A new life

Six

Scott

"Hey, who's with Father? I'd never seen that woman before." I asked Billy as we arrived home.

"No idea, hadn't seen her either. Probably she's someone from the precinct."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Hey guys, you can leave the bikes with ours, in the basement." I took my helmet off and gave another look at the woman who was with my Father, while Billy and the girls took their bikes to the basement.

"Didn't expect you so soon, thought you would go have lunch somewhere." He didn't seem to be at ease with us being there. "We'll talk later, okay?" He turned to the woman and gestured her to leave in a subtle and almost imperceptible  way to leave.

"Okay then. Have a good day, Jerry." She gave me a curious look before leaving our house. 

"Was she someone from the precinct?" I asked as she left. 

"No, not at all. She's someone I met a long time ago." He tried to change the topic "Well, do you want to order something for lunch? I have to go out, just got a phone call from the precinct, Captain wants to talk to me. Will be back in no time okay "

"No, Pam and I will prepare something. But that woman, she looked quite a lot like Ma." 

"We'll talk about that later, Scott. There's something I have to tell you and Billy, it's important." He ran his hand through my hair and went into his car. 

"That was weird." I said as the others came back. Billy was by my side, he probably had heard what my Father  had just said.

"You mean that woman? She looked quite a lot like Mother." 

"But your Mother never talked about her family..." Pam said, with a surprised look in her eyes.

"No, she never did. It was as if it just didn't exist, she never mentioned her folks or anything." I turned to Billy "Remember in my fifth grade, when I had to that composition about our family? Ma barely talked about it, it was all about Father's family. But it isn't just that, when you went down to leave the bikes Father told me he had something important to tell us, it will probably be about that woman. And he  looked like being caught off guard, he probably didn't expect us to come so soon."

"Hold on, I just remembered something. Do you know that wooden box Ma always kept in her nightstand? The one she didn't want anyone to open." Billy was weirdly excited.

"Yeah, she went mad with me when I was six and wanted to use it to keep my butterflies collection in it."

"Maybe it's time to find out what's in it. I'm bringing it, look for something to open it." My brother and Shauna went to my parents' bedroom and Pam and I went down to the basement, where the toolbox was.

"Going." 

It didn't take long to find something to open the box, and we went back upstairs with Billy and Shauna. They were sitting by the table of the kitchen, and had some papers all around them. "There was no need to use anything, the key was by the box." My brother explained. "We've just taken a look, there are some pictures all these papers , it looks like they're some letters. Why on earth wouldn't she send them?"

"These are the oldest ones." Shauna took two of the letters. "I've been putting them in a chronological order, these ones were written in the seventies. Look, this one's written to a Chiara."

"Let me see." I took the letter and sat on one of the chairs. "My dearest Chiara," I began to read "You will never know how hard it was for me to leave you behind without a farewell, but I couldn't stay at home any longer. I had planned of asking Sam to bring you with us, but things didn't turn out as I had expected."  I put the letter aside and rummaged among the pictures. One of them was of my Mom with who were probably her folks. She must be thirteen or fourteen, and a little girl was holding her hand.  I handed it to my brother "Billy, take a look at this picture. They're our grandparents and our aunt. And I bet she's the woman who was talking to Father when we came."

"You're saying she was our aunt?"

"I think so. You all went to the cellar to leave the bikes and probably didn't notice it, but she looked like Mom when she was younger. And Father seemed to be caught off guard when we came, he said he had to go but he wanted to tell us something important."

Billy took another look at the picture and then kept reading silently the letter. "Fuck, you're probably right. But why would she hide her own family from us? I mean, hiding her past is one thing, but keeping her family out of the game...it makes  no sense at all."

"When they told me about Mom's past, after Baldoni took you, Mom said her family life wasn't exactly a paradise, but she could be lying as she lied in all the other things."

I couldn't but notice how my brother shivered by the only mention of Baldoni's name. As a matter of fact, saying it was sort of weird for me too and I wondered how much time would we need to say that name without feeling a bite deep inside of us.

"There's something I don't understand." Shauna asked "If your Mom never talked about her family, why on earth did she keep these letters and the pictures?" 

"Maybe it was the only thing that reminded her of her childhood. Don't know, looking at this picture it doesn't seem to be such a terrible family.  I'm sort of curious about them." Billy replied  "I wonder if our grandparents are still alive and how will they be."

"Hey, there's something else in here." Pam had been examining the box . There was a closed compartment in it and she had managed to open it "It looks like a diary or something."