Ms. Moretti went silent for a moment. “I am aware that you weren’t a part of Mr. Clark’s life, but he was very explicit in his instructions about the will. I won’t be coy, Fiona. He left you some property, which is why I think you need to come here and see it, sign for it, and then decide what you want to do with it.”
“Property.” My eyebrows pulled together with bewilderment. “In Italy? How much, exactly? I mean, how much is it worth?” I shut my eyes and shook my head. “Oh God. I’m sorry. That sounded very greedy. I’m not a greedy person. I’m just surprised, that’s all. And confused. I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Please don’t apologize,” Ms. Moretti said. “I caught you off guard. And I wish I could tell you more about your inheritance, but I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve already said. It’s a bit complicated. Your father was a British national, so he had a British will. There’s a lawyer coming tomorrow with the actual documents. I’m just the messenger, trying to get everyone gathered here locally to hammer out the details.”
He was British? I’d always imagined him to be Italian.
Pressing my fist to my forehead, I tried to think this through. I had just been told that I was inheriting property in Italy from a virtual stranger. I had no idea how much it was worth, but I’d be a fool to turn it down. Heaven knew we needed the money. It wasn’t cheap, taking care of Dad.
So there it was. I had to accept the fact that I would need to book a flight to Italy straightaway, get time off work, and figure out how to explain all of this to Dad.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try and get on a flight today. Where am I going, exactly? What city?”
I heard papers shuffling on the other end of the line. “You should fly into Florence. I’ll arrange for a driver to pick you up and bring you to Montepulciano. Do you have an email address where I can send you some information and contact numbers? And do you have a cell phone number I can put in the file?”
“Yes.” I relayed all my contact information, and Ms. Moretti promised to send me a message in the next few minutes.
I ended the call and set the phone down in the cradle. For a moment, I sat on the bed, staring wide eyed at one of my paintings on the wall—the one that made me feel as if I were standing on the edge of a high, rocky coastline, staring out at the vast, stormy sea. I had painted it a year ago, shortly before Jamie and I split up. A chill seeped into my bones, and I shivered.
My biological father was dead, and for some reason, he had remembered me in his will.
I turned my face away from the painting and tossed the covers aside. Then I rose from bed, deciding that I would need coffee before I opened my laptop and started searching for flights. As I donned my bathrobe, the wind howled like a beast through the eaves, and I felt a dark cloud of sorrow settle over me.
He wasn’t really my father, I tried to tell myself, because what did blood tests and DNA results have to do with parenthood? I’d had no personal connection to the man, no love or loyalty, which were the benchmarks of a normal family. Ms. Moretti had used that word on the phone. She said, “There will be an official reading of the will with family members on Tuesday.” This included me.
I didn’t even know who these people were. His other children? My siblings, possibly? A wife? His brothers? Sisters? Cousins? I had no place among them, unless there might be other illegitimate children in attendance, like me. Perhaps then we might have something in common. But I had no idea. I knew nothing.
“You’re up early for a Sunday,” Dottie said when I entered the kitchen.
Dottie was our night shift nurse. She had been with Dad and me for many years, and I adored her because she was always cheerful. She sang show tunes while she worked, dyed her hair pink and purple, and flirted playfully with Dad, which always made him smile, even on the worst days. All our caregivers had been wonderful, but none, other than Dottie, ever lasted more than a year or two at most. They came and they went, which wasn’t entirely surprising. It was a tough gig, looking after a quadriplegic.
“Yes. Did you hear the phone ring?” I asked.
“I did, but you picked it up before I could get to it. Who in the world was calling at seven a.m. on a Sunday?”
Somehow, I managed to think on my feet. “My boss. But before I tell you about that, how’s Dad doing? Did he sleep okay last night?”
The last few nights had been rough, as he had a mild chest infection.
“Like a baby.”
“That’s good,” I replied, “because today’s movie day.”
Dad loved movies and live theater, and it was important for him to get out of the house now and again. Once a week, Jerry, our weekend caregiver, took him to a matinee. That’s when I liked to seize the opportunity to disappear into my makeshift studio in the garage and paint something. It was my only true escape.
At least Dad was lucky in that he had partial use of his wrists and hands. All our nurses over the years had worked with him diligently to maintain the muscle tone. Because of that, Dad was always able to use a computer and voice-recognition software to write. He had been a successful thriller novelist at one time and had three books published, but lately, he wrote articles for the foundation he and Mom had spearheaded in ’96 to raise money for spinal cord research. It had been years since Dad wrote any fiction, other than a few short stories. I think the novels took too much out of him, but honestly, I don’t believe the novels sold very well. The first one did, but the second and third books were a disappointment to his publisher.
I can only assume that must have been difficult for Dad at the time. Writing was the only thing he thought he could do.
Outside of that, he was the bravest person I’d ever known. The accident that injured his spinal cord happened before I was born, so I had no knowledge of him as a man who could walk or get around on his own. All I ever knew growing up was that he loved me and cherished me more than anything in the world. I never considered him to be deficient in any way compared to other children’s fathers. I knew our situation was different, but I never felt deprived, and there were all sorts of reasons for that.
For one, when I was small, he would let me sit on his lap while he sped around the house in his power wheelchair, spinning in circles until I shrieked with laughter. The chair moved at the touch of a button, and he controlled it with a joystick, which he gave me license to use at far too young an age. Together, we caused all sorts of havoc when I drove us into tables and knocked over lamps and teetering piles of books. Oops was his favorite word back then, and we both knew it rankled my mother, who had to clean up the messes we made, and that was before we had full-time caregivers. Mom did everything for him, and her devotion rubbed off on me. Until the age of eighteen, I’d believed we were the closest family on earth because of the challenges we faced every day, especially when Dad was in and out of the hospital for any number of infections that could have killed him. He was very vulnerable then. He still was.
But then Mom died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm, and I learned about secrets and lies. That’s when I discovered that people weren’t always what they pretended to be. Except for my dad, of course. He was always real with me. All I ever wanted to do, after Mom died, was protect him and keep him happy and healthy. I couldn’t lose him too.