thing was certain: neither of us could have prepared for a letter like the one from the Estate of the Montebianco family.
I remember sitting there, in my kitchen, turning the envelope over in my hands. A strange feeling came over me then, clear as a voice in my ear. It was a warning, a premonition of danger. I wonder now, after all that I’ve learned about the Montebianco family, and all that has happened since that snowy December day, what my life would be like had I tossed the envelope into the recycling bin with the junk mail and old newspapers. But I did not throw out the letter, and I did not pay attention to the creeping sense of danger slithering up my spine. I simply slipped the papers back into the envelope, grabbed my jacket, and went out into the cold, bright morning to find Luca.
My husband owned a bar called the Miltonian, a local hangout on Main Street in the hamlet of Milton, New York, a river town of about two thousand people two hours north of Manhattan. I’d made the drive to Luca’s bar a thousand times at least, marking the way by the rolling hills and apple orchards, the pumpkin patches and cornfields, the nail salons and roadside fruit stands. Milton had not been hit with the great Brooklyn migration that had revitalized Hudson or Kingston or Beacon in recent years. It was small, the population static, which was fine with those of us who grew up there, but difficult for business owners like Luca, who needed city traffic.
I parked on Main Street, in front of the Miltonian. My husband’s bar was a short, squat brick saloon with a neon beer sign in the window. Inside stretched a long, polished nineteenth-century bar, an antique pool table with gryphon claws gripping the hardwood, a jukebox full of old jazz standards, and a series of low-hanging Depression glass light fixtures that cast a soupy glow everywhere.
I went inside and sat on my favorite barstool. Bob, my soon-to-be ex-father-in-law, had just finished eating lunch. He slipped into his coat and gave me a quick smile. “He’s in the back.”
“Thanks, Bob,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek on his way out. Luca’s mother had died when Luca was in fifth grade, leaving him and his father to fend for themselves. Bob felt Luca’s disappointment about the state of our marriage as much as Luca did, and I loved him for it.
“Hey,” Luca said, returning from the backroom with an armful of bottles—Hudson Baby Bourbon, Catskill Curious Gin, and others I couldn’t name.
He was surprised to see me there; I hadn’t been to the bar since our separation.
“Want some lunch?” He hadn’t shaved in a while, and a thin blond scruff covered his chin and cheeks, giving him a disheveled look I’d always found sexy.
“A drink,” I said, sliding the envelope onto the bar. “Gin and tonic, extra lime.”
In the past, I wouldn’t have had to tell him. Luca knew what I liked to drink and usually had it ready before I could order. But lately, this man I had known most of my life looked at me as though I had become a different person and all the things I used to like—black coffee, and long walks by the river, and suspense novels, and a strong gin and tonic with extra lime—might change as easily as my mood.
As he mixed my drink, I spread the pages out on the bar, smoothing down the edges, trying (and failing) to understand a word or two of Italian. They looked like official documents to me—at least the top one did, with its large golden seal and colorful calligraphy.
“Are you back in school?” Luca asked, placing the gin and tonic and a bowl of peanuts on the bar.
I had been working toward a degree in early childhood education, and had even completed two semesters of a program at Marist, but everything had unraveled when I lost another baby, this one five months along, older than the others, developed enough that we knew he’d been a little boy. I couldn’t bear to read about the physical milestones during the first year of a child’s life or the development of language in toddlers when it was becoming more and more clear that I would never have a child of my own. So far, no one, not even Luca, knew how to help me get over that.