house and retrieved the box. It was still her house, of course, but she'd nevertheless felt as though she were trespassing. She was glad she still carried the key on her keyring. Using the flashlight on her phone, she'd unlocked the front door and made her way upstairs to Pam's old room. She hadn't wanted to turn on any lights. She was scared that Mrs. Greenbaum or Joe or his parents or another neighbor might see a lamp switch on and come over to investigate—or even call the police, fearing a break-in. It was that type of neighborhood, where everyone looked out for one another. And she didn't want to have to invent an explanation for why she was there.

Upstairs, she'd instinctively avoided the long-standing creaky floorboard that Joe intended to fix, made her way into Pam's room, and gently slid the bottom desk drawer open. She knew that nobody would have heard her even if she'd dropped the box and it crashed onto the wooden floor; but still, what she was doing felt illicit, and seemed to require silence. As she reached for the box, it struck her that secrecy was familiar to her, a place where she knew the layout of the rooms, the quickest path from one floor to the next, and the areas where the sun never reached, allowing her to sense when she could temporarily let her guard down. She wasn't proud that keeping mum and avoiding certain topics had become her superpower.

But with any luck, she'd thought as she placed the box beneath her jacket, feeling the sharp edges through her dress as she stole back outside into the night, this would be her last secret. Maybe this trip her sister intended would help her find her way.

The train picked up speed and made its way toward Manhattan, where Callie would transfer to the train to JFK Airport. Calling the airline last night, she'd been able to switch her own ticket to this evening. She figured she'd deal with getting a refund for Pam's ticket another time, since she didn't have the strength to cope with explaining about Pam's death so soon. It was lucky, she thought, that she'd filled a large suitcase when she'd left Philly, figuring she'd be staying on a while to help Joe. It meant that she didn't have to waste a day traveling to Philly to pack before leaving for Rome. After giving the matter some thought, she'd decided to keep the return ticket for next Sunday that Pam had purchased. She knew that would only give her four full days in Italy, but she wanted to be back in Little Bridge early, in case Joe chose for some reason to come home sooner than planned. Caccipulia seemed a tiny town, and she hoped she could track down her grandmother's story quickly. She knew she could always rebook her return if she found that she needed more time. But the priority was to make sure she was available to help Joe with Chloe as she'd promised. She wanted to be responsible, to conform to a schedule for a change. She wasn't going to let Joe down.

She wasn't going to let Pam down.

Sitting back for the one-hour trip to New York, she leaned her head on the headrest and closed her eyes. The last time she'd been to JFK was last winter, about eight months ago, when she'd traveled to New Orleans on a company retreat. The night that had started her longest—and her last, as it would turn out—rift with Pam. Over him . The night she would head down a road she should have been smart enough to avoid. "Stay out with me tonight," he'd said that night in New Orleans, when they were both so far from home. "Stay out and let's forget everything else we think we know." It had felt deliciously dangerous to say yes. The tingle she'd felt down her back had overshadowed the warnings sounding in her head. She could handle it, she'd thought. She could handle him . His encouraging, sexy tone gave her confidence. His clear attraction to her made her feel strong and talented and smart. And beautiful.

Callie shivered and opened her eyes, not wanting to relive that moment any longer. She breathed in and looked around, hoping for a distraction. Across the aisle was a mother and daughter. The little girl was around seven and wearing some kind of homemade bunny costume, a pink jumpsuit with a white felt patch on her belly, pink cardboard ears pinned to her head, and a pink pom-pom on her nose. On her feet were white ankle-high boots with green construction-paper circles glued on. Callie assumed the costume was connected to Halloween, which was…what, about a week away? She couldn't help but think about Chloe as a seven-year-old, and all the Halloweens she'd never share with Pam. Would she be sad when all the other kids in the neighborhood had moms to help choose their costumes and take them to parties? All the Halloweens Chloe had ahead, all the holidays and birthdays, and Pam would miss them all. Callie knew Pam would have loved thinking up Halloween costumes with Chloe and making them from scratch.

The little girl noticed Callie's gaze and turned her body sideways, pulling down on her shirt with her hands to give Callie a full view of her white bunny belly.

"Is that your Halloween costume?" Callie asked.

The little girl nodded. "Do you know who I am?" she asked.

"A bunny rabbit?"

The little girl sighed heavily and turned to her mom. "See?" she said. Then she turned back to Callie. "I'm Wally the Rabbit," she told her firmly, as though explaining a math concept to a younger sibling. "He's from my book, and when he does something nice, his boots sparkle with bright-green dots. Like this." She kicked her legs out toward the aisle so Callie could see her boots.

"What a great costume," Callie said.

The girl shook her head. "It's a very bad costume," she said. "I went to one school party and two friend parties, and none of the grown-ups knew who I was. I had to explain over and over and over. If I knew nobody knew about the book, I would never be this costume at all." She turned back to her mother. "Mom, isn't there time to change to a princess or a witch?"

Her mother smiled at Callie and raised her palms as if looking for commiseration on how hard parenting can be. Then she kissed her daughter's head. "I'm sorry this is such a disappointment," she said. "But isn't it nice to be something special and unique?"

The little girl shook her head. "Not when nobody recognizes you. You might as well be nobody if nobody knows who you are."

Callie suddenly had the feeling she was going to cry.

Pulling a tissue out of her tote bag, she turned toward the window to wipe her eyes, not wanting the mother and little girl to see her tearing up. She knew it was her own fault that people back home didn't know her anymore. She had chosen to separate herself from Pam and from home starting long ago. But now she felt like she was the one wearing the Wally Rabbit costume.

The thought confirmed her decision to go to Italy tonight, to the little town where her grandmother had grown up. She didn't know what she would find in Caccipulia. She was surprised it even existed, as her grandparents had led her to believe that the Nazis had totally destroyed it. But going there to find whatever was left seemed the only way she might feel part of something again. Maybe she would feel a new connection with her family, and not feel so very alone. Maybe she would get some relief from the grief of losing her sister. She hoped she would learn what their grandparents had never wanted to speak about, what had happened to make Nonna feel so haunted by the past, so guilty about this Emilia person. And hopefully when she came back, she would feel at home with herself. She would be a person she liked. A person her sister would have been proud of. She had to give it a try.

Because she couldn't go on like this. She couldn't go on feeling awful about how bad things had been with Pam. And she had no other ideas.