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“What do you mean?”
“I will tell you everything when you come back from your walk. When you get to the open fields take your shoes off and walk on the ground in your bare feet. We’ll have dinner together at eight.”
She smiles and rises, and I realize she is the most diminutive person I have ever known. It is incredible to think that this tiny woman can sit here in her parlor and know everything that goes on with all the members of her large family.
Chapter Fifty-Two
FRANCESCA
For the next week, I spend many hours outdoors as Nonna Isadora had said, and to my great surprise, the land begins to soothe me. I wake up early and watch the sunrise, I take my shoes off and walk barefoot for miles, I wave to the farm hands in the distance, I watch the birds in the sky and little by little I begin to forgive myself.
On Sunday I go to the small church and sit through a sermon in Italian, then when the church empties, I light a candle for my lost baby. A sense of peace steals over me. I talk to the little one. I tell her I am sorry, and I tell her I will see her again.
As time passes, I think of Valentino more and more. Without anger. I see now that he is the husband I had dreamed of as a young girl. But I was so caught up in my fantasy love for Thomas I didn’t recognize what an amazing thing I had with Valentino.
My mother calls and I tell her I love her. She laughs and tells me if she had known the effect Italy would have on me she would have sent me years ago.
Every night we have dinner together, Nonna and I. She tells me tales of Valentino when he was a child. The stories she tells makes me laugh. I have grown to love her. Underneath her sternexterior, she is the wisest person I have ever met. And she is kind. The world will be a much poorer place when she eventually leaves it.
Nearly two weeks pass by the time Nonna calls me to her parlor. On her lap is the black leather-bound book she held clasped in her hands the first day I arrived here. She smiles softly at me. “It is time for you to return to America.”
“Are you kicking me out?” I ask, my lips pulling into a smile.
She holds the book out. “Your life is not here. It is with your husband.”
“What is this?” I ask, turning the book over in my hands. A folder of thick parchment falls out of it. I retrieve it from the floor, and look at Nonna Isadora.
“Read it,” she says softly.
I unfold it curiously and the first thing that catches my eye is my father’s name. Paulo Barbieri. I frown and sit on the chair behind me to read the document. I quickly devour each word, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
It’s titled:
Transfer of Property Ownership
I, Paul Barbieri, at this moment, declare and confirm that due to financial constraints and the inability to repay the debts I owe to Valentino Barone, voluntarily transfer ownership of Terra de Barbieri to Valentino Barone.
I acknowledge that this document proves that the above property is no longer associated with me and has been vested upon Valentino Barone.
This document is legal and binding.
I further assert that I do not sign this under coercion or duress.
I skim to the bottom of the page and realize that Nonno’s signature was there, as a witness, along with Zio Marco’s. The most shocking point in this document is that it is dated from two years ago, before my father’s death.
My mouth falls open. I read the words over again. I look up at Nonna full of confusion.
“But I owned Terra de Barbieri and the land was signed over to Valentino by my grandfather after my marriage.”
Nonna shakes her head gently. “No. You never owned it. Your husband did not need to marry you to have it.”
Through the confusion realization dawns. My father was indebted to Valentino before his death and had signed off the Terra de Barbieri to him. The land was never mine. It had belonged to Valentino all this while.
Shocked by my discovery, I take my phone out and call Nonno. We haven’t spoken since I left for Italy, but he picks up immediately.
“Hello, Francesca.”
“The Terra de Barbieri was never mine,” I say in a shocked voice. “It has always belonged to Valentino, even before Father’s death. It was never mine.”