| Romance Fiction posted September 13, 2025 | Chapters: |
...12 13 -14- 15... 
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Reading The Journal
A chapter in the book Yesterday's Dreams
By The Sea - Chap 6
by Begin Again
Ending of Chapter 5
She swallowed hard, trying to understand, to accept what she was reading. Her heart raced as she turned back to the journal and read the next visible entry.
February 19, 1942
February 19, 1942
He came in the night. I should have told him not to, but when I opened the door, the words would not come. He crossed the room quietly and stood over Maggie's bed. She stirred once, then settled, her curls spread across the pillow.
He didn't touch her, only looked, his face softened by something I cannot name. At dawn, he left, pressing my hand to his heart as if to speak everything he could not.
Anna closed the book against her lap. She could almost see him standing in the dark room, watching a sleeping child. It unsettled her — tender and wrong all at once. She drew a slow breath and opened the journal again, needing more.
*****
CHAPTER 6
The garden felt different now. The fountain's trickle seemed sharper, the hedges too tall, the shade heavy with silence. A chill crept along her arms, as though the orange trees themselves were holding their breath.
"Anna?"
She startled at the sound of her name. Luca stood in the archway, a basket of peaches balanced on his hip, worry etched across his brow. The sun was low now, streaking the sky with gold, and the light caught in his hair.
"We were worried when you didn't return," he said quietly, stepping closer.
Anna quickly wiped her eyes and slipped the journal into her bag. "I lost track of time."
He set the basket aside and lowered himself onto the bench beside her. "No — it's much more. I think you lost yourself." His voice was gentle, not accusing.
Her throat tightened. She tried to speak, but the words broke into a sob. Luca hesitated only a moment before reaching out, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder. When she didn't pull away, he drew her closer, letting her lean against him.
For a long while, they sat like that, the garden around them hushed except for the fountain. Anna pressed her face against his shoulder, not caring if her tears stained his shirt. He didn't ask questions. He only held her, quiet and solid, until her breathing slowed.
At last she pulled back, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he said simply. "My mother worries. So did I."
Anna tried for a smile but couldn't quite manage one. "Rosa will scold us both if we come back empty-handed."
Luca rose and retrieved the basket. "Then let's bring her these peaches before she thinks I let them spoil."
They rose from the bench together, Luca balancing the basket on his hip. As they walked toward the archway, Anna hesitated, her gaze drifting back over her shoulder.
A figure lingered at the far end of the path, half-hidden by the hedges. A nun, still as stone, her face lost in the shadows, was watching where Anna had been sitting.
A shiver ran along her arms.
Luca touched her elbow lightly, guiding her forward. She forced herself to look away and step into the lane beside him.
They walked on through the fading light. Children's voices echoed from a nearby lane, a dog barked in the distance, and shutters closed one by one against the night. The ordinary sounds steadied Anna more than any words.
By the time they reached the gate of La Casa sul Mare, Luca glanced at her, as if to ask again what troubled her. But he said nothing. She was grateful.
*****
Upstairs in her room, Anna shut the door and leaned against it, the journal heavy in her bag. She crossed to the window and pulled the shutters half-closed. A slice of golden light cut across the quilt.
She sat on the bed and drew the journal out. For a while, she only held it in her lap, afraid and hungry for what came next. She had already read Sophia's terror — the plan to hide one child, to carry another within her. But so many pages had been missing, ripped away.
Anna turned the next leaf carefully. More torn edges. Scribbles in heavy pencil. Swaths of time erased. Her chest ached.
At last, the handwriting returned.
June 14, 1942
Mag chased a butterfly across the courtyard, her little feet slapping the stones. Elizabeth laughed with her, the two of them circling as if there were no war at all. I prayed it could always be like this. But soldiers are everywhere now, and even the children draw their stares.
Anna pressed her palm flat against the page. For a moment she could see it — her grandmother chasing a laughing child across the stones, sunlight flashing on their faces. It was tender, fleeting, and terrifying.
She turned another page. More gaps. Paper torn, ink smudged, whole months lost. Then Sophia's voice returned.
October 3, 1943
He came again, though danger followed every step. His eyes went first to my belly and then to Maggie asleep in the cot. For a long time, he said nothing. Then he spoke softly of his sister's children in Berlin, of toys he had carved for them long ago.
Before leaving, he placed a small wooden horse on the table. "For when she is old enough," he said.
Anna froze. A wooden horse.
She knew it. Or one just like it. A carved figure that had always sat behind the glass of her grandmother's curio cabinet, part of a collection she had dusted as a child without thinking. She had lined it up with wooden birds and painted plates, never once asking where it had come from.
But here it was, alive in Sophia's pages. Not just a trinket. A gift. A memory. A piece of love and danger that had crossed years and oceans.
Her chest tightened. She had been living with Sophia's secret all her life, and she had never known it.
November 12, 1943
It is dangerous now. He does not belong here, and yet he has made a home inside my heart. Tonight he touched my cheek and said the soldiers may come. I told him I was not afraid. It was a lie. I am reckless, not brave. Still, I would choose this again, even knowing the danger.
Elizabeth's eyes warn me whenever she looks at me. She doesn't understand, or perhaps she does, and that is why she cannot forgive me.
Anna thought of her grandmother, Elizabeth, who had been silent about this for her whole life. Maybe she hadn't spoken because forgiveness had never come.
The next page carried the words Anna already dreaded.
January 7, 1944
He returned close to dawn, his voice low and urgent. "The soldiers are coming," he said. His hand lingered on my shoulder, his eyes flicking to Maggie and then to the life growing inside me.
I told him I was not afraid. It was a lie.
One child I will hide in the wall with a letter for Elizabeth. The other, I must carry with me, wherever they take me. I pray Elizabeth will understand. I pray at least one of them will live. I fear for their lives and for mine.
Anna clapped a hand to her mouth. She had read this line before, but now — after Maggie's first word, after the soldier's visits, after finding Sophia — it hit harder.
Her vision blurred. She shut the book and pressed it to her chest.
A knock startled her.
"Anna?" Luca's voice.
She quickly slid the journal under the quilt and opened the door. He stood in the hallway, holding a plate of figs drizzled with honey. "My mother insisted," he said, offering the plate with a crooked smile. "She said you didn't eat enough at lunch."
Anna tried for a laugh, but it caught in her throat. "Your mother is very determined."
"She is," Luca agreed, though his gaze lingered on her face — her damp lashes, her unsteady smile. "And you — are not all right."
"I'm fine," Anna said quickly, but the words cracked. She pressed a hand to her mouth, shaking her head.
He didn't step inside, but he held out the plate until she had to take it, his fingers brushing hers. "You don't have to say," he murmured. "Sometimes silence says more."
That gentleness undid her. She sank onto the edge of the bed, the figs untouched in her lap. "It feels," she whispered, "like I'm losing someone I never even knew."
Luca pulled a chair closer and sat, leaning forward, his voice low. "When I was twelve, my father died. Suddenly, one day, he was working in the vines, the next, he was gone. I didn't know how to speak of it, so I didn't for years. But grief doesn't wait for words. It makes its own."
Anna looked at him through her tears.
"My mother said," he went on, "that sometimes the only thing you can do is sit beside someone in their sorrow. Not fix it. Not chase it away. Just sit." He spread his hands slightly, as if to say — "This is all I can offer."
Her shoulders shook. She didn't tell him about the journal or the woman whose words had broken her open. She only let the tears come while he sat quietly, the quiet warmth of his presence filling the room.
When at last her storm eased, she lifted her head. His eyes held no judgment, only patience.
"Thank you," she whispered.
He gave a small nod, almost shy. "Rosa will be angry if you don't eat at least one fig."
A thin laugh escaped her — watery, but real. She plucked a slice and bit into it. Sweetness burst on her tongue.
"There," Luca said, leaning back in his chair, satisfaction tugging at his mouth. "Now you look more Sicilian."
Anna smiled through the remnants of her tears. For the first time since arriving, the ache in her chest felt less like drowning and more like breathing again.
*****
That night, long after Luca had gone, Anna lay awake with the journal open beside her. She read Sophia's words once more by lamplight.
That night, long after Luca had gone, Anna lay awake with the journal open beside her. She read Sophia's words once more by lamplight.
Two children. One hidden. One unborn.
She whispered into the quiet: "I will find you."
And she knew she meant it — for both Sophia's daughters, and for herself.
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