Juliet

V.II

SEEN FROM THE TOP OF THE Mangia Tower, the half-moon-shaped Campo looked like a hand of cards with the picture side down. How suitable, I thought, for a city that held so many secrets. Who would have thought that men like the evil Messer Salimbeni could thrive in such a beautiful place-or rather, that he had been allowed to.

There was nothing in Maestro Ambrogio’s journal to suggest that this medieval Salimbeni had had redeeming qualities-such as the generosity of Eva Maria or the charms of Alessandro-and even if he did, it didn’t change the fact that he had brutally murdered everyone Giulietta had ever loved, with the exception of Friar Lorenzo and her sister, Giannozza.

I had spent most of the night in anguish over the brutal events described in the journal, and the dwindling number of pages left told me that a bitter end loomed. There was, I feared, not going to be a happily-ever-after for Romeo and Juliet; it was not merely literary acrobatics but solid facts that had turned their lives into a tragedy. As far as I could tell, Romeo was already dead, stabbed in the stomach with his own dagger-or rather, my dagger-and Giulietta was now in the clutches of a loathed enemy. What remained to be seen was whether she, too, would die before the pages ran out.

Perhaps this was why I was not in a merrier mood as I stood at the top of the Mangia Tower that morning, waiting for my motorcycle Romeo to appear. Or perhaps I was apprehensive because I damn well knew I shouldn’t have come. What kind of woman agrees to a blind date at the top of a tower? And what kind of man spends his nights with a helmet on his head, visor closed, communicating with people via tennis balls?

But here I was.

For if this mysterious man was truly the descendant of medieval Romeo, I simply had to see what he looked like. It was more than six hundred years since our ancestors had been torn apart under very violent circumstances, and between then and now, their disastrous romance had become one of the greatest love stories the world had ever known.

How could I not be excited? Surely, I ought to be all steamed up at the idea that one of my historical figures-undeniably the most important of them all, at least to me-had finally come alive. Ever since Maestro Lippi had first made me aware that there was a contemporary, art-loving, wine-drinking Romeo Marescotti at large in Siena by night, I had secretly dreamt of a meeting. Yet now that I finally had it before me-fleshed out in red ink and signed with a swirl-it occurred to me that what I really felt was nausea… the kind of nausea you feel when you are betraying someone whose good opinion you cannot afford to lose.

That someone, I realized, sitting on the embrasure overlooking a city at once achingly beautiful and irresistibly arrogant, was Alessandro. Yes, he was a Salimbeni, and no, he did not like my Romeo one bit, but his smile-when he allowed it to surface-was so genuine and so contagious that I had already become hooked.

Then again, it was ridiculous. We had known each other for a week, no more, and for most of that time we had been at each other’s throats, eagerly spurred on by my own prejudiced family. Even Romeo and Giulietta-the real ones-could not boast that kind of initial enmity. It was ironic that the story of our ancestors should come full circle like this, leaving us looking like Shakespearean wannabes, while at the same time seriously reshuffling our little love triangle.

No sooner had I deigned to acknowledge my infatuation with Alessandro, however, than I started feeling sorry for the Romeo I was about to meet. According to my cousin Peppo, he had fled to foreign lands to escape the viciousness that had driven him and his mother out of town, and whatever his ultimate purpose in returning to Siena, he was very possibly risking it all by offering to meet me in the Mangia Tower today. For that alone, I owed him thanks.

And even if he was not Alessandro’s equal, the least I could do was to give him a chance to wow me, if that was what he wanted to do, and not stubbornly close my heart to him the way Juliet had closed her heart to Paris after meeting Romeo. Or… perhaps I was jumping to conclusions. Perhaps all he wanted was to talk with me. If that were the case, it would-quite frankly-be a relief.

When I finally heard steps on the stairs, I got up from my perch on the stony embrasure and brushed off my dress with stiff hands, steeling myself for the quasi-legendary encounter about to happen. It took a while, though, before my hero made it to the very top of the spiral stairs, and as I stood there, poised to like him, I could not help but notice that-judging from his heavy breathing and the way he dragged his feet the last little bit-between the two of us, I was in far better shape.

Then, finally, my panting stalker appeared, leather suit draped over one arm, helmet dangling from the other, and all of a sudden, everything stopped making sense.

It was Janice.

IT WOULD BE HARD to pinpoint the exact moment when things had started going south in my relationship with Janice. Our childhood had been full of conflicts, but so are most people’s childhoods, and the overwhelming majority of mankind seems to be able to reach maturity without having completely lost the love of their siblings.

Not so with us. Now, at twenty-five, I could no longer remember when I had last embraced my sister, or had a conversation with her that did not deteriorate into a juvenile spat. Whenever we met, it was as if we were eight-year-olds again, falling back on the most primitive forms of argument. “Because I say so!” and “I had it first!” tend to be expressions most people leave happily behind as vestiges from a barbarian age the way they do blankies and pacifiers; to Janice and me, they were the philosophical cornerstones of our entire relationship.

Aunt Rose had generally taken the approach that it would all straighten itself out in due course, as long as there was an even distribution of love and candy. Whenever we applied to her for arbitration, she would be tired of the case before she even heard it-it was, after all, only one of many piling up around her-and would always give us a standard reply to do with sharing, or being nice to each other. “Come now!” she would say, reaching for the crystal bowl with chocolate pretzels sitting on a side table, within easy reach of her armchair. “Be good girls! Julie, be fair to Janice now, and let her borrow your”-whatever it was… doll, book, belt, bag, hat, boots-“so we can have some peace around here, for heaven’s sake!”

And so, inevitably, we would walk away from her with a whole new can of worms, Janice snickering at my losses and her own undeserved gains. The reason she wanted my things in the first place was that her own had broken or gotten “tired,” and it was easier for her to take over mine than to make money and go out and buy new ones. And so we would leave the armchair after yet another wealth redistribution that had taken away what was mine and replaced it with nothing but a dry chocolate pretzel from the bowl. For all her litanies about fairness, Aunt Rose was a perpetual generator of nasty unintended consequences; the whole hellish path of my childhood was paved with her good intentions.

By the time I reached high school, I didn’t even bother to go to her for help, but ran straight out into the kitchen to complain to Umberto, who was-in my memory-always in the process of sharpening the knives, opera blaring. Whenever I defaulted to the old, “But it isn’t fair!” he would counter with, “Who told you life is fair?” and, when I finally calmed down, he would ask me, “So, what do you want me to do about it?”

As I grew older and wiser, I learned that the correct answer to his question was, “Nothing. I have to do it myself.” And it was true. I did not run to him because I really wanted him to take Janice to task-although that would have been nice-but because he was not afraid of telling me, in his way, that I was better than her, and that I deserved more from life. But, that said, it was up to me to get it. The only problem was, he never told me how.

All my life, it seemed, I had been running around with my tail between my legs, trying to dig up opportunities that Janice could not somehow steal or spoil, but no matter where I buried my treasures, she was always able to sniff them out and chew them up beyond recognition. If I had saved my new satin ballet shoes for the end-of-season recital, I would open the box only to discover that she had tried them on and left the ribbons in a tangle, and once, when I had spent weeks making a collage of figure skaters in art class, she had inserted a cutout of Big Bird from Sesame Street as soon as I brought it home.

It didn’t matter how far away I ran, or how much rot I rolled in to camouflage my scent, she would always come running, tongue hanging out, to bounce around me with playful mischief and leave a steaming number two right in the middle of my path.

As I stood there in the Mangia Tower, it all hit me at once-my countless reasons for hating Janice. It was as if someone had started a slide show of bad memories in my head, and I felt a surge of fury that I had never felt in the company of anyone else.

“Surprise!” she now said, dropping the leather suit and helmet and opening her arms for applause.

“What the hell,” I finally gasped, my voice shrill with anger, “do you think you are doing here? Was that you, chasing me around on that ridiculous bike? And the letter-” I pulled the handwritten note out of my purse, creased it into a ball and flung it at her. “How stupid do you think I am?”

Janice grinned, enjoying my fury. “Stupid enough to climb up the friggin’ tower!… Oh!” She made a grimace of faux sympathy that she had patented at the age of five. “Is that it? You weally fought I was Womeo?”

“Okay,” I said, trying to cut through her laughter, “so, you had your joke. I hope it was worth the flight. Now excuse me, I’d love to stay, but I’d rather go stick my head in a bidet.”

I tried to walk around her to get to the stairs, but she immediately backed up, blocking the door. “Oh, no you don’t!” she hissed, her expression shifting from fair to stormy. “Not until you give me my share!”

I started. “Excuse me?”

“No, not this time,” she said, her lower lip trembling as she tried on the role of the wounded party for a change. “I’m broke. Bankrupt.”

“So, call the millionaire help line!” I retorted, falling right back into our sister act. “I thought you recently inherited a fortune from someone? Someone we both know?”

“Oh, ha!” Janice wrung out a smile. “Yeah, that was priceless. Good old Aunt Rose and all her gazillions.”

“I have no idea,” I said, shaking my head, “what you are whining about. Last time I saw you, you had just won the lottery. If it’s more money you want, I’m the last person you should be talking to.” I made another push for the door, and this time, I was determined to get through. “Get-out-of-my-way,” I said. And amazingly, she did.

“Why look at you!” she jeered as I walked past her. If I hadn’t known better, I might have seen jealousy in her eyes. “The little runaway princess. How much of my inheritance have you blown on clothes? Huh?”

When I just kept walking without even pausing to reply, I could hear her scrambling to pick up her gear and follow me. All the way down the spiral staircase she was hot on my trail, yelling after me first in anger, then in frustration, and finally in something as unusual as desperation. “Wait!” she cried, using the crash helmet as a buffer against the brick wall. “We have to talk! Stop! Jules! Seriously!”

But I had no intention of stopping. If Janice really had something important to tell me, why had she not done so right away? Why the shenanigans with the motorcycle and the red ink? And why had she wasted our five minutes in the tower with her usual antics? If, as she had hinted in her little rant, she had already managed to squander Aunt Rose’s fortune, then I could certainly understand her frustration. But the way I saw it, that was, for dead sure, her own problem.

As soon as I reached the bottom of the tower I walked away from Palazzo Pubblico and crossed the Campo with firm strides, leaving Janice to her own mess. The Ducati Monster was parked right in front of the building, like a limo pulled up for the Oscars, and as far as I could see, at least three police officers were waiting impatiently-muscular arms akimbo, sunglasses on-for the return of its owner.

MALÈNA’S ESPRESSO BAR was the only place I could think of going where Janice wouldn’t immediately find me. If I went back to the hotel, I figured, she would show up within minutes to resume her figure eights beneath my balcony.

And so I practically ran all the way up to Piazza Postierla, turning every ten steps to make sure she wasn’t following, my throat still tight with anger. When I finally came shooting through the door of the bar, slamming it shut behind me, Malèna greeted me with a burst of laughter. “Dio mio! What are you doing here? You look like you are already drinking too much coffee.”

Seeing that I didn’t even have air to reply, she spun around to pour a tall glass of water from the tap. While I was drinking, she leaned on the counter with a look of barefaced curiosity. “Someone… giving you some trouble?” she suggested, her expression hinting that if that were the case, she had a few cousins-apart from Luigi the hairdresser-who would be more than happy to help me out.

“Well-” I said. But where to start? Looking around I was relieved to see that we were almost alone in the bar, and that the other customers were absorbed in conversations of their own. It occurred to me that here was the opportunity I had been hoping for ever since Malèna’s mention of the Marescotti family the day before.

“Did I hear you correctly-” I began, taking the plunge before I could change my mind. “Did you say your name was Marescotti?”

The question had Malèna break into an ebullient smile. “Certamente! I was born a Marescotti. Now I am married, but”-she pressed a hand to her heart-“I will always be a Marescotti in here. Did you see the palazzo?”

I nodded with polite vigor, thinking of the rather painful concert I had attended with Eva Maria and Alessandro two days earlier. “It’s beautiful. I was wondering-someone told me-” Grinding to a halt, I could feel embarrassment rising in my cheeks as I realized that, no matter how I phrased my follow-up question, I would be making an ass of myself.

Seeing my fluster, Malèna fished out a bottle of something homemade from beneath the counter-she didn’t even have to look-and poured a hearty slug into my water glass. “Here,” she said. “A Marescotti special. It will make you happy. Cin cin.”

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning,” I protested, feeling very little desire to taste the cloudy liquid, never mind its ancestry.

“Bah!” she shrugged. “Maybe in Firenze it is ten o’clock-”

After dutifully gulping down the foulest concoction I had tasted since Janice’s attempt at brewing beer in her bedroom closet-and hacking out a compliment, too-I at last felt I had earned the right to ask, “Are you related to a guy called Romeo Marescotti?”

The transformation in Malèna when she registered my question was almost uncanny. From being my best friend, leaning on her elbows to hear my troubles, she snapped upright with a gasp, and brusquely corked the bottle. “Romeo Marescotti,” she said, taking away my empty glass and wiping the counter with a whiplash swipe of a tea towel, “is dead.” Only then did she meet my eyes, and where there had been kindness a moment ago, I saw only fear and suspicion. “He was my cousin. Why?”

“Oh!” The disappointment fell heavily through my body, leaving me oddly light-headed. Or maybe it was the drink. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have-” Now, I thought, was probably not the time to tell her that my cousin Peppo had suspected Romeo of being behind the museum break-in. “It’s just that Maestro Lippi, the artist-he says he knows him.”

Malèna snorted, but at least she looked relieved. “Maestro Lippi,” she whispered, circling a finger around her ear, “talks to ghosts. Don’t listen to him. He is…” She searched for an appropriate word, but found none.

“There’s also someone else,” I said, figuring I might as well have it all shot to pieces once and for all. “The Head of Security at Monte dei Paschi. Alessandro Santini. Do you know him?”

Malèna’s eyes widened briefly in surprise, then quickly narrowed. “Siena is a small place.” From the way she said it I knew there was a smelly rat buried somewhere in all this.

“Why,” I went on more quietly, hoping that my questions would not further rip open an old wound, “do you think anyone would go around saying that your cousin Romeo was still alive?”

“He said that?” Malèna studied my face intently, more incredulous than sad.

“It’s kind of a long story,” I said, “but the bottom line is that I was the one asking about Romeo. Because… I am Giulietta Tolomei.”

I was not expecting her to understand the implications of my name in conjunction with Romeo’s, but the shock on her face told me that she knew exactly who I was, ancestor and all. Once she had processed this little curveball, her reaction was very sweet; she reached out to pinch my nose.

“Il gran disegno,” she muttered. “I knew there was a reason you came to me.” Then she paused, as if there was something she wanted to say, but which she knew she shouldn’t. “Poor Giulietta,” she said instead, with a sympathetic smile, “I wish I could tell you he was alive, but… I can’t.”

WHEN I FINALLY LEFT the espresso bar, I had forgotten all about Janice. It was therefore an unpleasant surprise to find her waiting for me right outside, leaning comfortably against the wall like a cowgirl killing time until the saloon opens.

As soon as I saw her standing there, beaming with triumph because she had tracked me down, it all came back to me-motorcycle, letter, tower, argument-and I sighed loudly and started walking in the other direction, not really caring where I was headed as long as she didn’t follow.

“What is it with you and Yummy Mummy in there?” Janice was nearly tripping over her own feet to catch up. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”

I was so sick of her at this point that I stopped in the middle of Piazza Postierla and spun around to yell at her, “Do I really have to spell it out? I’m trying to get rid of you!”

During all our years together, I had said plenty of nasty things to my sister, and this was nowhere near the worst. But perhaps due to the unfamiliar turf it hit her right between the eyes, and for a brief moment she looked stunned, almost as if she was going to cry.

Turning away in disgust I resumed walking, laying some distance between us before-once again-she came stumbling along in my wake, her stiletto boots twisting this way and that on the irregular stone pavement.

“Okay!” she exclaimed, arms flapping for balance, “I’m sorry about the bike, okay? And I’m sorry about the letter. Okay? I didn’t know you’d take it that way.” Seeing that I neither replied nor slowed down, she moaned and kept going, still not quite able to catch me. “Listen, Jules, I know you’re pissed off. But we really have to talk. Remember Aunt Rose’s will? It was bo-ow!”

She must have twisted something, for when I turned around to look, Janice was sitting in the middle of the street, rubbing her ankle.

“What did you say?” I asked warily, walking back towards her a few steps. “About the will?”

“You heard me,” she said glumly, inspecting her broken boot heel, “the whole thing was bogus. I thought you were part of it, and that’s why I was lying low, trying to figure out what you were up to, but… I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

IT HAD NOT BEEN a good week for my evil twin. For starters, she told me, limping along with an arm around my neck, she had discovered that our family lawyer, Mr. Gallagher, was not, in fact, Mr. Gallagher. How? Well, the real Mr. Gallagher had shown up. Secondly, the will he had shown us after the funeral had been nothing but fiction. In reality, Aunt Rose had had nothing left to leave to anybody, and to be her heir would have meant inheriting nothing but debt. Thirdly, two police officers had arrived at the house the day after I left, and they had given Janice hell for removing the yellow tape. What yellow tape? Well, the tape they had wrapped around the building when they had discovered it was a crime scene.

“A crime scene?” Even though the sun was high in the sky, I felt a chill. “You mean, Aunt Rose was murdered?”

Janice shrugged as best she could, struggling to keep her balance. “God knows. Apparently, she was covered with bruises, even though supposedly she died in her sleep. Go figure.”

“Janice!” I barely knew what to say, except to chastise her for being so flippant. This unexpected news-that Aunt Rose might not have died peacefully, the way Umberto had described-closed around my throat like a noose, almost choking me.

“What?” she snapped, her voice thick with emotion. “Do you think it was fun sitting in that interrogation room all night and… answering questions about whether or not”-she could barely get out the words-“I really loved her?”

I looked at her profile, wondering when I had last seen my sister cry. With her mascara smeared and her clothes messed up from the fall, she actually seemed human, and almost likable, maybe because of the throbbing ankle, the grief, and all the disappointment. Suddenly realizing that, for a change, I would have to be the strong one, I took a better grip on her and tried to suppress all thoughts of poor old Aunt Rose for the time being. “I don’t get it! Where on earth was Umberto?”

“Ha!” The question gave Janice an opportunity to recover some of her zest. “You mean, Luciano?” She glanced at me to see if I was suitably shocked. “That’s right. Good old Birdie was a fugitive, a desperado, a gangster… take your pick. All these years, he’s been hiding out in our rose garden while the cops and the Mafia were looking for him. Apparently, they found him-his old Mob buddies-and he just”-with her free hand, she snapped her fingers in the air-“poof, gone!”

I stopped to catch my breath, swallowing hard to keep down Malèna’s Marescotti special that was supposed to make me happy but tasted like heartbreak. “His name wouldn’t happen to be… Luciano Salimbeni, would it?”

Janice was so flabbergasted by my insight that she completely forgot about not being able to put weight on her left foot. “My-my!” she exclaimed, removing her arm from my shoulder. “You do have a hand in this shit!”

AUNT ROSE USED TO say that she had hired Umberto for his cherry pie. And while this was true to a certain extent-he always did produce the most outrageous desserts-the fact was that she was helpless without him. He took care of everything, the kitchen, the garden, the general maintenance around the house, but even more admirably, he managed to convey a sense that his contribution was trifling in comparison with the enormous tasks undertaken by Aunt Rose herself. Such as arranging flowers for the dinner table. Or looking up troublesome words in the dictionary.

The true genius of Umberto was his ability to make us believe we were self-sustained. It was almost as if he had somehow failed in his endeavors if we were able to identify his touch in the blessings that came to us; he was like a year-round Santa Claus who only enjoyed giving presents to those soundly asleep.

As with most things in our childhood, the original arrival of Umberto on the doorstep of our American lives was veiled in silence. Neither Janice nor I could remember a time when he had not been there. When we occasionally, under the scrutiny of a full moon, would lie in our beds and outdo each other in remembering our exotic infancies in Tuscany, Umberto was somehow always in the picture.

In a way I loved him more than I ever loved Aunt Rose, for he always took my side and called me his little princess. It was never explicit, but I am sure we all felt his disapproval of Janice’s deteriorating manners and his subtle support of me, whenever I chose not to emulate her naughtiness.

When Janice asked him for a good-night story, she would get a brief morality tale ending with someone’s head being chopped off; when I curled up on the bench in the kitchen, he would fetch the special cookies in the blue tin and tell me stories that went on forever, stories about knights and fair maidens, and buried treasures. And when I grew old enough to understand, he would assure me that Janice would be punished soon enough. Wherever she went in life, she would bring along with her an inescapable piece of Hell, for she herself was Hell, and in time, she would come to realize that she was her own worst punishment. I, on the other hand, was a princess, and one day-if only I made sure to stay away from corrupting influences and irreversible mistakes-I would meet a handsome prince and find my own magic kingdom.

How could I not love him?

IT WAS WAY PAST NOON when we had finally caught up on each other’s news. Janice told me everything the police had said about Umberto-or rather, Luciano Salimbeni-which wasn’t much, and in return I told her everything that had happened to me since arriving in Siena, which was a lot.

We ended up having lunch in Piazza del Mercato, with a view of Via dei Malcontenti and a deep, green valley. The waiter informed us that beyond the valley ran the gloomy one-way road Via di Porta Giustizia, at the end of which-in the old days-criminals were executed in public.

“Lovely,” said Janice, slurping ribollita soup, elbows on the table, her brief sadness long since evaporated, “no wonder old Birdie didn’t feel like coming back here.”

“I still don’t believe it,” I muttered, poking at my food. Watching Janice eat was enough to relieve me of my appetite, to say nothing of the surprises she had brought with her. “If he really killed Mom and Dad, why didn’t he kill us, too?”

“You know,” said Janice, “sometimes I thought he was going to. Seriously. He had that serial-killer look in his eyes.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “he felt guilty about what he had done-”

“Or maybe,” Janice cut me off, “he knew that he needed us-or at least you-in order to get Mom’s box from Mister Macaroni.”

“I suppose,” I said, trying to apply logic where logic was not enough, “he could have been the one hiring Bruno Carrera to follow me?”

“Well, obviously!”-Janice rolled her eyes-“and you can be damn sure he is puppeteering your little toyboy as well.”

I shot her a glare that she didn’t even seem to notice. “I hope you’re not referring to Alessandro?”

“Mmm, Alessandro…” She savored his name as if it was a chocolate caramel. “I gotta give it to you, Jules, he was worth waiting for. Too bad he’s already in bed with Birdie.”

“You are disgusting,” I said, not allowing her to upset me, “and you’re wrong.”

“Really?” Janice didn’t like being wrong. “Then explain to me why he broke into your hotel room?”

“What?”

“Oh, yes-” She took her sweet time dipping the last slice of bread in olive oil. “That night when I saved you from Gumshoe Bruno, and you ended up three sheets to the wind with the artmeister… Alessandro was having one helluva party in your room. You don’t believe me?” She reached into her pocket, only too happy to oblige my suspicion. “Then check this out.”

Pulling out her cell phone, she showed me a series of bleary photos of someone climbing up to my balcony. It was hard to tell whether it was really Alessandro, but Janice insisted that it was, and I had known her long enough to identify those rare twitches around her mouth as honesty.

“Sorry,” she said, looking almost as if she meant it, “I know this is blowing your little fantasy, but I thought you’d like to know your Pooh is not just in it for the honey.”

I flung the phone back at her without knowing what to say. There had been too much to absorb in the last few hours, and I had definitely reached my saturation point. First Romeo… dead and buried. Then Umberto… reborn as Luciano Salimbeni. And now Alessandro…

“Don’t look at me like that!” hissed Janice, usurping the moral high ground with habitual dexterity. “I’m doing you a favor! Imagine if you’d gone ahead and fallen for this guy, only to discover that he was after the family jewels all along.”

“Why don’t you do me another favor,” I said, leaning back in my chair to get as far away from her point as possible, “and explain how you found me in the first place? And what’s up with that stupid Romeo act?”

“Not a word of thanks! Story of my life!” Janice reached into her pocket once more. “If it hadn’t been for me chasing Bruno away, you could have been dead now. But see if you care. Nag, nag, nag!” She tossed a letter across the table, narrowly missing the dipping bowl. “Here. See for yourself. This is the real letter from the real Aunt Rose, handed to me by the real Mr. Gallagher. Make sure you inhale. It’s all she left for us.”

As she lit up her once-a-week cigarette, hands shaking, I brushed a few crumbs from the letter and took it out of the envelope. It consisted of eight sheets of paper, all of them covered in Aunt Rose’s own handwriting, and if the date was correct, she had left it with Mr. Gallagher several years ago.

This is what it read:

My dearest girls,

You have often asked me about your mother, and I have never told you the truth. It was for your own good. I was afraid that if you knew what she was like, you would want to be just like her. But I do not wish to take it with me to the grave, so here they are, all the things I was afraid to tell you.

You know that Diane came to live with me when her parents and little brother died. But I never told you how they died. It was very sad, and a great shock for her, and I think she never got over it. It was a car accident in terrible holiday traffic, and Diane told me that they were having an argument, and that it was her fault for fighting with her brother. It was Christmas Eve. I think she never forgave herself. She would never open her presents. She was a very religious girl, much more than her old aunt, especially at Christmas. I wish I could have helped her, but in those days people did not run to doctors all the time.

Her great interest was genealogy. She believed that our family was descended from Italian nobility through the female line, and she told me that, before she died, my mother had told her a great secret. I thought it was very strange that my mother would tell her granddaughter something she never told me or Maria, her own daughters, and I never believed a word of it, but Diane was so stubborn and kept saying that we were descended from Shakespeare’s Juliet, and that there was a curse on our bloodline. She also said that was why poor Jim and I never had children, and why her parents and brother had to die. I never encouraged her when she talked like that, I just let her talk. After she died I kept thinking that I should have done something to help her, but that is too late now.

Poor Jim and I tried to make Diane finish her degree, but she was too restless. Before we knew it, she was off to Europe with her backpack, and the next thing I know she writes that she is getting married to some Italian professor. I did not go to the wedding. Poor Jim was very ill at the time, and after he died I did not feel like traveling. Now I regret that. Diane was all alone, having twins, and then after that, there was a terrible house fire that killed her husband, so I never even met him, poor soul.

I wrote many letters to her telling her to come home, but Diane did not want to, stubborn creature that she was, bless her heart. She had bought a house of her own, and she kept saying that she wanted to continue her husband’s research. She told me over the phone that he had spent all his life looking for a family treasure that could stop the curse, but I did not believe a word of it. I told her that it was very foolish to marry back into your own family, even if it was a very distant connection, but she said that she had to, because she had the Tolomei genes from her mother and grandmother, but he had the Tolomei name, and the two must go together. It was all very strange, if you ask me. You two were baptized in Siena with the names Giulietta and Giannozza Tolomei. Your mother said the names were a family tradition.

I tried very hard to make her come home, just for a visit I said, and we had even bought tickets. But she was so busy with her research, and she kept saying that she was very close to finding the treasure, and that she had to see a man about an old ring. One morning I received a call from a police officer in Siena, who told me that there had been a dreadful accident, and that your poor mother was dead. He told me that you two were with your godparents, but that you were likely in danger, and that I must come and get you right away. When I arrived to pick you up, the police asked me if Diane had ever mentioned a man called Luciano Salimbeni, and this made me very afraid. They wanted me to stay for a hearing, but I was so afraid that I took you to the airport right away and flew home, without even waiting for the adoption papers to go through. I changed your names, too. I called Giulietta Julie, and Giannozza Janice. And instead of Tolomei, I gave you my name, Jacobs. I did not want some crazy Italian to come looking for you, or say that they wanted to adopt you. I even hired Umberto to protect you and keep an eye out for that Luciano Salimbeni. Fortunately, we never heard anything about him again.

I do not know much about what Diane was doing those years alone in Siena. But I think she found something very valuable, and that she left it behind in Siena, for you to find. I hope that if you ever find it, you will share it equally. She also owned a house, and I believe her husband was wealthy. If there is anything of value left for you in Siena, perhaps you will take care of dear Umberto, too?

It is very painful for me to say this, but I am not as rich as you think. I have been living on poor Jim’s pension, but when I die, there will be nothing left for you two, just debt. Maybe I should have told you, but I was never good with these things.

I wish I knew more about Diane’s treasure. She talked about it sometimes, but I did not listen. I thought it was just one of her crazy stories. But there is a man in the bank in Palazzo Tolomei who may be able to help you. I cannot for the life of me remember his name. He was your mother’s financial advisor, and I think he was fairly young, so maybe he is still alive.

If you decide to go, just remember that there are people in Siena who believe in the same stories your mother believed in. I wish I had paid attention when she told me all that. Do not tell anyone your real names, except the man in the bank. Maybe he can help you find the house. I would like you to go together. Diane would have wanted that. We should have gone years ago, but I was afraid something would happen to you.

Now you know that I left nothing for you to live on. But I hope that with this letter, at least you have a chance of finding what your mother left behind. I met with Mr. Gallagher this morning. I really should not have lived this long, there will be nothing left, not even the memories, because I never wanted you to know them. I was always afraid that you would run off like Diane and get yourselves into trouble. Now I know that you will find trouble wherever you are. I know what it means, the look in your eyes. Your mother had it, too. And I want you to know that I pray for you every day.

Umberto knows where the funeral instructions are kept.

God bless your innocent hearts!

Much love, Aunt Rose