on, boys.” Charlie was out the door before his sons could pull on their boots. Johanna bit down on her lips suddenly buzzing with words like—Stop. Stay. Do you ever think of me? Of that summer? It was so long ago, and they had been so young. In those sweaty months before Labor Day, Charlie McCallan made her happier than she ever thought she could be. And then it was over, just like that.
She dug into the front pocket of her backpack, pulled out two crumpled twenties and stuffed them into the boys’ hands.
“Don’t tell your dad.”
“Wow,” Caleb said. “Thanks, Johanna.”
“Thanks,” Will murmured, shoving the bill into his pocket.
Closing the door behind them, Johanna leaned against it. Dinner. With Charlie. She glared at her sister.
“What?”
“You know what. Heavens to Murgatroyd, Jules. I’m going to murdilate you.”
“You’re welcome.” Julietta handed her the mug of hot-chocolate dregs, kissed her cheek. “And you can clean up the floor.”
* * * *
Johanna lay alone, in the dark, supine on her grandmother’s bed and a hand on her overburdened belly. Emma’s famous macaroni and meatballs sat heavily alongside the pastries Charlie brought—recompense for having to bring his eight-year-old twins, Millie and Tony, to dinner when his older kids stayed late at the slopes. Johanna’s middle nephew, Henry, had been thrilled. He and Tony were classmates, and though Millie was as well, she mostly ignored the boys to instead braid and unbraid the silky strands of Nina’s golden hair. Nina happily took her own turns at Millie’s thick, red curls and Johanna had to wonder if her sister’s childlessness was the choice she always insisted it was.
Gio, the youngest nephew, pestered Henry and Tony, while Ian, the oldest, seemed to share a special bond with his Aunt Julietta. Most of her evening was spent helping the ten-year-old with his math homework. In the thick of it all, Johanna had felt as full of love as she had been of the food.
No one misses the funeral of a Sig’lian’. We make mean ghosts.
Gram always said Italians loved a funeral; it brought family home, and brooked no excuse.
In the dark silence beyond midnight, listening to her belly gurgle along with the creaks and groans of the old farmhouse she grew up in, Johanna was wishing she’d taken her chances with the ghost. The sensation of being only a guest in her sister’s home, in her sisters’ lives descended. Being in Bitterly forced her to acknowledge all the good things she was missing to avoid the bad. Until coming home, she’d been happy in Cape May, in her bakery at the beach, with the hundreds of friendly strangers who populated her life.
Johanna groaned upright, and moved to the window. Outside, the moon shined brightly on the snow and the world existed only in shades of blue. Snow, snow, everywhere—snow. A cathedral of trees. A holy realm of ice. The only church she had ever needed.
She used to imagine her mother playing in the yard, building snow castles or chasing fireflies. But Mommy had never lived in Bitterly, a fact Johanna didn’t know until Emmaline and Julietta came to live with them too.
Johanna turned away from the window, those thoughts. She moved about Gram’s room by moonlight. It never changed, but for the buttercream yellow paint that had replaced Gram’s more sensible white back when she and her sisters were small, and grieving. The dresser, oiled and smooth as honey, always scented with the lavender sachets kept in every drawer. Johanna opened the top one and breathed in, struck suddenly by the notion of getting rid of all the clothes. Who would have the heart to scoop the nightgowns from the drawers, the dresses from the closet, and haul them off to some charity? Johanna shuddered. She could not do it. She would rather burn everything, and that made her shudder again.
On top of the dresser sat Gram’s jewelry box. Adelina Coco was Sicilian, but she was also a New Englander. One good dress and a pair of sensible heels was all she needed. The plain box Poppy had made for her one Christmas, when they were newly married and quite poor, was mostly empty. Johanna lifted the lid.
The ribboned lock of Carolina’s dark hair.
The crumbling letter Johanna knew by heart.
The gold Virgin Mary medal Gram never took off, along with her wedding rings and Pop’s.
And the locket.
Johanna’s breath caught in her throat. She had forgotten about this talisman, this magical thing. Picking it up by the chain, she let it twirl in the moonlight.
“It belonged first to Poppy’s grandmother,” Gram had told her. “Her own nona gave it to her when she left Sicily for America to be married. See the initials? FMC. That is for Florentina Coco.”
“What does the M stand for?”
“Maddelena, I think. Do you want to hear the story or ask questions?”
“Hear the story. Please.”
“Good girl. Back then, when someone left the old country, those left behind knew it was for good. Florentina’s grandmother had already lost many sons and many grandchildren to America. But Florentina was her favorite, I am told, and so she put something very special inside the locket before waving good-bye. Can you guess what it was?”
“A picture?”
“No, not a picture. She put a wish inside.”
“Sure, Gram.”
“You don’t believe me? You doubt it can be true? There was a time, Johanna, when we women still had our magic. It was a simple matter of course, and nothing at all extraordinary. That old woman put a wish into this locket as certainly as I am standing here telling you this tale. The locket has passed from daughter-in-law to daughter-in-law, from Florentina’s down to me. The wish is still there, waiting to be used, because a wish can be scary to actually make, and no one has yet had the courage.”
“Not even you?”
“Not even me. But you do, my Johanna. I have no daughters-in-law, so when I am gone, I give this to you. The wish will be yours to make.”
The clarity of memory left Johanna trembling. She had been seven, and so fragile, always fantasizing about the fiery death she deserved, one that would have spared her all the pain that came after. Gram found her in a closet, curled into a ball and weeping. It was all her fault. If not for her, she and Nina would still be living happily in the woods of New Hampshire with Mommy and Daddy. Words would not come, not then and not ever, because they would have made Gram think Johanna didn’t love her and Poppy, wasn’t glad to be in school, relieved to wear clothes that were not stolen out of a drop-box she’d been lowered into because she was the smallest.
Johanna shuddered. To be so young and so confused, so full of grief and relief—tears started back then continued into the present. They had always been her way of coping. Cry enough and weariness overwhelmed the confusion, put it into perspective of a kind. The older she got, the better Johanna understood how the evasion of tears became the evasion permeating her life. She simply didn’t know how to change it. Or if she wanted to.
Trembling fingers clicked open the locket. She saw the same faded photo, but not even a sparkle
