Chapter 6

SIX

MAY 2019

Tuesday

"What are you talking about?" Tori demanded. She was certain she must have misunderstood. Or that something was seriously wrong. Was Marilene confused? Was this an early sign of dementia? Was she mixing up something she'd read about the dress with her own life? Was she having a stroke? Should they call an ambulance?

Tori went to the window and then took Marilene's hand. Her grandmother had always been thin, and at this moment she felt quite fragile.

"Come sit," she said, gently drawing her back to the sofa. Feeling her heart start to race, she willed herself to take a deep breath as she helped Marilene sit. She needed to get control of herself. And the situation.

"Mar, are you okay?" she said, her hand still on Marilene's shoulder, as if she needed steadying. "Maybe we should get you to a doctor?—"

"I know what I'm saying," Marilene said, shrugging Tori's hand away. "I never in a million years thought I'd be having this conversation with you. But this dress—as innocent as it seems to you now, it holds the key to your entire life."

Tori studied her. She didn't seem deluded or confused. She was firm and clear. Marilene had always maintained that she'd married the son of a family friend when she was seventeen, and that her husband had been killed in a boating accident. And that she'd headed to America with her child shortly after that. And although there'd been no reason not to believe her, Tori had often wondered about the story. Marilene's details had seemed too sketchy. But she'd never expected anything like this.

She sat down on the sofa next to Marilene. A part of her wanted to snuggle in close like a little girl, and let Marilene tell her it would all be okay, the way she always did. Marilene was so good at making her believe that she was strong and smart and could handle anything. But now she felt a chasm forming between them.

"I'm listening," Tori said, hoping that this would stop the chasm from widening.

"Giulia named the baby Olive," Marilene said. "Your mother. Oh, she was a sweet little thing, a beautiful little girl with light hair and green eyes. And when she was only a few months old, that's when Giulia left. She sailed on the same small fishing boat that had brought her to us. She'd gotten word that her sisters and her husband had all died in the war, so we thought maybe she'd gone to try to find her husband's family. His name was Vincenzo, she'd told us. His family owned a dry goods market on the mainland, and he would ferry supplies out to Parissi Island—that's how they'd met. We were hoping she'd find his relatives. We thought that would make her grief a little easier to bear."

"And she never came back?"

Marilene shook her head. "The war ended, and life was moving on," she said. "But Giulia never returned. Five years passed, and no sign of her. My father was preparing to go back to Rome and resume his career, and to send my brothers to school. And then my mother got sick, and she needed more medical care than my father could provide. They couldn't raise Olive—my mother was too ill, and my father needed to take care of her. They decided to bring her to the authorities."

"But that didn't happen," Tori said. "You kept her—my mother."

"I couldn't give up Giulia's little girl," Marilene said. "I knew where my father kept his money, and I took what I could find and snuck off the island. And brought your mother to America. I had some contacts here, people who'd stayed with us on the island years ago, who helped me get settled. I told everyone that Olive was my baby, that my husband had died and I'd left Italy behind because I couldn't handle the memories. I put our old life behind me and never spoke with my parents or my brothers or anyone back home. I didn't want to risk revealing our whereabouts and losing your mother."

"So you're not my grandmother?" Tori asked. Now that she had all the facts, this incredible conclusion was unavoidable. "You've been lying all these years? How can that be?"

Marilene shook her head. "I'm sorry, my Tori. I thought it was for the best. I wanted to put all the tragedy behind me. You have no idea what those years were like—worrying about Giulia, waiting for her to return, and then worrying about how Olive would adjust to the big move here. It was a terrifying decision, when I left. I didn't want to ever have to think about it again."

Tori looked down at her hands. Then she looked again at Marilene. "Did my mother know? She had to have known, didn't she? She was five years old when you brought her here."

"She knew something was wrong when we snuck off the island that evening," Marilene said. "I told her to start calling me Mama, even though we'd told her for so long that she had a mother who'd be coming back for her. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't want anyone to suspect she wasn' t mine, because I thought I'd be accused of kidnapping her—which I suppose, in a way, I did. Eventually, we put that whole trip behind us, and I was sure she'd forgotten. Or thought those early memories were just a dream. Although there's a part of me that thinks she never recovered from the trauma of that night. Those nightmares she had. Who could blame her?"

She pressed her lips together. "I was doing the best thing," she said. "I didn't want your mother to be sent to an orphanage or adopted by someone who didn't even know her. I couldn't bear that."

Tori tried to speak, but she didn't know what to say. "Her mother was alive," she stammered. "Giulia was alive."

"But she didn't come back. What else was I to think, but that she had died? What else was I to do at that point?" Tori watched her clench her fists again, her cheeks reddening. "And the more I think about it, the angrier it makes me. I gave up everything for her baby, don't you see? I gave up my family, my home, everything I had . My parents had no idea where I went. They had no idea I'd left the country. I left no trail.

"Oh Tori, I don't regret it," she said firmly. "I loved your mother as my own. Even in her wildest days, even when she was testing me to my very limits, I loved her. As I love you and Molly. You are my family, you always have been."

"Of course we are," Tori said, because she couldn't bear to see Marilene hurting like this. And because it was true, even though she couldn't help but be angry. Marilene had wronged both her and her mother by keeping all of this to herself. She glanced back at the computer. The shocking comment, that Giulia was still alive, was still on the screen. What were they to do with this information?

When she looked up, she saw that Marilene was studying it, too. "If this is true, if Giulia is alive, I want to know why she never came back," Marilene told her. "I want an explanation. I deserve one. And so do you. Why did she make a life for herself in Rome instead of coming for her daughter?

"If she is alive, I need to talk to her," Marilene added, a measure of anger in her voice that Tori had never heard before. "So I can know once and for all why she never came back."