CHAPTER 1
FIONA
Florida, 2017
The telephone rang and woke me from a dream. I must have been deep in the REM cycle, because I was cognizant of the ringing, but I believed it was part of the dream, so I chose to ignore it. It was not until at least the fourth ring that I finally opened my eyes.
Rolling to my side, I flung an arm across the bedside table, picked up the telephone, and pressed the talk button. “Hello?”
A woman with a thick Italian accent replied, “Buongiorno. I am looking for Fiona Bell. Is this the correct number?”
Blinking a few times into the murky dawn light, I sat up to lean on an elbow and squinted at the clock. It was not yet 7:00 a.m. “Yes.
This is Fiona.”
“Ah, bene,” the woman replied. “My name is Serena Moretti, and I’m calling from Florence, Italy. I have news for you, Fiona, but I am afraid it’s not good.”
Inching up against the headboard, I pressed my palm to my forehead and squeezed my eyes shut. If this woman was calling from Italy, it could mean only one thing. This was about my father. My real father.
The one I’d never met.
“What is it?” I asked, still groggy from sleep and struggling to rouse my bleary brain.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’m so sorry. I just realized what time it must be there. I think I miscalculated the time difference. Did I wake you?”
Heavy raindrops battered the window of my house on the Florida Panhandle, and palm fronds slapped repeatedly against the glass. “Yes, but it’s fine. I should be up by now anyway. What’s this about?”
The woman cleared her throat. “I regret to tell you this, but your father, Anton Clark, passed away last night.”
Her words lodged in my ear, and I couldn’t seem to process them, nor could I figure out how to respond.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said, speaking as if it were common knowledge, as if everyone knew that a stranger who lived in Italy was my biological father, when in fact no one knew. At least no one on this side of the Atlantic. There was not a single soul in North America who knew the reality of the situation. Not even my dad. The secret about my true parentage was my mother’s parting gift to me in the hours before her death from a brain aneurysm, and I don’t think I’ve ever quite forgiven her for that.
I sat up a little straighter and searched my mind for the proper response. I wanted to say the right thing, but it wasn’t easy, because my emotions were whirling around inside me like a tornado. Of course, it was terrible for someone to die—I felt bad about that—but this man was a complete stranger to me. I knew nothing about him except that he had impregnated my mother when she and my dad spent that terrible, tragic summer in Tuscany thirty-one years ago.
I had no idea what happened between my mother and this man because Mom was heavily medicated and unable—or perhaps unwilling—to go into detail when she dropped that bomb on me. She was close to death, and she must have known it.
“Don’t ever tell your father,” she had said. “He thinks you’re his, and the truth would kill him.” So there it was. Mom had told me nothing about my real father except his name and nationality, and she had forced me into a vow of silence when I was eighteen and convinced me that if I ever asked questions about the circumstances of my conception or let something slip, I would be responsible for my father’s demise.
For the past twelve years, I had been keeping her secret because I believed her—that the truth would indeed kill my father. I still believed it, because with Dad’s health issues, every day was a challenge as well as a blessing. That’s why I had buried my mother’s secret deep in the darkest hollows of my consciousness. I had forced myself to forget what she had told me. I’d purged it from my brain. Pretended it wasn’t true, that it was just part of a nightmare.
But now, a woman was calling from Italy, and she knew things.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “What happened?”
“It was a sudden, massive heart attack,” the woman explained. “He was gone before the paramedics even arrived, and there was nothing they could do. I hope it will give you some comfort to know that he went quickly. He was in his own home. He wasn’t alone.”
I swallowed uneasily. “I see.” His own home. That made him seem real to me suddenly—an actual physical person who had existed all my life, but now, he was gone. Just like that. He was no longer alive on this planet. He would be lowered into the ground. Buried. And not just figuratively in my consciousness. I would never lay eyes on him.
“Well . . . that’s a blessing, at least . . . that he didn’t suffer.”
An awkward silence ensued, and I felt ashamed of the absence of grief in me, but what could I do? All I felt was confusion and a somewhat morbid curiosity, as I wondered if it truly was too late to see him.
I didn’t even know what he looked like. Would there be a wake? Then it dawned on me—that my real father had known about my existence and had deemed me important enough to be informed of his passing. I had always assumed my mother had kept it secret from him too.
“I’m sorry,” I said, desperate to fill the silence. “What’s your connection to my . . .” I could barely get the word out. “How do you know my father?”
“I apologize again,” she said. “I should have explained myself. I work for the legal offices of Donatello and Costa. We were your father’s legal team in Italy, which is why I’m calling.”
I sat up straighter against the pillows, feeling more awake now.
“Your father named you as a beneficiary in his will,” she explained, “and we’re going to need you to sign some papers.”
“Wait a second . . . he what?” My heart seemed to plummet into the pit of my belly.
“The funeral is on Monday, and there will be an official reading of the will with family members on Tuesday. I realize it’s short notice, Fiona, but could you arrange a flight?”
I felt a sudden, rapid rush of heat to all my extremities at the prospect of traveling to Europe on my own to meet the family of a man I’d never wanted—or expected—to know. Whatever he left to me, I didn’t want it, because this man had caused my mother discomfort and shame on the day she died. I’d recognized it when she told me the truth.
As she lay on her deathbed, she could barely speak of it. Whatever happened between them was not a pleasant memory for her.
Besides that, how would I ever explain it to Dad? To the loving father who raised me? I couldn’t possibly confess to more than a decade of dishonesty. It would break his heart to know that I wasn’t really his and that I had kept such a monumental secret from him. And he had been through enough. Suffered more than enough loss.
I shifted uncomfortably on the mattress. “Um . . . this is a lot to take in. I’m not sure . . .” I swallowed hard. “Is it really necessary for me to be there in person? I mean, it’s a long way to travel, and I’ll be honest—I wasn’t close to . . .” Again, the word father got stuck in my throat, so I managed a quick pivot. “I’m not sure how much you know about the situation, Ms. Moretti, but I’ve never even met Mr. Clark. I always assumed he didn’t know about me. He certainly never made any attempts to contact me, which is why this comes as a surprise. I don’t know his family at all, so it might be awkward for me to be there. And I don’t like to be away from my father. He needs me here. Is there anyway we can do this through email or fax?”
Ms. Moretti went silent for a moment. “I am aware that you weren’t a part of Mr. Clark’s life, but he was very explicit in his instructions about the will. I won’t be coy, Fiona. He left you some property, which is why I think you need to come here and see it, sign for it, and then decide what you want to do with it.”
“Property.” My eyebrows pulled together with bewilderment. “In Italy? How much, exactly? I mean, how much is it worth?” I shut my eyes and shook my head. “Oh God. I’m sorry. That sounded very greedy.
I’m not a greedy person. I’m just surprised, that’s all. And confused. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Ms. Moretti said. “I caught you off guard. And I wish I could tell you more about your inheritance, but I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve already said. It’s a bit complicated.
Your father was a British national, so he had a British will. There’s a lawyer coming tomorrow with the actual documents. I’m just the messenger, trying to get everyone gathered here locally to hammer out the details.”
He was British? I’d always imagined him to be Italian.
Pressing my fist to my forehead, I tried to think this through. I had just been told that I was inheriting property in Italy from a virtual stranger. I had no idea how much it was worth, but I’d be a fool to turn it down. Heaven knew we needed the money. It wasn’t cheap, taking care of Dad.
So there it was. I had to accept the fact that I would need to book a flight to Italy straightaway, get time off work, and figure out how to explain all of this to Dad.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try and get on a flight today. Where am I going, exactly? What city?”
I heard papers shuffling on the other end of the line. “You should fly into Florence. I’ll arrange for a driver to pick you up and bring you to Montepulciano. Do you have an email address where I can send you some information and contact numbers? And do you have a cell phone number I can put in the file?”
“Yes.” I relayed all my contact information, and Ms. Moretti promised to send me a message in the next few minutes.
I ended the call and set the phone down in the cradle. For a moment, I sat on the bed, staring wide eyed at one of my paintings on the wall—the one that made me feel as if I were standing on the edge of a high, rocky coastline, staring out at the vast, stormy sea. I had painted it a year ago, shortly before Jamie and I split up. A chill seeped into my bones, and I shivered.
My biological father was dead, and for some reason, he had remembered me in his will. I turned my face away from the painting and tossed the covers aside. Then I rose from bed, deciding that I would need coffee before I opened my laptop and started searching for flights. As I donned my bathrobe, the wind howled like a beast through the eaves, and I felt a dark cloud of sorrow settle over me.
He wasn’t really my father, I tried to tell myself, because what did blood tests and DNA results have to do with parenthood? I’d had no personal connection to the man, no love or loyalty, which were the benchmarks of a normal family. Ms. Moretti had used that word on the phone. She said, “There will be an official reading of the will with family members on Tuesday.”
This included me. I didn’t even know who these people were. His other children? My siblings, possibly? A wife? His brothers? Sisters? Cousins? I had no place among them, unless there might be other illegitimate children in attendance, like me. Perhaps then we might have something in common. But I had no idea. I knew nothing.
* * *
“You’re up early for a Sunday,” Dottie said when I entered the kitchen. Dottie was our night shift nurse. She had been with Dad and me for many years, and I adored her because she was always cheerful. She sang show tunes while she worked, dyed her hair pink and purple, and flirted playfully with Dad, which always made him smile, even on the worst days. All our caregivers had been wonderful, but none, other than Dottie, ever lasted more than a year or two at most. They came and theymwent, which wasn’t entirely surprising. It was a tough gig, looking after a quadriplegic.
“Yes. Did you hear the phone ring?” I asked.
“I did, but you picked it up before I could get to it. Who in the world was calling at seven a.m. on a Sunday?”
Somehow, I managed to think on my feet. “My boss. But before I tell you about that, how’s Dad doing? Did he sleep okay last night?”
The last few nights had been rough, as he had a mild chest infection.
“Like a baby.”
“That’s good,” I replied, “because today’s movie day.”
Dad loved movies and live theater, and it was important for him to get out of the house now and again. Once a week, Jerry, our weekend caregiver, took him to a matinee. That’s when I liked to seize the opportunity to disappear into my makeshift studio in the garage and paint something. It was my only true escape.
At least Dad was lucky in that he had partial use of his wrists and hands. All our nurses over the years had worked with him diligently to maintain the muscle tone. Because of that, Dad was always able to use a computer and voice-recognition software to write. He had been a successful thriller novelist at one time and had three books published, but lately, he wrote articles for the foundation he and Mom had spearheaded in ’96 to raise money for spinal cord research. It had been years since Dad wrote any fiction, other than a few short stories. I think the novels took too much out of him, but honestly, I don’t believe the novels sold very well. The first one did, but the second and third books were a disappointment to his publisher.
I can only assume that must have been difficult for Dad at the time. Writing was the only thing he thought he could do. Outside of that, he was the bravest person I’d ever known. The accident that injured his spinal cord happened before I was born, so I had no knowledge of him as a man who could walk or get around on his own. All I ever knew growing up was that he loved me and cherished me more than anything in the world. I never considered him to be deficient in any way compared to other children’s fathers. I knew our situation was different, but I never felt deprived, and there were all sorts of reasons for that.
For one, when I was small, he would let me sit on his lap while he sped around the house in his power wheelchair, spinning in circles until I shrieked with laughter. The chair moved at the touch of a button, and he controlled it with a joystick, which he gave me license to use at far too young an age. Together, we caused all sorts of havoc when I drove us into tables and knocked over lamps and teetering piles of books.
Oops was his favorite word back then, and we both knew it rankled my mother, who had to clean up the messes we made, and that was before we had full-time caregivers. Mom did everything for him, and her devotion rubbed off on me. Until the age of eighteen, I’d believed we were the closest family on earth because of the challenges we faced every day, especially when Dad was in and out of the hospital for any number of infections that could have killed him. He was very vulnerable then. He still was.
But then Mom died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm, and I learned about secrets and lies. That’s when I discovered that people weren’t always what they pretended to be. Except for my dad, of course. He was always real with me. All I ever wanted to do, after Mom died, was protect him and keep him happy and healthy. I couldn’t lose him too.
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