“Yeah, Alexis took Guille to school. Do you, um… Do you usually have coffee in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“How about toast? Or cookies?”
“Just a coffee’s good, thanks,” I said as I sat down.
She nodded and poured me a cup, setting it down before me. Then she did the same for herself. Her expression was cautious and almost disoriented as she sat across from me. For a moment, we just looked at each other. She was waiting for me to take the first step, but I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing there.
I looked at her hair, her eyes, the wrinkles around them; her nose, her thin lips, the fine contours of her cheeks. I could see she was doing the same. It was as if we were looking at each other for the first time.
“How do you forgive someone?” Those words came out of my mouth with a life of their own.
She started wringing her fingers. “I don’t know. I never made it that far. Fyodora used to tell me that you have to start by accepting that someone hurt you and just living with the pain until you don’t have any other choice.”
“You know Olga threw me out?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ever ask yourself these past four months what might have happened to me?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t you care?” I was trying to shake her out of her passivity.
“I did.”
“Well, you sure didn’t—”
“I called and wrote you, several times.” She interrupted me, defensive.
A cold, disdainful smile pulled my lips upward. Then I realized shewasn’t lying. But how could she be telling the truth? In that moment, I remembered I’d blocked her.
I took a sip of coffee, not knowing how to continue. Thousands of words were swirling around in my brain. I wanted to say them all, but none of them would take shape.
I thought of what she’d said about forgiveness. Fyodora was smart, she gave good advice. At least, she’d always known how to help me out. But this was asking a lot. It’s hard to admit someone’s hurt you, even if the ache is there every single day. It’s hard to open yourself up to your own pain: Your conscience always tries to protect you, throwing layer upon layer of white lies around you, scraping together the pieces, telling you you’re still whole. And all the while, you keep shattering, and the pieces get smaller and smaller, and a day comes when they’re too tiny to even pick up.
And that was where I was: a handful of dust, waiting for the wind to come along and blow me away. But I refused to disappear, and I was ready to face my fears if it would give me the opportunity to move forward, alone if I had to.
“Do you remember the last message I sent you?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t respond.”
“There was nothing to say—”
“I found your music box and the photos hidden inside it.” I interrupted her, seeing she didn’t know what to do but keep lying. “As soon as I saw his face, I knew. I look too much like him for it to be a coincidence.”
She closed her eyes, and a few tears escaped her. And I kept talking, because I couldn’t stop myself. “I know his name’s Giulio. Giulio Dassori. He lives in a precious villa in Sorrento with his family and his husband. In the mornings, he gives diving classes, and in the afternoons, he runs a little ballet school. He’s forty, but he looks wayyounger, and he has a mole over his eyebrow just like mine. When he smiles, the left side of his mouth lifts up more than the right. He cuts his toast into four pieces before eating it, and he puts the jelly on first, and then the butter. He has the sweetest laugh I’ve ever heard. He hates liars. You want to know how I know all this? Because I was as close to him as I am to you right now.”
Scared but resigned, Mom asked, “Have you been with him all this time?”
“Almost.”
“Does he know who you are?”
I nodded. If I’d ever had any lingering doubts, they were gone. “You always swore to me you didn’t know who my father was. Why?”
