been postmarked from Milton, New York. The name and return address was that of my grandfather, Giovanni Montebianco.
May 14, 1957
Chere Maman,
Marta has urged me to write a letter of reconciliation. She believes that, if nothing else, such a gesture will relieve the pain of our final unhappy encounter. She sees that I suffer from our altercation and, quite honestly, she is correct. I am alone, so very alone, in this foreign place. Losing my fortune, my birthright, my home, my mother and my brother, has left me bereft. And while I hold no illusion that a single missive can heal what has transpired, I do believe that there is the chance you will listen to me and alter the terrible commitment you have made to our ancestors.
When I think of what the creatures have done to the people of Nevenero, what they did to my Marta, I am utterly at sea. Anger seizes me, gripping my heart, and I am unable to forgive. How do you live, Maman, with the knowledge of what you are doing? Assisting these creatures to survive is one thing, but condoning their crimes is unforgivable. You accused me of abandoning my family, but you were wrong. I have not abandoned you, but them, and all they represent. If I am an orphan, it is they who have made me such.
The immigrants from Nevenero are strangers to me, and seem to hate me for my name and history, but it is they who have become my only connection to home. I will never see our mountains again, my children and their children will never know them, and I thank heaven for that. There is nothing but evil in our black mountains. Nothing but ice and snow and secrets.
Dearest Maman, we are not prisoners to our ancestors. We must resist our biology and be happy. There is still hope for you and for Guillaume. Abandon the castle, sell everything, and come to New York. I am here, waiting. There are ships every week. I beg you to break this monstrous chain holding us to the past. We are tainted, but our dark lineage can be left behind.
Yours,
Giovanni
I put the letter down and looked at Vita. She stared at me with an intensity that I had seen just once, just minutes before she had poisoned Dolores.
“When I felt they were old enough to know the truth,” Vita said, “I took the boys to the village of the Icemen. I had hoped that, when they were older, they would work together to help our ancestors. But Giovanni found Marta in the village, and that was the end of everything.”
I stared at her, astonished. “My grandmother was one of them?”
“Not by birth, but by integration. She had been taken as a girl from Nevenero and raised among them. She spoke their language and understood their customs. I believe she would have been a great asset to them, a strong peasant girl like Marta. But Giovanni took her from the Icemen. She, in turn, stole him from the Montebianco family. Together, they took my dreams with them.”
I held Isabelle close, her smell filling me with tenderness, so that I almost felt, as I listened to Vita, capable of forgiving everything. But whatever sadness Vita carried, whatever disappointments and mistakes marred her life, I could not remedy them. I had made a commitment to Isabelle. I was not her mother, I was not even part of her tribe, but I would be her family. Gathering the baby up in my arms, I stood to leave, knowing that I would not see Vita again.
“One more thing before you go,” Vita said. “You see from my son’s letter that he wanted me to come to America. I don’t know if you can imagine what a terrifying proposition it was, to leave these mountains. I considered it, seriously considered it, for years, all the while hoping to find the courage to do what my son did so naturally: defy my lineage and be free. Finally, I wrote to Giovanni at the address on that letter in Milton, New York. He never responded, and thus I was not sure that my letter had ever made it to him. Not, that is, until you arrived.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I never mentioned a letter.”
“You didn’t have to,” Vita said. “You told me that Giovanni killed himself in July nineteen ninety-three. I sent my letter some weeks before, in June, telling him I would leave the castle to come to America. His response was suicide.”