“Noticed what?” I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks, the throb of my pulse in my chest.
“How your family was always . . .”
“Always what?”
“Nothing,” he said, and I could see that he hadn’t meant to take the conversation in that direction, that he was a little drunk and had said something he already regretted.
I stopped and turned to face Luca. “My family was always what, Luca?”
“Shunned.” Luca took a deep breath, the kind of breath one takes before diving into a cold pond. “Your family was always shunned.”
The word stung like a slap. “That is not true.”
“Did you ever wonder why you weren’t included in the church youth group?”
“No. Well, I wondered, but I didn’t care . . .”
“Or why your parents weren’t part of any of the community events?”
“Like what?” I asked, my voice catching in my throat. “The Lent potlucks?”
“Or the Christmas bazaar or the Saint Joe’s fund-raiser?”
I hadn’t thought of any of these things for a long time, but a sense of shame fell over me as Luca listed them. Yes, my family had kept to themselves, and yes, there was definitely a sense that we weren’t welcome, but I had never thought of us as being shunned. No one had ever articulated our status in Milton quite so clearly, and it hurt.
“The older generation wouldn’t even talk to your grandparents,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“Nonna warned me before I married you,” he said. “She said your family was tainted.”
I stared at him, shocked and hurt. “Tainted?” I asked. “Did you really just say the word ‘tainted’?”
“Bert, I’m sorry.” Luca looked sad and unsure of himself, but I could see that he had been carrying these feelings around with him for years. “I didn’t listen. I loved you anyway, Bert. With everything that’s happened, I’ve always loved you anyway.”
“I need a little air,” I said, turning away and leaving him standing alone. “I’ll see you back at the hotel.”
I wandered through the snow-covered streets, tears in my eyes and a headache throbbing at my temples. I was angry but also relieved. In thirty seconds, I understood why there had been such resistance to me in Milton, why I’d never felt a part of the same community as Luca and his family. Clearly, whatever had happened in Nevenero so many years before had not been left there. When our families had immigrated to America, they had carried this bad blood with them.
I walked for a good hour and was about to turn back toward the hotel when, at the corner of a narrow, cobblestone street, I saw a bookstore. It was a small shop with wood-framed windows stacked high with books. The thought crossed my mind that maybe there would be something in the store about Nevenero, a travel guide, or a book of Italian history that could help me understand the place my grandparents had left.
A bell rang as I pushed through the door and walked into a warm space that smelled of tobacco and old paper. A man with gray hair and a matching mustache smoked at a counter, a book open before him.
“Buona sera,” he said without looking up.
“Buona sera,” I replied. I looked around, at the high wooden shelves crammed full of books, and wondered how anyone found anything in such chaos.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you speak English?”
He looked up from the book and put out his cigarette. “A little.”
“Do you have a book about a place called Nevenero?” When he looked at me blankly, I added, “It’s a village in the Aosta Valley.”
“Valle d’Aosta.” It sounded beautiful when he said it. “I think . . . no. But follow me.”
He walked through a narrow passage between bookshelves, stepping over stacks of magazines on the floor, until we came to a shelf filled with travel books. He ran his finger over the spines—Francia, Grecia, Roma, Sicilia—stopping at an oversized hardcover, Fortezze della Valle d’Aosta. Fortresses of the Aosta Valley. He slid it out and gave it to me, then turned, leaving me to page through black-and-white photographs.
Mountains dominated every picture. There were fortresses and castles framed by mountains, herds of goats on limestone crags, stone village houses nestled into valleys. Ibex, with their long, sharp horns, stood on granite precipices. I couldn’t read much of the text, but the images gave the impression that the region was stark and breathtaking, all steep inclines and vertiginous descents. It made me wonder at my grandfather, how his character