The Words We Whisper by Mary Ellen Taylor

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

ZARA

Richmond, Virginia

Wednesday, June 9, 7:00 a.m.

Zara sat at the breakfast table, staring at the leather-bound journal. Several times she had been tempted to open it, but Nonna had asked her to read it with Gina.

She was refilling her second cup of coffee, wondering why the fourth beer had seemed like such a good idea last night, when Gina appeared in the doorway. She had applied some makeup and brushed her hair, but her pallor was still evident. Zara smiled even as she wondered how she was going to get through all this.

“Good morning,” Zara said, rising. “Have a seat, and I’ll get you your tea.”

“I can make my own tea.” Gina moved to the electric kettle. “No need to baby me yet. I’m sure the time will come soon enough.”

No pithy platitudes came to mind to counter her sister’s claim or the realization it was going to get rougher. “While you’re there, can you refresh my coffee?”

“Be my pleasure.” Gina carried the coffeepot to the table and refilled Zara’s cup. “I’ve never known how you could stomach coffee this strong. It’s like drinking battery acid.”

“Breakfast of champions.”

Gina returned the pot to the coffee maker. “If you say so.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to get up. I want to read this journal.”

“I figured you’d have it all read by now.”

“Nonna said to wait for you.”

“Since when did you listen?”

“Even an old dog can learn new tricks.” She sipped her coffee. “I haven’t read any of it. Get your tea, come sit with me, and I’ll read.”

The kettle boiled. Gina carefully filled her mug and walked to the table. “Let’s hear some of it.”

“Okay.”

The pages were dry and brittle under Zara’s fingertips, and she was mindful as she turned to the front page. There was no name on the inside flap, simply a date: 1943. Rome.

“I wonder why she chose to journal?” Gina asked.

“According to my internet search, it was a crazy time in Rome. The government was collapsing, the Germans took over, and the Americans were bombing and advancing on the city. Writing might have been a way to destress.”

Gina sipped her tea, staring out the window. “That makes sense.”

For the next hour, Zara read aloud from the journal, which appeared to be written by a young woman named Isabella. She and Gina followed Isabella through the streets of Rome, into the couture shop on the Via Veneto, past the stark exterior of the Gestapo prison, inside the glittering Excelsior Hotel, and through the Resistance attack in March 1944 on the Via Rasella.

“Isabella is Nonna, right?” Gina asked.

“I suppose she is. I’m starting to understand why she never talked about living in Rome.”

“I never saw Nonna as anyone other than Nonna. I’m trying to picture her doing all this as a young woman.”

“She never talked about her life before America. I asked a couple of times, but she always blew me off.”

“So why is she telling us now?” Gina asked. “Is it because I’m sick?”

“That’s part of it. She’s also at the end of her life. I don’t think she ever told Daddy about all this, but Papa must have known.”

“Why wouldn’t she tell? Daddy was conceived around this time.”

“Maybe she was afraid,” Zara said. “Maybe she feared hurting Daddy.”

“What could hurt Dad?”

Zara thumbed through the remaining pages. “It must have been big.”

The bell rang, and Zara rose. “Speaking of Nonna.”

She found her grandmother sitting up in bed, looking impatient and ready to go. “Good morning.”

“You’re very slow this morning. Are you feeling all right?” Nonna asked.

“I’m fine.” She raised the blinds. “Too much beer last night. Ready to get dressed?”

“Yes. And I think I would like oatmeal for breakfast. With brown sugar and raisins.”

“That’s a lot of carbs, Nonna.”

“One must live dangerously from time to time.” She swung her legs to the side of the bed, and Zara settled her in the wheelchair. Nonna’s dressing routine had been moving faster as Zara had learned how to maneuver her and wash her hair in the way she liked best.

Within a half hour they were in the kitchen, and Zara was cooking oatmeal for all three of them. When she set a bowl in front of Gina, her sister grimaced. “I never eat this stuff.”

Zara placed Nonna’s bowl in front of her. “You do now. It’ll settle your stomach.”

“My stomach is fine,” Gina said.

“No, it’s not,” Zara said. “I looked up your meds and know the side effects. Eat the oatmeal.”

“Go on,” Nonna said. “We’ll all get fat together.”

“It won’t make you fat, ladies,” Zara said. “Very good for you. Fiber.”

Both regarded Zara with annoyance and then began to eat. Satisfied, she sat and dug into hers, sprinkling extra brown sugar and raisins on top.

“We’ve been reading Isabella’s journal,” Zara said.

“Ah, I do love brown sugar,” Nonna said.

“Code for ‘Not going to talk about it now,’” Gina said.

“It’s not a code,” Nonna said. “I’m hungry and would rather not talk with my mouth full.”

“I have a date,” Zara said to Gina and Nonna. “With Nicolas, tonight. And he asked me to dress up.”

Nonna stared at Zara across the kitchen table. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you two would be able to suggest an outfit. If not, I can run up to the mall. There are tons of summer sales now.”

Gina set her spoon down hard. “Nonna and I have enough clothes between us to dress half this city. You’ll not be going anywhere.”

“I don’t want to be dressed up like a fashion model. I’ll be uncomfortable and feel weird,” Zara said.

“You cannot dress like you normally do,” Gina said.

“I get it. We’ve established that I don’t dress well,” Zara said. “Let us accept that and move on to stylish but comfortable.”

Nonna pointed her spoon at Zara. “Sometimes you have to choose.”

“Not me, ladies,” Zara said. But maybe she might bend the rule a little for Nicolas.

“When we finish our gruel,” Gina said, “the real work will begin.”

Two hours later Nonna’s bed was covered in dresses. Sheaths, A-lines, smocks, minis, and maxis had been pulled from the shop inventory crammed in the spare room. Zara had, to her grandmother’s and sister’s delights, tried them all on. She finally settled on a black sheath dress, a long silver chain, and teardrop earrings. She could not fit her size 9 feet into Gina’s or Nonna’s size 8 shoes, which were all stunning but might as well have been metal vise grips. Gina finally called a friend who worked in a shoe store and had a size 9 pair of black sandals sent to the house.

After the morning fashion expedition, both her patients were exhausted, and both needed rest, leaving Zara alone to walk her dogs and then make herself a fresh cup of coffee.

Zara went to Nonna’s chest and opened it. As promised, Zara did not continue to read the journal and dutifully set it aside. But she had made no promises about digging into the box’s other contents.

In the box there was a christening gown, Riccardo’s picture, Enzo’s identification card, a small cloth satchel, and a black velvet box. She leaned Riccardo’s image against the sugar bowl and reached for the black box.

Carefully, she unhooked the gold latch and pushed open the lid. Nestled inside was a large emerald broach mounted in a gold setting.

Zara held it up to the light and marveled at the play of shades in the stone’s multiple surfaces. “This has to be worth a fortune. And you stowed it in the attic.”

She carefully wiped the vivid green surface with the hem of her T-shirt. Never once in her life had she seen her grandmother wear this. She turned it over and saw a jeweler’s mark.

Inside the muslin pouch was a gold locket and a slim wedding band strung side by side on a chain. There were also baby-soft strands of hair bound by a ribbon.

She held the locket in her hand and, seeing the hinge on the side, opened it. Inside was a picture of a very young woman and a man. The woman wore a white wedding dress and the man a black suit, and each stared at the camera with the shocked expression of a couple who had no idea what marriage meant.

Engraved on the back in a flowing script were two names. “Enzo and Isabella, 1940,” she said softly. They had been married over eighty years ago, and Enzo would have been dead most of those years.

Everyone thought they had all the time in the world, but, she realized, they were all passing through.

The strands of hair were the kind of keepsake a mother saved to remember her child. At first, she assumed the hair had been her father’s, taken shortly after his birth. But as she held the ribbon up, traces of pink caught the light. Nonna had said she had lost a child. “A girl.”

Zara carefully slipped the locket, ring, and hair back into the muslin and closed the satchel. People responded to grief in so many ways. For a young woman who had lost her husband and a child, perhaps the only way she could survive was to lock the memories away. They were too precious to throw away but too painful to revisit. It explained why her grandmother had been so stoic after her father’s and grandfather’s deaths.

“So much loss, Nonna,” Zara whispered.

Zara picked up the emerald broach and smoothed her thumb over the hard, glittering stone. Nonna was ready to tell her story, but that did not mean that she would do so easily. A lifetime of secrets was a hard burden to release.