Chapter 14
Allegra
THE NEXT MORNING, I sat at the kitchen table, scratching the bumps on my chest as I stared down at a mess of papers strewn all over.
Antonio had messaged me a package of documents—genealogy report, birth certificates, affidavits.
I picked up the family tree for at least the twentieth time and stared down at it.
Sophia Bianchi was listed at the top center of the page.
Her parents were shown off to the side with birth and death dates in the eighteen hundreds, and one lone line fed down from my grandmother—my father, Marcello Bianchi.
His name traced to two more—both listed along the same vertical axis.
One box had my name and the other Camilla Bianchi, born almost four years after me.
At first, I’d been in denial. Bianchi isn’t an uncommon name, especially here in Italy.
Neither was Marcello. There had to be some kind of a mistake.
But then I went down a rabbit hole and searched social media.
And I didn’t need a DNA test to know the woman who lived in a village called Ravello was my father’s daughter.
She had the same face as he did. And since I was the spitting image of my dad, the two of us looked like…
sisters. Not to mention, she was a lawyer, just like my father and me.
Still, I’d run through a dozen different theories over the last few hours. My father had an estranged brother, and Camilla was his daughter! Yes, that’s it. But the family tree and genealogy study didn’t show that my grandmother had any other children.
There was a transcription error on the birth certificate!
We spell Bianchi with an h. This woman probably spelled it without one, and this mess is just a terrible mistake.
A typo, for God’s sake! But her social media spelled her name like ours.
As did her listing with the Ordine degli Avvocati—Italy’s version of the bar association.
Fraud! It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to claim a share of an estate under false pretenses.
The woman had probably made a fake birth certificate, or maybe she actually had the same name but had doctored her father’s name.
Though that theory was quickly extinguished after my third call with Antonio, who assured me the birth certificate he’d sent over was a certified copy he’d requested directly from the Office of Civil Records yesterday.
My father had another daughter.
I have a sister.
My mind raced, replaying memories from my childhood.
It had been fourteen years since my parents died, but I could still remember every smile, every conversation, every Wednesday afternoon I’d gone to my dad’s office after school and we’d hung out for a while.
I searched for signs of tension at home that I could have missed—but I came up with nothing.
The only thing I could think of was the few summers when I was little that I’d come to Italy alone with Dad.
Mom had stayed home. She’d gone back to work when I was a toddler.
How old was I when that happened? Maybe three or four?
I know I hadn’t started kindergarten yet.
Mom had taken a leave of absence when I was born, but when she went back to work, she couldn’t take a month off to come to Italy like my dad could.
At least that’s how I remembered things.
Everything I knew had been turned upside down by one phone call.
I’d lost my parents pretty young, but the time we’d had together had left me feeling anchored after they were gone—anchored to something solid, something I could trust. And suddenly I felt unmoored.
My father—the man I’d held in highest esteem and had wanted to be like so badly that I’d become a lawyer—was a cheater.
And all the loyalty and trust I thought we’d shared now became a lie.
A deep sadness ached inside of me, but anger burned right alongside.
I wanted to scream at my father, to shake him until he admitted the truth and felt as awful as I did.
Of course, there was no one to lash out at now.
Instead, I sat staring at the papers, letting the printed words on the pages go in and out of focus as I drank way too much coffee.
I thought about calling her—my sister. But I knew I wasn’t in the right mindset for that.
I was so lost in my head that a knock at my door startled me enough to jump from my seat.
I stumbled to my feet, knocking the chair over in the process.
After a sleepless night and far too much caffeine, my body was buzzing yet drained.
Not even the sight of my gorgeous neighbor standing out front could cheer me up.
Matteo took one look at my face, and his smile wilted. “What happened?”
I tried to force a smile but failed miserably. “I just have a headache.”
“Can I get you anything? Some medicine from da farmacia?”
“No. But thank you.”
“All right.” He nodded. “I let you rest.”
I noticed for the first time that he was holding something in his hand—the pie pan I’d brought the spinach-and-ricotta pie in the other night. I pointed. “Did you come by to return that?”
“Yes.” He smiled and waited until our eyes met before speaking again. “But only because it gave me an excuse to stop over. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
My stomach fluttered without warning, but my brain quickly kicked in, hard and cold. Ignore it. They’re all the same. “I should probably go lie down.”
Matteo’s smile faltered, but he nodded again and held out the pie pan. “Of course.”
I felt a tug watching him walk away, and for a heartbeat I almost called him back. But then my eyes fell to the scattered papers all over the kitchen table. I closed the door and turned the lock.