At the time, Sofia was relieved to not have to deal with selling her childhood home and packing her mother's things. The grief she felt from losing her mom and best friend was still raw and she didn't know if she had the strength to handle a real estate transaction on top of everything else. She found a caretaker to look after the house while she was at school and returned to New York for the second half of the school year. Her intention had always been to come back to Wisconsin to take care of her mother's things and the house eventually but time had gotten away from her and she always managed to find a reason to stay in the city or go home with friends for holidays. She never meant to let four years go by without returning, but every time she was going to come back she found another excuse.
So, here she was. Four years later sitting on the floor of her mother's closet unable to gather enough strength to pack her clothes. Sofia stood up with a sigh and decided that perhaps she should start with an easier task and work her way up to packing her mother's bedroom. She headed downstairs to the kitchen and put the kettle on to make herself a cup of tea hoping that would calm her down and allow her to focus on the task at hand. As she stood over the stove she glanced at the kitchen table and the piles of mail covering the surface. Most of it was junk mail or adds from local stores but Sofia thought it was as good as place as any to start sorting. Besides, tackling such an easy task first might give her some momentum to continue on in other rooms.
Sofia settled at the table with her mug of tea and got to work. She quickly filled several bags with recycling and was beginning to think that there wasn't going to be anything worth keeping from the last four years of mail accumulated on the table. At the bottom of one of the stacks she found a large manila envelope that looked a little worse for wear and had several postage stamps on it. There wasn't a return address listed, which piqued Sofia's interest even more.
She carefully tore the envelope open and withdrew the contents on to the table in front of her. There were several photos, a small cloth bag, and papers. Sofia picked up the photos first, they were well worn as if they had been handled frequently. The first one showed a little girl standing on the beach smiling up at the camera with a woman holding her arms as if to help her walk. Sofia stared at the woman and realized it was her mother grinning back at her. She flipped the picture over to see if there was an inscription on the back.
"Laura and Chessie, Scilla, 1994"
Sofia wrinkled her nose at the childhood nickname. She hadn't been called by her first name, or any variation thereof, in over a decade. When she and her mom moved back to the United States she had started going by her middle name since no one seemed to be able to pronounces Francesca correctly.
Sofia turned the picture back over and stared at it again. Her mother looked so happy. She supposed her dad had taken the picture during some family trip to the beach but she had no memory of the trip since she was so small. Sofia didn't have many memories of her time living in Italy since she and her mother had moved away when she was 8. Most of the memories she did have of living in Italy were not nearly as pleasant as this picture seemed to show.
Her parents' marriage had all but fallen apart by the time Sofia started school and most of the memories she had of them together involved her mother screaming in a hybrid of Italian and English and her father storming out of the house. It wasn't a huge surprise to Sofia when her mother had told her they were going to move to America and explained to her what a divorce was. Sofia remembered her parents sitting her down on their couch and calmly explaining what was going to happen and asking her if she had any questions. Her father hadn't been able to look her in the eyes and didn't look very happy about the arrangement but he dutifully sat by her mother in one last show of solidarity. A few weeks later, Sofia stood outside the airport in Rome and hugged her father goodbye for the last time.
Although she was technically Italian by birth and had both an Italian and American passport, Sofia had very little connection to her Italian roots. Her mother was American and she had spent most of her life in the United States. Her Italian was still passable, if a little rusty, thanks to the lessons her mother had insisted she take after they moved back. Sofia was silently thanking her mother for that as she realized that all of the papers in the envelope were written in Italian.
The first paper had a letterhead from what looked like a law office. Sofia began to translate the contents of the letter as best she could as a sense of dread filled her. The letter was from her father's lawyer and informed her that her father had died and as his last remaining heir she was the sole recipient of his assets. Apparently the contents of this envelope and the family estate in Scilla were all that he left behind. Sofia set down the letter and leaned back in her seat as she let this news sink in. She wasn't as sad as she thought she should be. She hadn't spoken to the man in over 15 years and he was little more than a stranger who happened to share half of her DNA.
Sofia flipped through the other papers in the envelope, which contained details of the family estate and her father's funeral that had taken place a few months ago. She opened the pouch and found that it contained a gold necklace with a delicate key charm on the end. She admired it before brushing her hair out of the way to put the necklace on. She looked back at the papers in front of her and was struck by how little she knew about her father. She hadn't even remembered his first name before looking at the papers in front of her. She had always just called him "Papa" as a child and hadn't really bothered listening to other adults addressing him.
"Antonio Andreotti"
She stared at the name on the page and tried to gather the few memories she had of him from her childhood. There were fleeting recollections of sitting in his office in the evenings and him telling her elaborate fairy tales as she fell asleep. She wished that she remembered more but she had been so young when she left. As Sofia stared at the papers and pictures in front of her she made a decision. She wanted to know more about her dad and what family (if any) she had left in Italy so she would go back to Scilla and find out for herself.
