Madonna

2: Piccola

Dear Michael,

I wilt without you. I sent my last letter over six months ago, yet I haven't heard from you. I miss you endlessly. I wish I could take you to see the ruined Colosseum, to throw pennies in the fountains of the Piazza Navona with you. Like you said, Rome is a great city, but it's less great without you in it.

My flight back to New York is in August. Will you be there, waiting for me, like you said you would? I've imagined reuniting with you a thousand times in a thousand ways, and not a day has gone by that I have not missed you. These past two and a half years, I've held on to your promise. Will you keep it?

I can't help but anticipate my return with terror and excitement. I know we said we'd get married as soon as we were old enough, but of course that was before my brother sent me here. I fear that when I come home, Stefano will treat me with the same brutality as a 20 year old woman than as a teenage girl. I don't know how many more years I can live with him, and if I'm never to have any independence, marriage is my only way out. Stefano and Raffael would never let me live by myself.

But I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you. As I sit here in this cafe drinking my espresso, I cannot imagine spending my life with anyone but you. If you don't feel the same way, you must tell me immediately. I cannot stand your silence.

Yours dearly,

Luisa Vitale

January 1943

I thought I'd know how I would feel when I came home. This truth is that the moment I walked in the door, it was like I never left. My family's colonial-style mansion was in the same boyish disarray that I left it in, dishes piled high in the sink from Raffael's last cooking endeavor, clothes strewn about carelessly. Upstairs, I heard the heavy footsteps of my four brothers and their respective guests. I wondered if they even remembered I was coming back that day, I was sure at least Raffael would remember.

Tobacco and sheets of thin cigarette paper littered the dining room table, matches strewn about near other substances I didn't recognize. My youngest brother Giuseppe's record albums piled on the coffee table, newer records I hadn't seen before. I opened all the curtains, letting in the warm, late summer sunlight. I heard the rapid, clunky sound of multiple sets of footsteps descending the stairs, and I turned away from the window holding my breath--which of my brothers would I see first?

Raffael's thick mass of curls came into view, and as soon as his eyes landed on my luggage, he searched the room for me immediately. A wide grin erupted on his face as he found me, and I couldn't help but run towards him, tears pricking in my eyes.

"Raffaele!" I exclaimed, smiling wider than I had in three years.

"Luisa, madonna!" he laughed, embracing me. He was taller than the 19 year old he was when I left, and prickly, dark stubble spotted his cheeks and jaw.

"Who let you get taller, cucciolo?" I asked him laughing, poking his slim torso. He swatted at my hands, chuckling at my silliness.

"Why, Don Stefo Vitale himself," he told me with a smirk, making his friends laugh. They were two men Raffael's age with classic Sicilian features, and I quickly recognized them as Tony and Eduardo Salvatore, our cousins and Raffael's friends since birth. Behind them, I saw a tangled mass of dark curls, the face of whoever the mass belonged to hidden behind Tony.

"Lu, you remember Tony and Edo," Raffael told me, gesturing to them, "and this is Carrie Di Matteo." The girl with the tangled curls stepped out from behind Tony and revealed a delicately pretty face on a slim young woman. She was wearing a modest, light blue dress with short sleeves, her curly hair tied lazily together with a black ribbon. Her eyes were a warm brown, her lashes long and dark, and she smiled shyly at me. Was she perhaps anticipating this moment?