“Okay, goodbye. Tell her I love her.”
“Of course. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Julia hung up, shaken. She breathed a sigh. Just knowing that her daughter was unhappy left her with an underlying unease, like disturbances in her personal field. She realized how lucky she’d been to stay home with Leni and marveled at working mothers faced with a choice that felt no-win, every day. She felt doubly guilty that Gianluca was having a hard go, and her mother-in-law as well.
Julia sensed she’d end up with her in-laws moving in, for penance.
4
Half an hour later, Julia was on I-95 South in congested traffic, navigating the immense highway system, its wide lanes filled with speeding cars and trucks, all of which were larger than the Fiats and other Italian makes. Her Toyota Corolla felt like a cruise ship.
She headed onto 476 North, and in time switched to I-78 West, heading to north central Pennsylvania. The terrain brought back memories, as if the land itself held her past. She thought of her adoptive parents, both gone now. She’d been very close to her mother, Melanie, who’d passed suddenly of an aneurysm on Julia’s tenth birthday. She would never forget something her mother always told her.
My happiest day was the day I came home with you.
Julia felt a warm rush of love for her adoptive mother and realized that moving to Tuscany and starting a family divided her life into Before and After. Gianluca hadn’t met her adoptive mother, so Julia didn’t share her memories with him very often. Having a birthmother and an adoptive mother was like having a birth country and an adopted country. Confusing.
Julia had grown up in New Gilbert, a small suburb west of Philadelphia, and she spotted the green sign for its exit ahead. She hadn’t been home in ages and she didn’t have time to stop now, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. The tightness in her chest reminded her that not all of her childhood memories were good. Adoption didn’t guarantee a happy family, just a family.
She flashed on her father, with whom she had tried so hard to be close, but he wasn’t having any. It was only after her mother’s death that she learned he hadn’t wanted her at all, a reminder that he wasn’t “man enough” to produce a child, which was how he saw it. He told her that her adoption had been her mother’s idea, and Julia realized that she’d come into the family to pacify her mother, as if she were a doll, not a baby.
NEW GILBERT STATIONread the small sign, and Julia suddenly remembered something that had happened there. It was this time of year, with the chill of winter still in the air, and even this time of day, with evening coming on. She’d been playing at a friend’s near the train station and left late. She was riding past the station on her bicycle, then realized her father’s train would be getting in any minute, so she went to the station to wait for him.
Daddy!
Julia’s thoughts slipped back in time, and she was that nine-year-old all over again, watching the silvery train as it rumbled to a stop with a harshly hydraulic screech. She waited on her bicycle at the exit as the men with their briefcases and the women with their purses piled out of the train, crossed to their cars with jingling keys, and left theparking lot. But her father wasn’t among them, even after the train lurched from the station. His black Lincoln was still in a parking spot, its front facing her.
Suddenly, a white Mercedes pulled into the lot, drove around her father’s car, and parked beside it, facing front. In the next moment, her father got out of the Mercedes on its passenger side. He was in his suit with his tie loosened, the way he always looked at the end of the day.
Daddy!Julia called, then her father looked over, his blue eyes narrowing with anger behind his horn-rimmed glasses.
Julia, get home!
Julia’s mouth went dry. She didn’t understand why he got mad at her, then everything happened at once.
Suddenly the Mercedes sped toward the exit, veering so close that Julia lost her balance and fell over. She landed hard on the asphalt with a leg stuck under the bike. She caught a terrified glimpse of the Mercedes driver as the car raced from the parking lot. It was a pretty blonde woman.
Her father stormed over, frowning.Julia, what the hell are you doing?
Julia scrambled to disentangle herself from the bike. The grease from the chain blackened her leg. Blood oozed from a gritty scrape on her knee.Daddy, that lady—
What lady?Her father’s face was red with anger.Get home.
She almost hit me—
Don’t lie. You fell, I saw it. Pick up your bike.
Julia didn’t understand. He’d seen what just happened, so she didn’t know why he’d be mad at her. It wasn’t like him. He mostly ignored her.But Daddy—
Get up.Her father grabbed her bike, righted it, and set it down so hard it bounced.Get on this bike and get home. Tell your mother how you fell. You weren’t looking where you were going.
My knee hurts.Julia took the bike.
You scraped it. Don’t be such a baby.
Julia got on the bike, wincing. Blood ran down her calf and soaked her anklet with the pink pompom.
And if you lie about this to Mom, I’ll punish you. You understand? You fell! Don’t blame others for your mistakes.
