Amalfi, 1953
Celina left the dinner table and whipped through the bedroom door, surprising the housekeeper who’d just settled in to watch over Marco.
Alarmed, the older woman lowered her knitting.
“It’s okay, Matilde.” Celina bustled toward Marge’s brown suitcase, which rested on a bench at the foot of the bed.
Matilde’s face crinkled with warmth, and she lifted her yarn.
Celina smiled and nodded toward Marco. “Grazie.”
Returning to her task, Celina opened her suitcase and shuffled through their belongings, fuming with anger as she did. Lauro Savoia was maddening. He’d ruined a nice family dinner. Never had she thought she’d have to prove who she was. How demeaning. She pulled out a folder and pursed her lips.
Surely this would do.
When Celina returned to the dinner table, she pushed a brown folder with a sheaf of documents toward Lauro. “If it’s proof you want, there it is.”
The folder held her marriage license and birth certificates and passports for herself and Marco. She’d traveled with all the essential documents she’d thought they might need.
“That really wasn’t necessary—” Sara began.
“Actually, it is,” Lauro cut in. Stretching his neck and shifting in his chair, he reached for the documents and began to inspect them.
Celina slid a hand into her pocket and withdrew a sturdy chain with a notched metal tag debossed with Tony’s name and serial number—the identification tag he’d worn in the Army. Handing it to Carmine, she said, “He would have wanted you to have this.” She paused. “I kept the other one for Marco.”
With his lips pressed into a solemn line, Carmine accepted the well-worn dog tag. He brought the metal tag to his lips and kissed it, while tears gathered in his eyes.
Watching him, Celina realized Carmine—and Lauro—were both as passionate and emotional as her husband had been. They were family, of course.
Sara ran her fingers over the metal tag with reverence. “He was such a handsome young man when he left. Did you bring any photos with you?”
This is what Celina had been dreading.
She slid her hand over her gold locket, cupping in it her palm. “I have one here.” After lifting it over her head, Celina found a tiny groove on the side of the locket that had once belonged to her mother and opened it. One of her most cherished possessions was inside.
“After the gasoline rations had been lifted in the States, Tony and I took a motoring holiday to Santa Monica. There was a Photomaton on the pier. He was clowning around...” Celina’s voice tapered off as she recalled her cajoling efforts to get him to face the camera. Now she wished she’d been more insistent. His face was mostly buried behind her hair.
Sara peered at the photo, her lips turning up in a sad smile. “I can’t see him very well, but it looks like you two were having a good time.” She hesitated. “What’s that on his face?”
Closing her eyes and sighing, Celina recalled the angry, jagged crease that coursed from hairline to jawline. “A scar. It faded more over time.”
Sara drew her eyebrows together and caught her lip between her teeth. Carmine placed his hand over Sara’s, but she steeled herself and went on. “Had he been injured?”
“In the war.” Celina tried to choose her words with care. “That’s what he told me.”
His mother pressed a hand to her mouth. “He never told us...” Carmine encircled his wife’s shoulders and drew her close to him.
“Do you have any other photos?” Lauro asked.
“That’s the only one I have.” Celina lowered her eyes. After a while, she had seldom noticed his facial scars. With his gregarious and generous nature, Tony endeared himself to people, forcing them to look beyond ugly reminders of the past and laugh along with him. Now she was glad he’d laughed so much in life. He did everything to excess—especially love. If there was one thing she was certain of, Tony had loved her and Marco with the fullness of his heart. “He didn’t like to have his picture taken.”
“I don’t remember that,” Lauro said, folding his arms.
“Have you ever torn up a photo of yourself you didn’t like?” Celina asked, straining to keep her voice level. “He felt that way about all of them.”
Nodding in agreement, Sara showed her son the photo.
Lauro peered at it. “I can’t tell if that’s him. You don’t have any others?”
“That’s what I said.” Was he listening to her at all? Celina flicked an apologetic look toward Sara and Carmine. “He didn’t like to take photos because of his scars.”
“Did he have more than...this one on his face?” Sara asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She touched his photo again before returning the locket to her.
“A couple on his arms.” Celina lifted the gold chain over her head and let the locket nestle in her décolletage again. And his torso and legs, but in seeing their reaction, she couldn’t get those words out. Lowering her gaze to adjust the chain, she blinked away the hot tears gathering in her eyes.
“With his personality, most people forgot all about his physical imperfections. And the scars faded over time. He was still attractive, and everyone loved him.” The scars really hadn’t faded much, but Sara looked so stricken.
Sara smiled with relief and touched her hand. “Then you never saw him—his face—as he was in the photo in your room.”
“No.” Celina wouldn’t mention the multiple surgeries he’d told her about, or the painful reconstruction and having to learn how to eat and speak again before leaving the hospital—or how drastically different he’d said he looked. There would be time for that later, if ever. Why intensify their pain?
At least they weren’t asking about the accident. Having to identify her husband’s body was the most horrific, gut-wrenching task she’d ever had to do. If not for her neighbor who’d looked after Marco that night, and another neighbor who’d taken her to the morgue, she didn’t know what she would’ve done. Without family, she’d been suddenly and painfully adrift.
Swallowing against her thickened throat, she cupped her chin in her hand, taking in the faces around the table. She couldn’t imagine having the extent of injuries that Tony had and not wanting to reach out to your family for comfort and support. Even one of them.
If only she’d been able to reach out to them during the long days following his death. Her neighbors had families and jobs. Seeing their faces full of pity, she’d even hated to go outside to hang the laundry. She’d only step outside to collect the milk bottles on the porch before hurrying back inside to the sanctuary of her darkened house and bedcovers. But that was no way for Marco to live. So she’d let their home go, along with all the plans they’d had for the future there.
“How was he injured?” Carmine asked, his voice gentle.
Celina shook her head. “He wouldn’t talk about it.” Glancing at Sara’s troubled expression, she doubted she would have shared such details now, even if she had known.
Carmine kissed his wife’s cheek and hugged her to him. When he pulled away, he asked, “Who’d like more wine?” He motioned to Lauro. “Would you bring another bottle from the cellar? You know the one.”
Without a word, Lauro got up.
Sara and Carmine turned to her after he left the room. “Please don’t judge Lauro by what you see tonight,” Sara said.
“I don’t know what’s happened to his manners,” Carmine added, shaking his head. “That’s not how I raised my sons. Antonino was never like that.”
Sara shook her head. “Both our boys are passionate—or, were,” she added. Taking a handkerchief from her pocket, she blotted errant tears on her cheeks. “Like their father sometimes.”
How well Celina understood. “Tony was passionate.”
“Lauro suffered a double loss,” Sara said. “His brother and the woman he loved.”
Celina saw a strained look pass between them. “His wife?”
“He wanted to marry her,” Sara said. “He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Lauro has never gotten over her,” Carmine said, his eyes darting toward the doorway where Lauro had gone. “That’s why he’s the way he is sometimes.”
Celina wondered what had happened to Isabella. What had caused them to break off their engagement? Whatever the reason, Lauro had suffered, too.
“It’s good to remember Antonino,” Sara said, indicating closure. She drew a breath of resolve. “But it’s up to us to create the future for our family. For Marco.”
Sara smoothed her hand over Carmine’s shoulder. “God works miracles when we least expect it. Nino is lost to us, but in his place, he blessed us with a grandson.” With her eyes shimmering through her tears, she held her arms out to Celina. “And his beautiful mother. You are part of our family now. We mean that.”
“Thank you,” Celina murmured, sinking into Sara’s embrace. “And in my husband’s place, God gave me a family.”
This wasn’t how she’d envisioned her life unfolding a year ago, or even a month ago. After the losses of her parents and her husband, if there was one thing life seemed intent on teaching her, it was to be prepared for the unexpected. This time the unexpected seemed far more pleasant—a relief, really. Celina hoped she wasn’t wrong. Tony’s words still rang in her mind, but people could change, couldn’t they?
Or would whatever had occurred between them affect her, too?
Sara smiled. “You know, I could use some help around here.”
“Let her decide, cara.” Carmine gave his wife a sweet nudge.
“Oh, do stay here with us, Celina, at least for a while. We want to get to know you better.”
Celina knew Lauro wouldn’t like it. “An extra week, perhaps.”
Sara brightened. “There’s so much to be done, not only here, but in all of Italy. The country is growing, and the economy is improving.” She swept her arm out, gesturing to their surrounding property, bountiful with citrus trees laden with blossoms and fruit, the hills that cradled them, and the azure sea beyond.
“I would be happy to help,” Celina said, though she was sure that they would be helping her far more.
“That’s a start.” Sara beamed. “I understand, but just imagine, isn’t this a beautiful place for your son to grow up? Marco will be near his grandparents, and he’ll have lots of cousins to play with, too. You won’t have to worry about anything.”
Sara had a point. With Tony’s extended family surrounding them, Marco would no longer be an eight-hour orphan staying with a neighbor. He would have a family vested in his life. People who would grow to love him as one of their own. Didn’t her son deserve that?
With thoughts racing through her mind, Celina bit her lip. Suddenly, their life in San Francisco seemed so lonely in comparison. But what was she giving up? The country she knew. The familiarity of a culture she knew and understood. And she’d have to improve her Italian.
Dizzying questions swirled in her mind. Could she grow to love Italy? What kind of opportunities would Marco have here? Would he want to return to the United States when he grew older? Would she?
Celina passed a hand across her forehead. The future was too much to think about. And if the past had taught her anything, it was that the future often made a mockery of even the best-laid plans. If only Tony... She pushed the thought away. She had to set a course for them, and school was a few weeks away yet. Looking from Sara’s eager face to Carmine’s, Celina committed to as much as she could. “We can stay until the end of summer.”
“Excellent,” Sara exclaimed. “You’re going to fall in love with Italy, I can just feel it.”
Lauro returned with a bottle of wine, and Celina couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were rimmed with red as if he’d been crying. Maybe he has a heart after all.
After removing the cork, he tilted the bottle, and they both watched the velvety red wine swirl into her glass.
“Grazie,” she said, raising her gaze to his.
Lauro’s eyes, full of passion, lingered on hers for a moment, then he looked away abruptly to fill his mother’s glass.
“Did you and Nino have a home in San Francisco?” Sara asked.
Celina nodded, noticing the way Lauro poured the wine, the flick of his wrist, the way he raised the bottle. Maybe there was a family resemblance in some of their mannerisms after all.
Turning her attention back to Sara, she said, “We owned a home, but I couldn’t imagine living there without him. I sold it and found a little flat for us to rent right across from the chocolaterie. I went back to work recently.”
Sara nodded. “You like to stay busy.”
“I love what I do. Someday I want a little home for us again.” She swirled the wine and lifted it to her nose, inhaling its warm earthiness. As she sipped, she saw Sara and Carmine exchange a glance.
Lauro placed the bottle on the table and sat across from her, his narrowed eyes assessing everything about her. “Marco must be in school, no?”
Shifting under his intense scrutiny yet meeting his gaze, Celina lifted her chin and replied, “He’ll start in the fall.”
Lauro nodded to himself, his lips curving with satisfaction.
He’s happy about that, she decided. He’ll only have to put up with us for the summer.
“We have a good school in the village,” Sara said. “He’ll have the summer to learn Italian.” Her face lit. “Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my niece Adele and her husband Werner, who’s from Germany. They met during the war and fell in love. They were separated for a long time, but love always finds a way. He promised he’d return to her and he did. They married several years ago and have children Marco’s age, so I think you’ll have a lot in common.”
“I’d like that.”
As Lauro scowled, Celina let the thought of a future in Italy thread through her mind, measuring and examining it as if it were a length of exotic cloth ready to be fashioned into a new style of coat she could try on to consider. A new life for us. Even with a few loose threads, it had some appeal.
Yet how would it be, she wondered, with the memory of Tony in his mother’s quick smile and his father’s rich laughter. Though she wasn’t selfish, she was still young; she still had needs. Would she ever be able to move on with her life and marry again, even if she wanted to?
Or would she forever be cast in the role of the widow Savoia in a small village in Italy?