“If you could do anything what would it be?”
“I would do what I’ve always wanted to do—open my own little café.”
“What if you set aside all your fears and went for it?”
“I would in a heartbeat if I could get investors, but who is going to invest in someone who has next to no track record and has been fired by a well-known chef?”
“You do have a track record, Juliette. You were practically a legend at the Culinary Institute, which is why Lucian hired you in the first place.”
“Spoken like a mom,” Juliette smiled affectionately at the woman she loved more than anyone, “but legend is overstating it more than just a little.”
“Well whatever, you were awesome!” Amilia said, looking over the menu to decide what she wanted to order.
Once the waiter brought them each a glass of wine, Amilia decided it was time to put her plan in place. Juliette couldn’t have played into her hands more if she’d scripted the conversation herself.
“You know how you mentioned that thirty is creeping up on you?” Amilia asked. “And now you’ve said that you’re ready to get back into the ‘chef game’ but you’re not sure how to move forward? Well, I have the solution for you.”
Juliette saw the twinkle in her mom’s eyes and shook her head and laughed. “What are you up to? I’m a bit terrified already.”
Amilia reached into her purse and brought out a shoebox-sized gift-wrapped package and set it on the table.
“What’s this?”
“It’s an early birthday present so we have time to make plans before the actual big day.”
Her mom had wrapped the box in printed paper and tied it with a scarlet ribbon. Juliette carefully pulled back the tape and unfolded the wrapping, which was covered in red poppies against a sea of wheat. Inside she found an antiquated looking cardboard box.
Intrigued, she slipped off the lid revealing a neat row of letters that looked ancient. She gently pulled one out.
The postmark was San Francisco, 1914 and was from her papa to her nonna. Juliette looked at her mom.
“It’s a correspondence. Mostly between your nonna and one of her friends, but it begins in Italy with your grandfather writing to her, trying to lure her to marry him. They’re beautiful. I want you to read them to get yourself in the mood for this…”
Amilia handed her daughter another, small slim box wrapped in matching paper and ribbon.
“Mom,” Juliette smiled. “What are you doing?”
“It’s for both of us. Open it and see.”
Inside, tucked under a row of tissue paper were two tickets to Italy—one for each of them.
Juliette’s sharp intake of breath said everything Amilia wanted to hear and she smiled, knowing her idea was perfect.
“I’ve always wanted to go!”
“I know. Now we can go together. We’ll celebrate your birthday and explore. Heck, maybe we’ll even take a cooking class. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Fun? It would be amazing! Thank you mom. This is…” Juliette was at a loss for words.
“I know,” Amilia touched her daughter’s cheek. “We’re going to love it.”
As they left the restaurant an hour later, Amilia glanced over at Juliette.
She was proud of the lovely young woman walking beside her. She still couldn’t imagine how her youngest daughter had gotten so old. Almost thirty. It seemed like barely yesterday she was thirty herself. “You know it’s all going to be OK, right?” She said, harkening back to the conversation they’d had earlier at the restaurant about Juliette’s job.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Juliette said in a mock defeatist voice.
Amilia’s own mother had taught her to create happiness in life. To change things up if she wasn’t where she wanted to be, and Amilia intended to impart the same wisdom to Juliette.
“Let’s go get some coffee,” Amilia said, nodding to a coffee house just across the street and looking at her watch. “I could use a perk up before I head back to San Francisco.”
The sidewalks of Walnut Creek, the bustling little cosmopolitan gem east of San Francisco, were filled with people relaxing in outdoor restaurants, shopping, some walking to meetings, others drinking coffee in cafes. It was a warm late-September day with a hint of fall in the air. It was one of those sublime instances of perfection that imprinted on Juliette’s mind while they waited for the signal to cross the street. She would always remember it as her last pure moment of peace.
Even after reliving the horror that unfolded over and over again—sometimes in slow motion, often in quick terrifying flashes—Juliette still couldn’t wrap her brain around it.
The crosswalk light had turned green just as Juliette noticed her shoelace was untied. She bent to quickly retie it then hurried to catch up to her mom who was only a few paces in front of her. Amilia had been saying something over her shoulder about Nonna Catarina when they heard the squealing of the tires.
The hooded eyes of the drunk driver looked sleepy and unconcerned about the devastation he was about to inflict. If she’d reacted sooner, Juliette thought she could have yanked her mom back, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d frozen in terror as the car plowed into Amilia, who was flung like a rag doll against the thick plate glass of a high-end kitchen store.
Amilia could tell she was dying by the odd lack of feeling in her body and the look of equal parts terror and horror on her daughter’s face. She wanted so much to be able to tell Juliette it would be OK, that she loved her and if she was going to die, having spent the last few hours of her life with her was exactly how she would have chosen to spend them, but for some reason she couldn’t make her mouth speak. She reached for her and squeezed her hand.
“Mommy, it’s going to be all right,” Juliette tried to reassure her. “Hang on, please hang on,” she said and squeezed her hand back. “An ambulance is on the way. I can hear it. It’s almost here. Don’t let go of me.”
Amilia looked into the eyes that exactly mirrored her own. She wanted to smooth her daughter’s long, silky hair away from her face like she used to when Juliette was a little girl. She wished she could tell her one last time that she was perfect. She wanted to tell her to allow herself to be happy, to find love, to chase her dreams and not to worry about her failures. She tried to tell her with her eyes, but she couldn’t hold them open any longer.
“Stay with me,” Juliette implored. “You’re strong, Mom. You can do it.”
Amilia tried, but no matter how hard she willed herself to do so, she could feel herself losing the battle to stay and instead of getting coffee with her daughter and then going home to her husband, she knew instead she was going to Catarina. How apt, she thought, feeling surprisingly peaceful, that she had just been talking about her.
CATARINA, MATEO, AND AN UNEXPECTED LETTER
Market days, especially when Mateo came along, gave Catarina a sense of freedom—at least for a short time.
“What does Signora Carlucci want today?” Mateo asked, snatching the list out of Catarina’s hand.
“Let’s see,” he read, “calamari—that sounds delizioso—asparagus, that will cost una fortuna at this time of year, and pugliese bread.
“How