couldn’t just dive in and say, Is it possible your brother is alive, or do you think I’m losing it? And although I’d told Maggie I would contact Elena about visiting, I hadn’t spoken with her in over a year. It seemed awkward to suggest a houseguest too quickly.
Instead, it was less uncomfortable to say, “So, tell me about your mom and dad.” I had the book my father used to read on the edge of my desk. I pulled it forward, opened it and took out the yellowed clipping. Thieves Kill Man at Shell Station.
“What about them, cara? They were wonderful people. I guess you never got to meet my father.”
“No. And I’ve been thinking about family lately. Grandma O was Italian and Grandpa Kelvin was Scottish, right?”
“That’s right. Their love affair was something of a scandal. No one in my mother’s family had been involved with anyone who wasn’t Italian. Actually, no one had ever been involved with someone who wasn’t originally from Naples, if you can believe that. She met my father at a drugstore. It was in the winter, and they were both buying cough drops. My mother, Oriana, was a few years out of high school. My father was a few years older than her. It was one of those things you hear about—they saw each other, they both looked at shelves without talking, and when my father finally got up the courage to speak to her, they didn’t stop. They talked for hours in that aisle.”
“And that was that? They were just in love and they lived happily ever after?” When had I gotten so cynical?
“Well, no. There was resistance to them dating. Her family wasn’t happy at all, especially when they got engaged only six months later. But like I said, they were in love.”
I thought of Sam. We had been in love once. There had never been a doubt about that.
“Did they stay in love?”
“Yes, always.” She sighed a little. “I used to wonder if I was only seeing that love through the eyes of a child, if maybe it didn’t really exist, or maybe as an adult I would realize that it was very different than what I’d thought. But no, now that I am an adult …” She laughed. “Incredibilemente, I am much more than an adult. Well, I see how pure their love was. It wasn’t always easy for them, especially my dad, coming into this Italian family. His family was already scattered around the country and didn’t see each other often, but my parents had this powerful connection. Everyone could see it.”
I drew my finger over the news clipping. “And then Grandpa Kelvin was killed.”
Elena was quiet, then, “Yes, he was stabbed.”
“At a gas station.”
“How did you know that?”
“I found a news clipping.”
“Ah. Well, yes, you’re right. He was putting air in his tire one night at the side of a gas station, and he was killed.” A pause. “Did your father ever talk about that?”
I got a zing through me—your father. “No. He never mentioned it. I guess we were too young.”
“Yes, too young,” she repeated. “And you and I never spoke about this, either.”
“No. How old were you when your dad died?”
“Sixteen.”
I felt envious for a second, thinking that she had eight more years with her father than I did with mine. “And my dad was eighteen then.”
“That’s right.”
“I know he went to college.” I could remember my father telling me this. “And you moved to Italy to be with family, right? After Grandpa Kelvin died?”
“Yes. My mother was having a very hard time. She went to Phoenix to try and forget. Her family thought it would be best if I finished high school somewhere else instead of going with her. They thought it would be good for me to be away, too, somewhere new where everything wasn’t about my father.”
“So you went to Naples?”
“No, I lived with a cousin in a lovely area, in Frascati, in the hills, outside of Rome.”
“Was it hard for you to be away from the U.S.?”
“Yes and no. Italy is certainly different from the United States, different from every country, in fact. But throughout my whole life my mother had been telling us about Italy. The stories about Italy were our nighttime tales. I found much of that had sunk in and made a difference when I moved here.”
“How often did you get to see my dad after that?”
“Not very often.” Her voice was somber. “That was one of the hardest things.”
“Were you not close?”
“It wasn’t that.” She said nothing else.
“So what was it?”
“I suppose it was simply that he lived in the States, and I lived in Italy. I fell in love with the country, and I stayed.”
Could he be alive? “What do you know about how he died?”
“He died in a helicopter crash, Isabel.” She said it like Ee-sabel. “You know that.” A pause. “Did your mother not talk to you about this when you were young?”
“Yes, but I suppose that as an adult, I wonder about the details.”
“Such a tragedy. It was horrible.”
“Do you still think about him?”
“Of course. All the time.”
Do you ever see him like I did? Do you ever hear him?
But before I said anything, Elena was suddenly saying she needed to go, that it was lovely to talk to me.
“I had some other questions about my dad,” I said.
“And I’d love to answer them, but right now I must go. I have a work dinner.”
“Where are you working?”
“I’ll tell you next time we talk, cara.”
It was obvious she wanted to get off the phone. “We should stay in better touch,” I said.
“Yes, cara, you are right.”
“Do you have an e-mail address?”
“Of course. We e-mail, we text. We’re very forward in Rome. Everyone walks around the city with their cell phones attached to their cheeks.” She gave me her e-mail address. “Must go. Ciao, ciao.” And then she hung up.
I leaned forward and turned on the monitor again.
Although their bodies have never been found, copious amounts of blood (identified as blood from both Louie and Big Joe) were found in the basement of their parents’ home the day after their disappearance.
