I’m finally revisiting the characters from The River City Chronicles nine years after their original timeline. I’ll be running the series weekly here on my blog, and then will release it in book form at the end of the run. Hope you enjoy catching up with all your faves and all their new secrets!
Today, Gio meets a relative he never knew existed…
< Read Chapter 50
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Chapter Fifty-One
The Moon Rises Only for You
“Mamma?”
The woman stared at him, clearly debating between fight or flight.
She wasn’t his mother. She couldn’t be. He had watched her die.
She looked so much like her, but older and healthier. In the last few months before her death, Luna had become gaunt, a shell of her former herself. “Who in the hell are you?”
The woman took a step back, and looked from him to Dante and back again, her eyebrows creasing. “Are you Giovanni?”
He gasped, then covered his mouth with his hand. How did she know him? He clutched the bundle of lilies tightly. “Tell me who you are first.”
Dante stood next to him and crossed his arms, presenting a united front. “She looks so much like your mother.”
“Do you remember her?” Gio glanced over at his cousin. Some days he barely remembered what Luna looked like.
Dante nodded. “Mama has a few photos of her that she has shown me from time to time. I think she saved them from your mother’s photo album.”
“Fair enough.” The woman took a deep breath, and then shook her head, throwing her hair back behind her shoulders. She had long hair, blond where his mother’s had been silver, but she was Luna’s spitting image otherwise. She was probably approaching fifty, but she wore it well. Her gauzy top billowed around her chest like a cloud in the light breeze. “My name is Stella, and if you are Giovanni, you’re my nephew. Luna Mazzocco was my sister.”
Gio blinked. “My mother didn’t have any family.”
Stella nodded, her eyes fixed on his. She brushed a stray lock of golden hair away from her forehead with her right hand. It was a gesture so familiar to Gio that he almost choked. His mother had done exactly that when she had been playing for time, thinking about what to say next. “Your mother and I were twins. We were separated when we were four.” There was a deep sadness in her voice. “You see, our own mother was an alcoholic, and she drank herself to death at a young age. Luna went to live with a local family, while I was sent away to a family in Sicily.”
She’s my aunt. “That must’ve been so difficult for you.” He closed his eyes. His mother had a sister, and had never known that this woman… Stella… was still alive. He set down the flowers and stood, wiping the dirt from his hands. There was no doubt in his mind that she was telling him the truth. The resemblance was uncanny.
His aunt took a cautious step toward him, as if afraid he might flee, and then another, and reached out to touch his cheek. “About nine years ago, I saw an obituary for someone who looked just like me. Her name was Luna. I stared at her, touching her cheek on the screen just like this, and my memory came flooding back, from when I was a little girl.”
“She never said anything about you.” He would’ve remembered if she had mentioned having sister. Instead, she had always talked about how they were all alone in the world with no family to depend on. We only have each other in this great wide world, tesoro.
Stella let go of his cheek and looked away, and when her gaze returned to him, her eyes were bright and misted. “Perhaps it was for her like it was for me, like a dream. Sometimes I would lay in bed at night and picture this beautiful fairy who looked just like me, only her hair was silver, like the moon. She would smile at me and take my hand, and say “Everything will be all right.”
And suddenly he remembered.
“My mother used to tell me about her imaginary friend, the one she had when she was a little girl. She was a beautiful fairy from the old country, she would tell me. A pretty girl with hair, the color of the golden sun. This fairy used to look after her when she was a little girl, and mamma hoped that one day she would take care of me as well.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Dante was staring at her.
Stella smiled. “Maybe so. Maybe she remembered me the same way I remembered her.”
Gio shook his head. After all this time, his mother’s golden fairy had appeared to him. Still, it seemed… unlikely. “What are the odds? That you and I would be here at the same time, on the same day?”
She chuckled. “Better than you might think. When I found her again, when I found that she had passed, I was working for an old man named Agostino in an accounting office in Catania. It was a boring life, and I’d always wanted something different. I took it as a sign, and brought my daughter here as soon as I could.” She put a hand on his mother’s tombstone. “The day I arrived, we came here together and laid out a bouquet of white and yellow chrysanthemums on her grave. I’ve come to visit her every day since.”
That makes sense. “White for her, and yellow for you.” His mother’s face, which had faded in his mind with time was suddenly bright and vivid again in his memories. Then it hit him. “Wait a minute, did you say you have a daughter?”
“Yes. She’s nineteen now. Would you like to meet her?”
“Is she pretty?” Dante the puppy was back.
Gio patted Dante on the head. “Calm down, Cujo. She’s your cousin.” He turned back to Stella. “I’d love to meet her. What’s her name?”
“Sole. The sun of my heart.”
Dante laughed, but Gio silenced him with a look. Still, it was a little funny. Luna, Stella, and Sole. Moon, Sar, and Sun.
His aunt took his hand. “Kneel with me.”
He did as he was told. The grass was cool on his knees, even through his jeans.
“Put your hand here, on the grass.” She laid hers on the green blades.
He put his palm next to hers.
“Now close your eyes, and tell her what’s on your heart.”
He blinked. What? “It’s… this feels weird.”
“Only at first. Your mother is always waiting, listening for your voice. I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to laugh.”
“I swear.”
“Sometimes when I speak to her, I hear her voice in my head.” She flashed him an embarrassed smile.
“I believe you.” He thought back to his conversation with Brad. “Sometimes the spirits talk to me too.”
Her smile broadened. “There you go. So talk to her. Tell her.”
He looked at the headstone where his mother’s name was engraved. This is stupid. Still, he was here. He’d come all this way to see her. And meeting Stella had to mean something. “Okay, I’ll try. Ciao mamma… come va?” How’s it going? He groaned.
He looked up at Dante, who nodded enthusiastically and gave him the okay sign “You’re doing great.”
Gio shook his head. It didn’t feel great. Still, he took another go at it. “Ciao, mamma. It’s been nine long years. Diego… Papà has been great. But I miss you. Every day I miss you…” His voice caught in his throat.
Stella squeezed his shoulder in encouragement. “Go on.”
He nodded. “Mamma… why did you leave me?”
And then he felt her. His chest filled with warmth, and her hands encircled his waist. “Tesoro, you have grown into the man I always hoped you would be. Tall and strong, buono come il pane. I am so sorry I had to leave you, but my time here was at an end.” Her lips touched his forehead. “I am so proud of you, il mio cucciolo.” Then she was gone.
He laughed. Bouno come il pane… literally good like bread. “Mamma, don’t go…”
“Did you hear her?” Stella’s eyes fixed on his, searching.
“Yes.” He lifted his hand from the grass, staring at it wonderingly. It was damp, and smelled of earth and life. He picked up the bundle of lilies and arranged the flowers on the grave, them kissed the headstone. “Ti amo, mamma. Mi mancherai sempre.” I will always miss you.
Then he got up and dusted himself off again.
Stella put her arms around him. “I’m sure she loved you very much, tesoro.”
She sounded so much like his mother that it made his heart ache.
Dante, however, was uncharacteristically quiet.
He tapped Dante’s shoulder. “Tutto a posto? You okay in there?”
His cousin’s gaze shifted to meet his own. “I think so. I felt her too.” He was pale as a sheet.
Stella patted his cheek. “I’m sure you did. Come on, boys. I’ll take you home and get you fed. Then you can meet your cousin, and ask me all the questions you want.”
Gio nodded. “I’d like that.” He looked up at the old abandoned house that loomed over the neat cemetery plots, slowly collapsing to the ground. Just for a second, he thought he saw Luna waving at him from one of the empty windows.
“Ciao mamma,” he said one last time.
Then he turned and followed Dante and Stella.
< Read Chapter 50
Like what you read? if you haven’t tried it yet, check out book one, The River City Chronicles, here.