Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

MAY 2019

Monday

The plane landed at Da Vinci Airport at seven a.m. Rome time. Although she was exhausted, having barely slept on the flight, Tori felt exhilarated as she left the plane. There was something so profound, so stirring, about being an American arriving in Europe. She recognized that feeling, that awareness of the vast trail of history that lay beneath her every step.

Swept along with the tide of people in the crowded terminal, she made her way to the tram that led to Passport Control, then retrieved her bags. She continued on through Customs, following the steps she had written out yesterday to get herself from the airport down to Anzalea, the port city from which ferries left for Parissi Island. The signage at the airport was in multiple languages, so she easily found her way to the ticket machines for the Leonardo Express, the train line that all of the tourist websites she'd consulted had suggested for the trip to Roma Termini, Rome's main train station.

Inside the train, she relaxed in the surprisingly roomy seat and looked out the window. For a while, all she saw were intersecting train tracks bordered by modest apartment buildings. But then she spotted the Porta Maggiore—the massive white travertine gate that was part of Rome's ancient walls. She shivered at all this country had been through in its history, and at how tightly bound to that history she, Molly, and Marilene were.

The trip was quick—about forty-five minutes, and she arrived at the station with plenty of time before her ten-thirty train down the coast to Anzalea. Spotting a coffee bar on the central concourse, she decided to treat herself to an espresso. At first she was amused at how small her serving was, but the coffee was so strong that she could only take in a tiny sip at a time. Still, she loved it. The taste felt explosive on her tongue, the bitterness smooth and not at all unpleasant. She smiled to herself, thinking, I could get used to this. But then she wondered: Had her grandmother loved coffee? Did she love it still?

She emptied her cup and went to the food market to purchase a panini and a bottle of water to have on the train, then found the platform listed on the departures board. She'd booked a stay in Anzalea at a small family-owned guesthouse that earned good ratings online. It was a quick walk from the center of town where the train would leave her, according to the website, and the rooms were considered small but clean and comfortable.

Shortly before ten thirty, the train to Anzalea arrived, and she stepped on and stashed her suitcase in the luggage compartment near her seat. Then she sat down and tried to relax for the trip. As the train rolled out of the station and through the city, she waited for the gorgeous views of the Mediterranean. Gazing out at the landscape, she thought back to the two weeks she'd spent in Venice and Florence with friends from school. One of her friends' mothers had arranged for them to have a private tour guide. She was on the board of the Art Institute of Chicago and wanted her daughter to see and understand the importance of Italy's most iconic works of art.

Tori remembered the tour guide, an Englishwoman in her late twenties named Ava, who had come to Italy as a twenty-year-old on the first leg of her planned solo tour all over Europe. She'd explained to the girls that she'd started her adventure in Rome, intending to stay at a cousin's apartment for a week at the most. But as luck would have it, on her first night in Rome, she was introduced to a handsome Italian that she fell in love with on the spot and married six weeks later—so her first stop on her adventure became her last. She'd joked when she first introduced herself to the girls that she'd insisted to everyone and anyone who would listen, "No! I have to leave! I have to go on to Spain and Portugal and Greece and Turkey! I'm on an adventure!"—all the while somehow knowing she wasn't going anywhere.

Tori and her friends had talked about the tour guide at the youth hostel where they were staying in Florence. "So romantic!" her friend Harriet sighed. "To meet your true love and have that change all your plans and everything you thought you wanted to do."

The others had nodded, and Tori did, too, but she also felt confused. It didn't make sense to her that Ava had given in that quickly. She believed that if you had a plan, you should stick with it or you'd regret it all your life. She'd thought often of her mother on that trip. She had the sense that if her mother had been more organized and centered, if she'd seen herself as capable of sticking to plans and reaching goals, maybe she wouldn't have died so young. Olive had always behaved as though life was no more reliable than a house of cards. Small problems—a clogged bathroom sink, a car that failed to start one morning—paralyzed her. She was ruled by emotions like fear and insecurity, which caused her to feel lost or unglued so easily. Tori was never going to make that mistake .

A week later on that long-ago trip, they'd arrived in Venice, and Ava brought them for a trip down the Grand Canal. At the dock, a crowd was waiting, and port employees were organizing the people and loading them onto the boats. Suddenly there was a change, possibly because so many tourists had arrived, and people started to be diverted to smaller vessels that would travel along an alternate canal. At that point Ava snapped into action, holding the girls back and letting others who didn't know better file past them. She even pretended at one point to lose her wallet on the ground, so no one would suspect that her true motive was to get her girls onto the Grand Canal.

Soon, an official figured out what she was doing, and began yelling at her harshly in Italian. Tori and her friends watched, terrified by the man's anger. But Ava stood her ground and remained silent as the man carried on. Evidently she didn't care how rude and threatening the man was. Because by the time he had finished his tirade, the boats headed for the secondary canal had all left. She winked at the girls as they stepped onto a larger boat.

She'd done them a huge favor, the girls agreed as they traveled toward Venice. They saw historic palaces, churches, and bridges that they would have missed had they followed the official's directions. Tori had new respect for Ava, who had known what she wanted to do and had found a way to make sure she'd done it. Earlier she'd thought Ava weak for canceling all her plans for a man, but now she felt that Ava was far smarter than she'd given her credit for. Maybe finding her future husband was exactly what she'd wanted to do when she left England. Maybe she had gotten her way all along. There was something so cool about a woman staying calm in the face of change and disruption, and keeping her eye on the ball. If the canal official had wanted to teach Ava and the girls a lesson about subverting power, he had failed. It was Ava who had the power; she was the one who had reached her goal, and all the girls had benefited from her sly calculations.

It was a lesson Tori thought about often during that trip and many times after. Power was elusive and hidden and flexible. Sometimes it took a long time to figure out who had it or how to get it. But it could deliver something amazing. It could deliver both a husband and the Grand Canal.

At one o'clock, Tori arrived in Anzalea. The weather was perfect, warm but not hot, the cloudless sky a rich cerulean blue. As she rolled her suitcase away from the train station, she was surprised by the charm of the little town. She hadn't thought it would be as lively and pretty as this. The train station opened on to a vast piazza, with pastel-colored stone buildings along one side, many sporting yellow- or orange-striped awnings that shaded outdoor restaurants, cafés, bakeries, flower shops. On the near side of the piazza, there was a long, rectangular park with stone benches and lush trees with thick bark and overflowing foliage. The town was quite cosmopolitan, as people seemed to represent a range of ethnicities and were speaking a variety of languages—English, Italian, Spanish, and others that she didn't recognize. Young couples strolled hand in hand, some eating vibrantly colored scoops of gelato in massive waffle cones, and a mix of adults of all ages sat at tables under the awnings, eating tiramisu from wide goblets, or cannoli and other pastries, or sipping deep-red or bright amber liquids from short, slim glasses. Looking beyond the park and toward the Mediterranean, she could see a smattering of ferries heading out from a landing on the shore.

And in the distance, there it was—Parissi Island, which she recognized from images on the museum's website. The vast castle was perched at the top of a steep hill saturated with trees and shrubbery and set against that singular blue sky. It was a gray medieval-looking structure, with domes on either end and a narrow tower positioned toward the back. Tall windows lined the main part of the building as well as the tower. Tori had seen many old buildings—churches, museums, palaces—when she'd traveled in Europe with her college friends the summer she traversed the Grand Canal. But they had always seemed like relics or sets designed for movies, so removed were they from her life. And yet this castle, the storied Castello di Parissi, was different. Yes, it was impossible to think of someone other than a member of a long-ago dynasty or a fairy-tale princess living in a place so remote and imposing; and yet, her actual grandmother had once called that place home. The thought gave her chills.

Turning away from the water, she surveyed the piazza. Her muscles were a little like jelly from the flight and time change, and she didn't know how much longer she could stay on her feet. She decided the best thing to do would be to check into the hotel she'd booked, find someplace to get an early dinner, and then go to bed so she could make her way to the museum in the castle first thing in the morning.

With some help from the map app on her phone and a shopkeeper who pointed the way, she headed to a corner not far from the piazza. There she climbed a stairway, thankful that the steps were short as she pulled her suitcase up off the ground, and turned onto a narrow sun-bleached brick road, the bricks a pink-tinged shade of gold. To her right was a stone wall with shallow urns holding small plants, the leaves pale green and the petals dusty red. Beyond the wall, she could see the Mediterranean shimmering in the sunshine.

The road was bumpy and uneven, and her suitcase rumbled as she dragged it along. She proceeded under a pair of orange archways and then down a small, pebbled street with pink-and-yellow-tinted buildings with yellow shutters on either side. Finally she spotted a sign for her hotel, the Albergo Marza. It looked lovely, with bright pink and white flowers in planters on each side of the entrance. Relieved that the place seemed at this point to live up to its reviews, she opened the blue wooden door and stepped inside.

The lobby was small and welcoming, with sheer white curtains letting in the breeze from tall, narrow windows on either side of the door. There was a round moss-green rug on the ceramic tile floor. Ahead of her was a chest-high wooden countertop, with old-fashioned mail cubbies affixed to the wall behind it and a doorway that appeared to lead into an office. To the right of the desk was a door with a sign that read " Ufficio ."

She rolled her suitcase forward as a man appeared in the doorway. " Buon giorno ," he said, his tone warm and welcoming.

" Buon giorno. Sono Tori Coleman," she replied, using one of the phrases that she'd learned online the night before she left. The others were Dov'è l'isola di Parissi? and Dov'è l'abito da sposa? —two questions that she'd hoped would get her to Parissi Island and over to Giulia's wedding dress in the museum, no matter what else she encountered. Other than that, she would be lost in trying to communicate. She'd hoped that what she remembered about Italy still held true, and that most people dealing with the public spoke English.

Fortunately, the man behind the desk did. "Ah, our American visitor!" he said, with only a trace of an accent. "We've been expecting you. Benvenuta . Welcome."

" Grazie . Thank you," she answered. She liked him immediately. He was a heavyset man of about seventy or so, with tousled white hair, a wide face, and a nose with a roundish tip that looked like it could have been crafted by a child out of modeling clay. His smile was boyish, thanks to his small, even teeth, and his eyes were a clear, pale blue. Although she was far away from home, he somehow made her feel comfortable.

"I'm Emilio Fucilla, and my family and I are happy to have you. How were your travels? Did you fly into Rome?"

She nodded. "It was pretty easy, but still a lot of traveling since last night. I'm so tired."

"Of course, you are," he said. "I assume you are here to visit the castle?"

"Well… yes," she said, surprised that he knew that. "What gave me away?"

"That's the only reason people come here," he said. "It's pretty new for us locals, all the tourists showing up."

"It hasn't always been that way?"

"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "Anzalea was a sleepy port town for many years. But everything changed once they started renovating the castle and opened the museum last fall. We get a lot of historians now, people writing books, students. Or people just looking to see Italy as they imagine it. Big castles in the middle of a beautiful sea."

"It is a beautiful sight," Tori said.

"It changed everything for our little town, when the new owners bought the island and the castle two years ago. Lots of new shops, cafés. And many of us locals work in the museum over on Parissi Island. I am there as a security officer three days and two nights each week.

"And where are you traveling from?" he asked.

"New York."

"New York City?"

"Close, about an hour's drive."

"Ah, that's someplace I would love to visit sometime," he said. "I've always wanted to go to America."

"You've never been there?" she said. "I was sure you had. You speak English so beautifully."

"Ah, but you see, I spent most of my childhood in England," he said. "My father moved there a long time ago. I think he had bad memories of being a young man here during the war. But at some point, he was ready to come home to Italy. He's in his nineties now, still going strong. You'll meet him while you're here. And my daughter and son-in-law, and my granddaughter and her girlfriend, too. We all work together. A true family business.

"So I see you'll be with us for nine nights?" he said, looking at the computer screen on a small desk to his side. "I'll need your credit card and passport to check you in, and then I can take you to your room."

She nodded and handed over what he'd asked for. She signed the guest slip, and he gave her a key with a tag numbered "8." Then he came around the desk and picked up her suitcase. "It's a bit of a climb, I hope you don't mind," he said. "But I've put you on the fourth floor. It has the best view. You can see the castle right outside your window."

He motioned to her to go ahead toward the stairway, and when she started up the stairs, he followed behind. She felt bad for him, carrying her suitcase on this narrow stairway. He wasn't a young man, and he didn't appear to be especially fit. The light-blue sweater he was wearing over his shirt was working hard to stay buttoned. But when she looked back, she saw that he was quite strong and appeared to be handling the climb with less difficulty than she was. She supposed that he probably climbed these stairs at least a few times a day, showing guests to their rooms or coming upstairs to fix whatever problems arose. There were two guest rooms on each floor positioned opposite one another, and she could hear noises coming from some of the rooms. The stairway grew narrower the higher they went, so that on the third floor, a young couple had to wait until she and Emilio reached the landing before heading down. Tori had the sense that the building was pretty old, judging from the uneven floorboards.

Finally they reached the top floor and Emilio unlocked the door to her room. She went inside and held it open for him. He rolled her suitcase past her, then lifted it onto a luggage rack.

"Now, please get settled and feel at home," he said. "If you need anything, call downstairs and one of us will be happy to help you. And keep in mind that to get to the castle, you need to buy your ticket here on the mainland. We sell tickets at the front desk, or you can buy them at most of the cafés and shops on the piazza. The first ferry is scheduled to leave for Parissi at ten in the morning, and the last one back leaves the island at five in the afternoon. Make sure not to miss that last ferry. Otherwise you're stuck there until the next morning."

"Got it," she said. "Thank you for the information."

"If you're hungry, there are plenty of places to get a meal," he added. "Many close in the middle of the afternoon, but then they reopen. We serve a small breakfast here from seven to eight each morning. And if you have any questions about the island, please ask. My grandparents grew up in this town, and we've owned this building continuously since then, even when we were living in England. My father especially has a wealth of information, so don't be shy."

She reached for her bag to draw out some money to tip him, but then changed her mind. He was the owner, and she thought he'd probably be insulted by the gesture. He certainly didn't seem to be expecting anything, as he headed right to the door after he'd finished talking.

"Have a pleasant stay," he said and left the room.

The door closed with a slam behind him, and she listened to the echo. When it finished there was silence. She looked around. The room was small but nicely furnished, with a full-sized bed and pretty blue floral linens. There was an upholstered armchair and a glass-topped round coffee table in front of it. A writing desk was positioned in the corner. Across the room was a door that opened out to a tiny balcony. She stepped outside and grasped the railing. Ahead of her, Parissi Castle rose from the sea, looking like a massive mural and not an actual building.

She walked back into her room. Even though Emilio had been nice and the hotel was very comfortable, she started to feel homesick. Pulling her phone from her shoulder bag, she called Marilene's cell phone. She knew it was eight thirty in the morning back home, almost time for Molly to leave for school. But she hoped they could talk for even a few short minutes.

"Hello?" Marilene said, sounding surprised. Tori knew she probably didn't get many calls at this hour.

"Hi, Mar," Tori said. "You must be about to get into the car, but it's afternoon here and I wanted to say hello."

"No, it's fine. I'm glad you called. How was your trip? How's the hotel?"

"Is that Mom? Is that Mom?" she heard Molly call out. A moment later, Molly was on the phone. "Mom! Are you in Italy?"

"I am."

"What's it like?"

"It's lovely," she said. "How are you? Heading off to school?"

"Yeah. In a minute. What did you do today?"

"Well, I arrived in Rome and then took a train down to this little town where I'm staying, and I met a very nice man who owns the hotel. And tomorrow I'll be going to the island where that dress is. So tell me about you—how was your night last night after I left?"

"Fine. Regular."

"Did you finish your homework?"

"Yeah."

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"Marilene made pancakes."

"Oh, lucky you." Tori paused. She didn't know what else to ask. It wasn't like at home, when conversation was so easy. She wanted to say more because she didn't want to get off the phone. She missed Molly, even though she'd only left a day ago. But she knew she should let her go. Molly didn't like being late to school.

"I guess it's time to leave for school. Does Marilene want to say anything else?"

"No—I think she's in the car. I better get going."

"Yes, go ahead. Kiss Albie for me. We'll talk later. I love you."

"Okay. Bye Mom."

Tori waited until Molly hung up and then put her phone down, thinking of her dream on the plane, how Molly had been doing all that sewing and not complaining at all. The image of Molly's sweet face from the dream was haunting. She'd been sewing as though that was something she had to do. But it wasn't her job; it was her mom's job.

Tori looked out the glass door toward the castle, thinking about what the dream might have been telling her. And suddenly she realized that she'd been so angry at Giulia for leaving her baby and causing so much sadness—and yet here she was, doing the same thing.

Oh, that's ridiculous, she told herself. Giulia left forever. She would be gone for less than two weeks. And Molly knew exactly where she was and when she'd be back.

Still, she thought, if she found Giulia and was able to talk to her, it was possible that she'd hear things she didn't want to know. Maybe she'd learn things that would make her see her whole life differently. Things that might change her in ways she couldn't even imagine. Would she later wish she'd never come? Might it be true, that old saying that ignorance was bliss?

Tori looked at the massive castle.

She chose to come here, and for better or worse, here she was.

There was no turning back now.