The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany(107)

I tried to convince myself she’d be better off. She had the chance to grow up with two caring parents, free from ridicule and poverty. I had nothing to offer my daughter except love, and despite what I once believed, love was not enough.

My grief nearly leveled me. I taped a shiny penny to the backside of her crib, where nobody would see it. Then I walked three blocks to the bus station, hollowed out and empty. I spotted a travel poster at the depot for a place called “the Sweetest City on Earth.” I bought a one-way ticket to Hershey, Pennsylvania. If there was anything I craved at that time, it was sweetness.

But for nearly two years, life wasn’t so sweet. Almost immediately, I regretted my decision. But there was no turning back. Any chance of convincing even one person of the truth was no longer an option. What kind of mother gives up her child? I was shackled by guilt and self-loathing. What would Rico think if he knew I’d given away our child? I grew intimate with the term “self-destruction.” I acted recklessly. I wanted to die, it’s as simple as that. But thanks to friends like Thomas and a hidden, deep-seated resiliency, I eventually found my bearings again. I had someone who needed me, and I would not let her down.

I spent the next twenty-seven years living for the holidays, the only time I was allowed to see my daughter, Johanna Rosa Krause.





Chapter 55




Emilia

I place a hand over my trembling mouth. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I am so, so sorry.”

Her eyes are bright with tears and she opens her arms to me. “My girl.”

I burrow into them, feeling the blessed comfort of a mother’s love, the feeling I’d been yearning for, for as long as I can remember.

“My nonna,” I say, the word finally finding its sweetness. “All my life, I’ve been hoping for you.”

“And I you,” she whispers.

I look over to where Rico sits, tears raining down his cheeks.

“Opa,” I whisper, moving toward him through a hazy blur.

“Meine sch?ne Enkelin,” he says, his wet cheek pressed to mine. He smells of cologne and peppermint candy, exactly how I’d imagined my grandfather would.

“I’ve never had a grandfather,” I croak.

“I’ve never had a granddaughter,” he replies. “You cannot imagine how happy I am that you’re mine.”

“That makes Jan my . . . half-step-cousin. I have a whole other family in Germany.” Tears spill over my lids.

“So now you understand,” Poppy says, taking my hands. “My Johanna did die, in a sense, when ‘Josephina’ was born. And Rosa did, indeed, become a mother, that very day I proposed she play the role.”

“Did Aunt Josie ever know the truth?” Lucy asks.

Poppy nods. “I suspect she did. A soft heart is a keen observer of the truth.”

My chest aches for Poppy . . . my nonna. She kept this enormous secret her entire adult life. She showed such grace, allowing herself to become ostracized and scorned, a woman considered a thief.

“You deserve to be vindicated,” I say. “Not just by me and Lucy but by our entire family. It doesn’t matter that Rosa is still alive.”

Poppy shakes her head. “Rosa has paid her penance.”

“No. She’s—”

“I’d placed my vulnerable sister in a horrible position, and for that I am truly sorry.”

“How can you be sorry? She stole your child.”

She nods. “Unbeknownst to me, Rosa was in a state of grief when, all those years ago, I asked her to pretend to be Joh’s mother. I provided an easy solution to her problem, and the temptation was too great. Once Rosa decided to lie, it became impossible for her to recant. She believed she would lose her husband, and possibly the love of our papà, if they discovered she could not bear children. How overwhelming that secret must have felt. To keep it, she had to be fierce, to rule with anger. Those who cannot win hearts with love often control people with fear.”

“How can you be so sympathetic?” I say. “She ruined your life.”

She reaches over and our hands intertwine. “Few of nature’s creatures are born scared. It is desperation that begets fear. Fear creates cruelty. Rosa was a desperate person.”

I gaze out at the twinkling lights of the piazza, finally understanding why Rosa believed so fiercely in the curse. She needed it to absolve herself. As long as the Fontana myth was alive, she could make believe Poppy’s fate was the fault of the curse, not of her. Everyone knew the curse would not allow a second daughter to love.

“It gave me no pleasure when, years later, my sister suffered the ultimate consequence. Josephina was ill and Alberto was asked to donate blood.” Poppy shakes her head. “Had he agreed to the blood test I’d suggested years earlier, he would have known that Rosa’s A-positive blood type and his A-positive blood type could not have produced a child with type B blood. He died soon after Josephina passed, but not before apologizing to me. I believe he died of a broken heart.”

“My god,” I say. “He must have felt so betrayed.”

“Yup,” Lucy says. “Kind of like Poppy did when he refused to believe her. Karma sucks.”

“You finally had the proof you needed,” I say.

“Yes, but I no longer had the desire. Rosa was a broken woman. She’d lost her daughter and her husband. I could not turn the family against her.” Her eyes meet mine. “I’m asking the same of you, Emilia.”