forgot all about the genetic test.
“Here we are,” Mrs. Thomas said, pulling out some certificates and bringing them to her desk. “I didn’t know you had an uncle,” she added, fanning the papers out so I could see them.
“He died before I was born,” I said.
There weren’t many Monte birth certificates. Just three: my father, Giuliano, who had been born January 17, 1961; his brother, Frank, born March 22, 1966; and me, Alberta, born March 20, 1988. My grandfather Giovanni had been born in Italy, so there would be no birth certificate for him on file. My mother was born in Dutchess County, and her certificate would be there, filed under her maiden name.
Before I could ask her to photocopy them, Mrs. Thomas was off on the other side of the room, hunting through the filing cabinet holding death certificates. While I waited, I pulled my birth certificate from the pile. My Social Security card had the initial “I” as my middle name, as did my driver’s license. I read the birth certificate. Family name: Monte. First name: Alberta. Between those names were three others: Isabelle Eleanor Vittoria.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Thomas said, her head bent over the cabinet. From the sound of her voice, something wasn’t right.
“There should be five death certificates,” I said. “My grandparents, my parents, and my dad’s brother.”
“Come here a sec, hon,” she said, lifting the file from the cabinet and carrying it to the back of the office. “Take a look at this.”
Mrs. Thomas spread the death certificates out under the light of a lamp. I could see there were more than five. Significantly more. She arranged them into two piles on her desk. The left pile had the five certificates I had expected to find. On the right, there were ten others.
“What are those?” I said, taking the pile on the right. I sorted through them, one by one. The first eight certificates were dated between 1942 and 1969. The parents were listed as Marta Monte and Giovanni Monte, my grandparents. On the line where the names should have been typed, there was an abbreviation: N/A. Not applicable. The last two certificates were from the eighties, and the parents were listed as my mother and father. Each of those two certificates had a name: Rebecca Monte and John Monte. At the top of each document were the words “Certificate of Death.”
I sat down in the chair at Mrs. Thomas’s desk, stunned, and looked at them all again.
“Names weren’t mandatory with these older ones,” she said, pointing to the eight nameless certificates. She picked up the newer certificates. “But these two came after new regulations were put in place. Names were required on all certificates in this county after 1978.”
I stared at the death certificates, the typed words and official signatures, my heart heavy. “What does that mean?”
She looked at me, suddenly cautious. “You see here,” she said, pointing to the dates. “The day of birth and death is the same. These are all stillbirths.”
A heavy, suffocating weight pressed on me. Stillbirths. That was what the last miscarriage had been, technically. The first three had happened early, before the eighth week, nothing but blood and some cramping. But the last pregnancy had been twenty weeks along, a boy, fully formed and small as a kitten. I’d held him for a moment, looking at him, knowing it would be the last time. I wrapped him in a cotton swaddle blanket and kissed his forehead. When they took him away, it was as if they took a part of me, too. Luca had taken care of everything at the hospital, and I never saw any of the paperwork. Our baby—our son—must have a certificate there, under Luca’s family name. I wondered what name Luca had given him.
“You all right there?” Mrs. Thomas asked.
“I just don’t understand how there can be so many . . .” I couldn’t say it, the word “stillbirth”; it stuck in my throat like chewing gum. “So many of these in my family.”
“You didn’t know about any of this?”
I shook my head. “I knew that I was an only child, and that my father had a brother who died young. But I didn’t know about . . .” I glanced at the papers. “Them.”
Your family has had such trouble. Such tragedy.
“Well, sometimes when you start digging into family history, this shit just comes out of the woodwork,” Mrs. Thomas said. She patted my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Let me make you some