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Chapter One

Nancy

“ A re you girls going to be all right, Nancy?” Elsie’s white brows knitted anxiously above her faded blue eyes. “I can stay longer, you know. As long as you need.”

I manufactured what I hoped was a calm and reassuring look as I herded the old lady gently toward the door. I hugged Elsie warmly and gave her wrinkled cheek a kiss. “We’ll be fine,” I assured her. “We’re exhausted, that’s all. We need a little down time.”

“But Lucia wouldn’t have wanted you girls to be all alone,” Elsie fussed.

My younger sister Nell seized the elderly neighbor’s hand and patted it. “We’ll be okay,” she said gently. “Thanks so much for the casserole, Aunt Elsie. You’ve been wonderful to us. Lucia was so lucky to have you for a neighbor. We all feel lucky. It meant so much to her, and to us. Really.”

After Elsie was finally nudged and flattered out the door, I locked it, deadbolted it, and collapsed against it, sliding down its length until my butt hit the floor.

“My God,” I muttered. “That took forever. I think Lucia must’ve known everyone in town.”

Nell sank down beside me. Vivi, our youngest sister, flopped onto her back on the scratched floorboards. She put her hand over her eyes to block a bolt of late afternoon sunlight coming through the panes in the door.

We were all in black for the graveside service. Vivi’s fiery locks, spread across the floor and lit by the golden rays of the sun, seemed like the only bright color in the room. Everything else was drained of color.

I felt colorless, too—flavorless and used up, like gum that had already been chewed. Our foster mother Lucia’s graceful, shabby old house had always felt like a benevolent entity in its own right, one that enveloped and protected its people.

Now, it just felt sad, tired, and empty. Robbed of its very heart.

Well. It had been. Literally. Figuratively too, I guessed.

The warmth, the benevolence, that had been Lucia herself.

Now it was just an old house—faded, creaking, and slightly shabby.

For the first time, I saw the marks and scars, the stains and cracks I’d never noticed before, even though I’d lived there through all of my teenage years.

With Lucia in residence, the place had been graced with a flattering filter that obscured all its flaws. Lucia had that kind of magic. She cast it onto people, too. She had always made us feel somehow bigger, better, finer than we actually were.

In her eyes, we were already our best, ideal potential selves. And we could accomplish any fabulous, improbable thing. In her mind, it was just a matter of time.

But she was gone, and the faith she’d had in us vanished with her.

So much for my best self. Right now, I couldn’t even remember what was so damn great about it—not without Lucia to remind me.

She used to tell us she had an eye for treasure.

That was her special gift—recognizing hidden treasure, whether it was art, antiques, books, or people.

That was why she’d fostered and then adopted the three of us.

It made us all feel so special. We’d needed that so badly, back in the old days. Being chosen had been so healing.

And now the chooser was gone.

It was a good thing Vivi and Nell were here with me, because if I’d been alone with these feelings, I would’ve slid down into a very dark place.

As it was, I was hanging on by my fingernails.

“I hadn’t been up here to see her for over a month.” Nell’s voice was bleak and small. “I just kept thinking, well, we’ll be celebrating her birthday soon enough, so I kept on taking extra shifts. Putting it off. Like I had all the time in the world.”

“Same,” I said wearily. “Same thoughts. Same regrets. I’ve been so swamped lately. Two albums to cut. Mandrake about to go on tour. Blah blah blah. I thought it was all so goddamn important.”

“Lucia’s birthday was today,” Vivi said.

“We should have been drinking port wine, eating schiacciata all’uva.

Remember how I used to tease her to get with the new millennium and make fudge brownies or Rice Krispies treats like a normal, red-blooded American?

But right now, I’d give anything to crunch that weird grape focaccia and get the lecture about the sacred importance of tradition. ”

“Oh God, Vivi,” I pleaded. “Don’t do that. Don’t get us going again.”

The warning came too late. Lucia’s schiacciata all’uva set us all off.

The three of us didn’t have family traditions of our own. We’d lost our families of origin a long time ago. Lucia had plucked us out of the system and given us all the noise and mess of a real family—and with it, the weight and ballast of the past.

She’d even given us her name—D’Onofrio. It was a precious gift for all of us.

We avoided each other’s eyes once the sobbing eased. At this point, my sob muscles ached like they’d been beaten black and blue. Enough already.

Nell’s fingers found mine and squeezed. “I’m so sorry you had to find her all alone,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if it had been me.”

I sucked in a big breath and let it out slowly, trying not to see it—but the image of Lucia crumpled on the floor would stay with me forever.

“You would have done the same as me,” I said.

“I was nervous already. I’d called her two evenings in a row and she didn’t pick up.

That’s not like her. So I guess I was braced for it.

Kind of, I suppose. Not that being braced makes any damn difference in the end. ”

“That sick bastard could have called an ambulance when he saw she was having a heart attack,” Vivi said. “It would have cost him nothing. He murdered her, even if the coroner called it natural causes. Since when is being scared to death a natural cause?”

“The thief certainly was an idiot and a dickhead, aside from being a sick bastard,” Nell said. “He takes her jewelry, her computer and her TV, and leaves her Fabergé picture frame and her Cellini bronze? Wow.”

“Speaking of which, we can’t leave Lucia’s fine art in an empty house,” I said. “You’re the sculptor, Vivi. Why don’t you take the bronze?”

Vivi slanted me an ironic look, upside down. “Right,” she said. “A bronze Cellini satyr would look perfect on the dashboard of my van. Right next to the air freshener and the plastic Madonna.”

“But I thought you were winding down from your time on the crafts fair circuit,” I said. “Didn’t you say you wanted to try being in one place for a while?”

Vivi shrugged. “Sure, I’d like to. But there’s a big gap between saying it and doing it.

I still have stock to sell, and I don’t have a place to land yet.

It makes no sense to settle unless it’s in a place I can have a big studio, and that’s expensive.

So no. Not quite yet.” My sister twisted, sinuous as a cat, and rolled over to face us, still lying on the ground.

“I’m guessing that studio apartments in Alphabet City and Williamsburg aren’t much better than a Volkswagen van when it comes to museum-quality art exposition, huh? ”

“They most certainly are not,” Nell said fervently. “I would never sleep again.”

I bit my lip as I chewed on the problem. “What do we do? Rent a safe-deposit box?”

Vivi looked dubious. “Well, possibly. But we certainly can’t put Lucia’s intaglio writing table in a safety-deposit box.”

The three of us regarded the graceful and ancient little table in question for a thoughtful moment.

“Should we just leave it here for now? And get an alarm?” Nell suggested.

Vivi shrugged. “Seems pointless. The house is empty. The whole town knows it.”

“Let’s at least buy a plastic tablecloth,” I said.

“Something truly hideous. I’ll take the bronze.

You take the picture frame, Nell, at least until we come up with a better plan.

Put it up on your wall with a photo of all of us with Lucia in it.

Let it hide in plain sight. Lucia can help protect it for us. ”

That attempt at brisk practicality petered out quickly into another sad silence. Vivi rolled onto her back again. I slid my hand into my sister’s long, silky mane.

“She was our bedrock,” Vivi said softly.

“No, she gave us our bedrock. We can’t ever lose it,” I told her, trying to believe it. “We always will. We’ll build our lives on it. That was her gift to us. And we’ve got each other. Another gift. Sisters.”

Predictably, that set us all off once again

The doorbell jangled in the middle of the fresh sobfest, making us all jump and sniffle anxiously into our soggy tissues.

“Oh God, no,” Nell whispered. “Not another condolence call. Please, no. I just can’t. Check out the peephole, but don’t make a sound. We’re not even here.”

I slowly rose to my feet and peeked out the peephole. A young man in a uniform stood there, holding a box and an electronic signing tablet.

“It’s a delivery guy,” I told my sisters, mystified.

“More flowers?” Vivi asked.

“No, it’s a smallish box.” I pulled the door open. “Yes?”

“Special hand delivery,” the guy said, in a bored voice. “From Baruchin’s Fine Jewelers. For Lucia D’Onofrio.”

“She died a few days ago,” I told him. “Today was her funeral.”

The guy blinked, his mouth dangling, his eyes blank. This scenario was not covered by the set of simple and limited flowcharts in his head.

I took pity on him. “I’m her daughter,” I told him. “I’ll sign for it, if you want.”

“Just a second. Lemme call my boss.” He turned away as he made the call, and muttered into his phone. He turned back and passed me the tablet, eyes downcast. “Sorry for your loss,” he mumbled as I signed my name.

I nodded and shut the door, examining the small box. “Baruchin’s Fine Jewelers since nineteen thirty-eight,” I read off the front. “Weird. Who wants to do the honors?”

Vivi and Nell exchanged nervous glances.

“I’m not in the mood for surprises right now,” Vivi said, her voice small.

Nell let out a shaky breath. “Go for it, Nance,” she said. “Open it up.”

I pried open the seals. Inside the box were three small identical leather boxes. I flipped open each box, laid them out in a row. We leaned over and gazed at their contents, awestruck.

A gorgeous Renaissance-style pendant was inside each box—each one unique, each one adorned with different gemstones. One featured sapphires, one rubies, and one emeralds. They were luscious. Extravagant. Exquisite.

The three of us turned away and sobbed for several minutes.

Vivi dragged a crumpled tissue out of her pocket and honked into it. “She was going to give them to us on her birthday,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

“Our birthstones,” Nell whispered. “Like when she gave us the earrings, that Christmas two years ago. I would bet money that those gems are absolutely real. They look like Renaissance jewelry. Something Lucretia Borgia might have worn.”

Vivi pulled out her phone, plugging in the info from the delivery. “Baruchin’s,” she said, frowning down as she scrolled. “Yes. This jeweler specializes in reproductions of historical jewelry, among other things.”

I loosened the emerald necklace from its velvet nest, reached around Vivi’s slender neck and fastened the clasp.

I dropped a kiss onto my sister’s tear-dampened, freckled cheek.

I did the same for Nell with the ruby pendant, struggling a bit to push my sister’s thick mass of curly dark hair out of the way.

Then I pressed a kiss to my own sapphire pendant before reaching behind my neck to fasten it.

The necklace felt heavy, significant, full of portent around my neck. We stood there silently, our hearts full, holding Lucia’s final, lovely gifts to us in our hands.

“Let’s wear them always,” I said, my voice a shaky croak. “Whenever we can. In Lucia’s memory.”

Vivi made a choked sound and ran toward the kitchen.

Nell rubbed her own pendant gently between her fingers, blinking tears from her long, dark lashes. “She saved our asses, you know,” she said. “At least mine and Vivi’s. Maybe not yours, Nance. You were born already grown up. I bet you could have saved yourself from the cradle.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please. Hardly. I needed just as much saving as anybody.”

“I swear to God, it’s a compliment,” Nell insisted, her dark eyes indignant. “Really! I respect and admire you for it. In what universe is that not a compliment?”

“Stolid old Nancy,” I said sourly. “Hit me with a brick, bam. I don’t even blink.”

“No, no. That’s not it at all. You’re not stolid, Nance. Stolid is thick, insensitive, dull. You’re solid. A qualitative difference. You’re tough, Nance. Strong. Not flaky. Tough and strong is a sexy combo.”

I grunted. “Like boot leather? Useful, maybe. Not sexy. Ask any of my ex-fiancés.”

Nell pantomimed spitting on the ground. “Not unless you want me to slug them out for you,” she said tartly. “I admire many things about you, but your choice in men is not among them. Not that I’m in any position to criticize.”

Vivi burst out of the kitchen, her eyes lit up with excitement. “I found it!” she said, waving a limp, yellowed scrap of paper. She hefted a wine bottle in the other hand.

“Found what?” Nancy asked.

“The recipe for that grape thing! Schiacciata all’uva! We even have the grapes! Elsie left some with the casserole. The recipe’s in Italian, but you read Italian, right, Nell?”

Nell adjusted her glasses, took the paper out of Vivi’s hand, and peered at it. “Sure. The measurements are metric, though. We can find a conversion table online, I guess.”

I was baffled at Vivi’s enthusiasm. “I thought you hated Lucia’s schiacciata !”

“Oh, I do,” Vivi assured me. “With a passion. But it’s the perfect thing for Lucia’s wake. Just us three sniveling together, a couple of bottles of port, and a panful of Lucia’s weird Tuscan grape focaccia. In her honor. For tradition. For family. For her.”

I pulled my sister into my arms and held her.

Vivi felt so delicate to me, vibrating with emotion.

She’d always felt that way—like a baby bird.

I wished I had Lucia’s easy skill to comfort my sensitive little sister.

Lucia had pulled it off with effortless grace, perfectly chosen words.

I’d always marveled at the way she could make anything feel meaningful and magical just by looking at it in just the right way and saying not too much, not too little.

Just what was needed. The perfect thing, reverberating like a gong.

But I would do my best. Maybe I wasn’t as good as Lucia had been, but it wouldn’t be for lack of trying, or lack of caring. That I could promise.

None of us were good cooks, but we did our best for Lucia’s sake.

Our raggedy-ass schiacchiata all'uva was a far cry from Lucia’s elegant traditional Tuscan sweet.

The oven timer did not go off. The smoke detector did.

But the port we guzzled made us indiscriminate enough to actually eat some of it.

It was wonderfully awful, especially burned.