it. The older generation had spoken Italian all the time. My grandparents had been dead for years, but I still remembered the melody of their voices when they spoke their native language.
“I’ll give her a call,” he said. “Let her know you’re coming.”
Two
The Monastery retirement community sat high on a riverbank, an immense brick structure with copper drainpipes, dark windows, and a moss-covered slate roof. Built in the mid-nineteenth century, it had housed Catholic priests until the eighties, when a developer cut it into twenty-two independent living condos, some with river views, others giving onto the woods.
I parked near the entrance and then sat in my car, a wave of anxiety running through me. Nonna was a formidable woman, and I was a little afraid of her, especially because I hadn’t seen her since I’d asked Luca to move out. She hadn’t been crazy about me before—she had always seemed to look down on my family—but now she would have a real reason to hate me.
Bracing myself, I tucked the envelope under my arm and walked up to the reception desk, where a bearded nursing assistant took my name and then led me to Nonna’s apartment.
“There’s someone to see you, Sophia,” he said. He showed me into the room before slipping back into the hallway, leaving me alone with Luca’s tiny, fierce grandmother.
When the battle to relocate Nonna had begun, Bob argued that Nonna would be more comfortable at the Monastery, that it wasn’t as antiseptic or medicalized as the other retirement homes, and it was true: Nonna’s apartment was warm and comfortable, with art on the walls and books piled everywhere. There was a small kitchen, a private bathroom, and a stunning view of the river, its snowy banks blanketed by a thick gray mist. A Christmas tree blinked in the corner, a few presents tucked underneath, and I remembered, suddenly, that it was nearly Christmas. I should have brought a gift. It would have cast this whole thing in a better light.
“Nonna,” I said. She didn’t seem to hear or see me, so I took another step closer. “Is this a good time?”
Nonna, small and frail, a jet-black wig perched on her head like a nest, sat on a sectional sofa near the window, a magnifying glass in one hand, a paperback in the other.
She turned the glass in my direction, and a single blue eye expanded under the thick lens, as hard and bright as a blown-glass marble. “Come, sit down,” she said. Her English was heavily accented, her voice clear and direct, forceful, not at all the voice one would expect from an eighty-six-year-old woman.
I sat across from Nonna on a wobbly recliner. Up close, her skin was mottled with moles and freckles. A few hairs grew from her chin and ears, and her hands were dappled with liver spots. She looked me over, skeptical, and I wondered if she’d forgotten me.
“It’s Bert,” I said, feeling my cheeks go warm. “Luca’s wife.”
“I know who you are, child,” she said, glancing back to the door, looking for her grandson. “Is Luca here, too?”
“He’s working,” I said. “He told me to tell you he’ll be here Sunday, with Bob, to take you to church.”
“Oh,” she said. She focused on me with a strange intensity, as if trying to understand why I had come without Luca. “So remind me: Who do you belong to?”
The older generation always asked who your parents and grandparents were, as if you were nothing more than a weak reflection of an ancestral original.
“My parents were Giuliano and Barb. I’m the grandchild of Giovanni and Marta Monte.”
“Giovanni’s granddaughter,” she said darkly, her brows settling into a furrow. “Of course, I see the resemblance. You look just like your grandfather when he was young. Around the eyes. Attractive, your grandfather. Nessus dubbio a riguardo.”
I barely remembered my grandfather. He had died when I was five years old, and only fragments of him remained with me: the smell of his cigarettes, the glimmer in his blue eyes as he laughed, the shiny leather shoes he wore, the tassels flopping. I was about to ask what other similarities she found between us when Nonna pulled herself up off the couch and walked to the kitchen.
“Coffee?” she asked. “Milk or sugar?”
“Black,” I said, eyeing the paperback she had been reading: Amore proibito. A bare-chested hulk of a man held a redheaded pixie in his bulging arms on the cover.
Nonna returned with the coffee. She had trouble managing, so I