Oh, where she had hit me with the candelabra and cut me with the knife.
“I know.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I know, but…if you let her go, you’ll be free…of the voice, the truth in it. The truth that put loyalty toward your family above the truth in love.”
Something told me that, by setting Abree free, who, by all accounts, was like her sister’s twin, he would free himself. He never got the chance to have closure with Rosaria. Her sister was the closest thing to her, besides their sons. And Massimo, Amadeo, andLudovico might as well be all Rocco’s. They were all Fausti men—through and through. Abree, apart from the mole above her lip, was the spitting image of Rosaria. And the way she carried on, I almost wondered if the last interaction between Rocco and Rosaria had been this way. She had even cut me with a knife, just like her sister had cut my husband.
“Trust me,” I mouthed to him, my hand slipping down his arm, my fingers entangling with his.
He stared into my eyes for a long minute, and then, keeping my hand in his, he stood in front of Abree. She quieted as she met his eyes.
“I understand,” he said in Italian, “and now I am setting you free, songbird.”
He gave Vincenzo a look. Vincenzo nodded, answering the silent order.
Rocco picked me up and headed in the opposite direction of thecastello, fighting the wind and the rain. He took me to my apartment, where we waited out the storm together. I kept him awake, too anxious to let him sleep.
The next morning, the island was torn up, debris littering the streets, a general mess, but the inhabitants of the island had already started cleaning up. The island doctor checked Rocco’s head and gave him the same diagnosis Uncle Tito had given me after he stitched up Rocco’s wound. I’d already cleaned it.
Rocco was going to be fine.
I was going to be fine.
The darkest hours had passed.
Life was moving forward.
A rainbow seemed to stretch from the island to the shores of Italy.
Chapter 34
Songbird of Italy
If you are reading this, Rocco Fausti, I am gone.
I do not know where I will be, but I know this for certain.
I will be set free.
Free of the constraints of this world.
Free of the bars of my own skin and bones.
I believe we both understood that when I was out on the balcony of the villa in Maranello. It was as if I was imprisoned by life, my song a longing one, someplace deep inside of me yearning to be released from the cage. I have never understood it myself, and perhaps you did not either, but all I can say is that I have always been a free spirit. I have never longed to be connected to anyone but my own self.
I am going to state this as I always have:
I refuse to apologize for who I am, or shall I say, who I was in life. There are so many things people will claim of me—how I did this, or how I did not do that—but the one thing they can never take from me: I was Rosaria Caffi to the end. I might have acted and sang on a stage, the world my audience, but I did not lie about this either.
I have always been true to myself, true to those around me, andthat is one thing the world cannot claim was an act, even if they judge me for it, as an audience is wont to do.
I was born Rosaria Caffi, the songbird.
I will die Rosaria Caffi, the songbird.
This is why I was so drawn to the Fausti family. Why the name had my complete loyalty from the beginning. Why I had decided to merge my life with yours.
The truth.
It is the most powerful tool we have as people, yet it turns most people into cowards. I have never understood this, nor will I ever. I have always believed that the truth shall set you free, and we both know, if there is one thing I valued the most during my life, it was freedom.
