9. An Ending that Fits
Chapter 9
An Ending that Fits
A s the television flashed behind me in a dim hotel room, I felt an extreme need to phone a friend. I had a few acquaintances back home, but none of them felt right to call in this moment. I had no family. My mother was my mother, but that was the extent of it—a title she had never bothered to earn. It wasn’t the time to obsess over that, though.
My knees seemed to give, and I released the weight of my body on the bed, bouncing a little. I hid my face behind my hands, but a second later, splayed them so I could catch the moving tribute on the television from this hotel in Naples. The sight of all the mourners made me almost feel guilty for the relief I’d felt when the tree gave, and Rosaria Caffi was out of my sight and life.
Daughter of a whooo ? —!
The echo of her voice haunted me—not all the time, but in the dark moments before bed when the world was quiet.
The great thing about Italians? They were night owls. I tried to keep the schedule so that I didn’t have that much time on my hands. But time was out of my control, and sooner or later, I would have to succumb to it. And like I had expected, the stalker and the ghost of Rosaria Caffi turned up in my nightmares to chase me down.
I longed to be on Aria Island. Sun always did my soul good, and that was the direction I always took in my life. Nonna had always said that to me. Follow the things your soul craves, Amora, and if they fill it up and keep you at peace, keep them close.
She always called me by my middle name like it was only a nickname. But she said I was love to her, and so she called me that. And that was Nonna. A woman who never searched for the happiness that monetary things could bring. Fleeting, she had called those things. She looked for the deeper meanings in the things that couldn’t be bought. She valued love and cherished it. This is why I cherish you, Amora, she had always said to me when I was feeling blue.
I was prone to bouts of blue. My father had been too. Nonna said I had inherited that from him, and it was the mark of a creative brain that spoke the stories of the heart. She didn’t care for thrillers. She had always been entranced by…romance. She always joked that it was the Italian in her. I wasn’t opposed to writing them, but a story hadn’t found me and bugged me enough to write it yet. Maybe it never would. And that was something I thought about when my money started to run thin.
Money, or lack of keeping track of it, was an affliction of mine. Just like always forgetting to check the gas level in my car, I never worried about money until I was almost out of it. It always seemed like, when I had too much of it, it disappeared on me. I flinched when I checked my bank account occasionally and realized I didn’t have enough money to pay the bills after Nonna died. Even when she was sick, she took care of that for me. She said it was not good enough to try to remember all the money I had and deduct all the things I spent from my balance mentally. That was what a ledger book was for. Because my mind always thought I had more than what was in my bank account.
Money was probably the only aspect of my life that turned me into a chicken—accepting time and time again that the green stuff didn’t grow on trees like leaves .
Trees.
Groaning, I hid my face in my hands again, but I was too curious for my own good.
I peeked.
It seemed like the entire country was watching the televised funeral of Rosaria Caffi. Singers from all over the world, mostly her peers, sang tear-jerking melodies. They recounted stories of her greatest performances. Her dad, mom, and sister sat together, mom and sister mourning underneath black veils. She had four sons. A husband. But the camera never panned to them. Nor did I catch their names.
The camera zoomed in on the black casket with ornate bronze details. It was closed. Thousands of red roses mixed with canary yellow ones created enough sprays, I wondered if most of the roses in existence had been clipped to create them.
The entire funeral seemed almost…scripted, which seemed like a fitting end for a woman who seemed to love to perform. Her last moments came back to me in haunting detail. How she had accused me of stealing her spotlight, even though I had never met the woman in my life and only had asked her about her last words because I would want that. The chance to express my love before the kiss of death took me.
My hands fell from my face when her mom stood in front of the podium and explained that Rosaria had recorded the next song for her husband before her death, and it was being shared postmortem. And when the music started to play, the sound of her voice hit me hard.
It was the most beautiful thing about her.
It was pure.
When she sang, she turned into a stunning songbird.
And the song?
Heartbreaking.
“I Will Always Love You.”
It was a song on my playlist. I had been listening to it before the nightmare. Before the bus swerved …
It was as if the power of her headlights hit me square in the eyes and burned my retinas through remembrance.
I started to cry.
Hard.
Ugly.
Tears.
Tears that felt like they were made of blood instead of water and sodium.
I didn’t even think it was because of Rosaria Caffi, specifically, but…just a deep sadness that only loss could bring. A life had been lost. But the suffering inside of me because of this…just didn’t make sense. Which was a horrible feeling to have. There should be no confusion. I had caused this. Maybe not intentionally, but in a case like this, did it matter if it was or not? I didn’t think her family would separate the two.
Nonna’s death was still fresh in my heart, too, so maybe this entire scene was grating on already sensitive emotions. Nonna didn’t have all this fanfare, but loss was loss. It didn’t matter if we went into the grave in a five-hundred-dollar box or a ten thousand dollar one. Point still stood that whoever was in that box was gone. The absence caused a hole that no one else could ever fill.
I couldn’t seem to get my emotions under control. Especially as the funeral came to an end and Rosaria was being carried out to the song she had recorded for her husband.
Did he hate me?
Did he even know what I had done?
What about her sons?
Dad, mom, and sister?
A sister that might have looked like her. If she did, would she always be a reminder to Rosaria’s parents that she was gone? Or would they take comfort in seeing her face, the memories of the daughter they lost shining through?
I sniffled, sitting up, using the heels of my palms to dry my eyes. I took a few shuddering breaths and called Eva, the neighbor across the street from the Poésy family who had hooked me up with the job on the private island. Eva had told me to call night or day. She answered on the first ring.
“How are you, bebe ?”
I sighed, and it did nothing to release the intense pressure stuck in my chest. “Could be better.”
“I know,” she whispered.
Goosebumps appeared on my arms in reaction to her “gift.” She already knew I was struggling, so I wasn’t going to waste her time on a repeat.
“Are you sure the boat is still coming back for me?” I hated that my voice sounded so defeated, almost pleading, but I had to be on that island. I needed the sun. The water. The sky and air there.
A chance at a new life. A new start.
The accident on the way to the island had stalled me. The boat had left without me, but after I called Eva, she had told me another one would come ashore to get me. I still had a job.
I needed to hear it again for sanity’s sake. I also needed to hear it because I was quickly running out of money. I had accommodations on the island and a paycheck to look forward to. Plus, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in Italy proper—not if Rosaria Caffi’s adoring fans ever found out I had caused the accident that ripped her away from them. Her family too.
“Yes,” she said. “I spoke to Scarlett. It’s not a problem. Her family is going through a lot right now, but she promised me she would take care of it. She already has.”
“Okay.” I sighed, the weight of it lowering me to the mattress, where I felt like I was sinking into it, about to suffocate. I hoped the island would throw me a life jacket.
“Get some rest, bebe ,” she whispered. “Know that tomorrow begins a new day. A new start.”
Just what I needed to hear.
It was as if her truth became the Mediterranean Sea, and it started to rock me—right to sleep.