| Romance Fiction posted September 15, 2025 | Chapters: |
...14 15 -16- 17... 
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The Journal Reveals
A chapter in the book Yesterday's Dreams
By The Sea Chap 8
by Begin Again
By late afternoon, the house had found its rhythm again. Guests napped behind half-closed shutters. The radio in the kitchen murmured an old song. Rosa rolled her sleeves and set a bowl of glossy eggplant on the table.
"Come," she said, handing Anna a wooden spoon. "We'll make caponata. You must chop slowly, not with anger. Food knows if you are upset." She chuckled and squeezed Anna's arm.
"I'll be gentle," Anna said.
They worked side by side — onions softening in a pan, vinegar biting the air, a handful of capers pressed dry in a towel. Rosa showed her how to taste and adjust without measuring. "More salt," she said. "Then sugar. Life needs both."
The simple work helped. Anna's mind kept sliding back to the phone call, to Margaret's clipped voice, to the way she'd said wedding date as if that settled everything. But the smell of tomato and basil, the scrape of the spoon, Rosa's quiet humming — these steadied her hands, if not her thoughts.
Luca came in as the sun touched the horizon, hair brushed back, a pale shirt buttoned at the throat. He looked different in evening clothes, less like the boyish gardener with the easy smile, more like the man who watched and listened before he spoke.
Rosa turned, appraised him as if he were another dish to be set right, and tugged the collar straight. "Better," she said.
Luca lifted his eyes to Anna. "About this morning," he began, his voice low.
"It's fine," she said quickly, lowering her eyes. "You have a promise to keep."
He studied her, as if weighing whether to say more, then nodded once. "I won't be late."
Rosa clicked her tongue. "You will be polite, and you will come home hungry. Isabella never feeds anyone."
He laughed under his breath and leaned in to kiss his mother's cheek. "I'll try." At the doorway, he paused. "Anna —"
She kept her attention on the pan. "Have a good time."
A moment passed before he left.
A few minutes earlier, when the flame sputtered, Luca had leaned past Anna to turn the knob. His sleeve skimmed her arm. "Scusa," he'd murmured. Heat had risen in her cheeks at something that had nothing to do with the stove.
Rosa set a plate in front of Anna. "We eat with the guests, then we have a small sweet. Later, you rest. Tomorrow is another day."
Dinner moved the way dinners do — bread passed, wine glasses refilled, talk about weather and buses and a fisherman everyone seemed to know. A couple from Milan asked Anna where she was from. "New Jersey," she said, and their faces brightened with a story of a cousin in Brooklyn who mailed panettone every Christmas to everyone.
After the plates were cleared, Rosa brought out bowls of ricotta with honey and pistachios. "For strength," she said, tapping her own chest. "Here. We all need this."
The courtyard cooled as the sky deepened. When the last guest drifted upstairs, Rosa stacked plates at the sink and waved Anna away. "Go sit. I will finish."
Anna carried her bowl to the far end of the courtyard. Beyond the wall, a scooter rattled past and faded.
She tried not to think about Luca with Isabella, about the bright green dress and the way Isabella had said "sempre insieme," as if it were a claim. Jealousy felt foolish and small, but it was there, and denying it didn't make it less real. She set the empty bowl aside and rubbed her palms on her skirt.
The journal waited upstairs. Part of her wanted to push it off until morning. Another part knew she wouldn't sleep if she did.
*****
When she reached her room, the last of the light lay in a thin bar across the quilt. She closed the shutters most of the way, turned on the bedside lamp, and set the journal on her knees.
She stared at the torn edges and the worn spots where Sophia's fingers must have lingered. She touched the cracked leather and opened it to the ribbon she'd left. Pressing her lips together, she took a deep breath and began to read —
April 28, 1944
They moved us again. This house is farther from town, the walls thicker, the windows small. I was surprised to see the stern face of Sister Lucia — it seems like ages ago when she kept order in our classrooms, and now she is here. She comes in the afternoons with broth that smells of fennel and stands near the door as if kindness is a risk. When I thanked her, she said, "Do not use my name here," but her eyes were not unkind. Is it possible that she, too, is afraid?
I keep thinking of Maggie. I pray she is with Elizabeth.
Anna pictured a narrow room, a woman in a plain dress holding a chipped bowl, a door half-open. She thought of the nun she had seen at Santa Lucia, the one who watched from the hedges. What secrets might they all hold?
She ran her thumb along the paper, careful not to smudge the old ink, and turned the page.
June 10, 1944
She is restless inside me. At night, I lie awake and try to speak to her without words. I tell her she will be wanted, even if I cannot be the one to keep her. Today, Sister Lucia put her hand on my arm and said, "Be ready." I asked, "For what?" She looked at my belly and did not answer. What does she know that I don't?
Anna ran her fingers across the ragged stubs where sheets had been pulled free. She scanned ahead, palms damp, until the writing returned.
July 2, 1944
It began at dawn. The pain came like a wave and then another, each closer than the last. I tried not to cry out. They moved me to a small room with a crucifix on the wall and a chair with one arm broken. Sister Lucia was there, and another older one who said nothing. When it was done, they wrapped her and set her in the crook of my arm for one moment — only one. She was warm against my skin. Her hair was dark. Her mouth made a small circle as if to speak. I said her name in my head so no one could take it. I searched Sister Lucia's eyes, and I knew.
The nun, the one who did not speak, took my precious baby away.
Anna shut her eyes. When she opened them again, the page swam. She blinked hard, imagining Sophia's pain, and forced herself to continue reading.
July 3, 1944
I asked where my baby was. A woman said she was "with the sisters." I didn't understand. The truth is, I didn't want to believe it. I cried, "I am her mother. Please, bring her back to me."
She shook her head and told me, "War takes many things." I told her I would scream until my throat bled.
Sister Lucia came and whispered to me, "Hush. Walls have ears." She tucked something beneath the mattress when the older one turned away — a folded scrap with a name and a date. For the first time, I saw the sadness in her eyes.
I do not know if I will see my baby again. I count the breaths between now and the next hour. I count the hours until the next day. I tell myself that to live is to leave a legacy — our proof. Someone will find us, or so I pray.
Anna pressed her hand to her mouth. A record. A scrap. A name written and hidden. The only proof that a child was born.
There were more entries. The ink blurred, and the hand slanted, as if written quickly. Each of them — words of sadness, not for herself, but for her children.
July 10, 1944
Sister Lucia slipped into my room and whispered that there would be a record — a line in the baptism book — and that she would write what she could. I saw how nervous she was. She risked much to say it. I will heal, then try the only thing left — I will write to Elizabeth again and trust the pages to strangers. She kept Maggie. She will keep this piece of me. She must!
Later, a single line in a lighter ink appeared at the back, after a run of blank pages.
August 1, 1944
If anyone finds these pages, pray that God keeps my girls safe. They will not see their mother again.
Anna stared at the sentence until it doubled.
They will not see their mother again.
Blood drained from her face. She pressed her palm flat on the page as if she could hold Sophia there.
"No," she whispered. "No, no." The words broke. The room felt too small. She wanted to scream — to change what she'd found.
She saw it at once — the loss. Not only a baby taken at birth, but a life taken soon after. She pictured Elizabeth at a kitchen table in New Jersey, keeping a wooden horse within her eyes' reach. She pictured Maggie — Margaret — rocked by a woman who was not her mother, growing up in silence that no one could break.
Tears came fast and plain. She bent over the book and sobbed, one hand still on the page.
When she could breathe again, she wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand. "I won't let you disappear," she said into the quiet. "I will find you."
She closed the journal softly and held it against her chest.
A quiet rap on the door broke the silence.
“Delivery,” Luca said. “One plate of figs, drizzled and approved by Mama.”
He lifted the dish. “She swears you didn’t eat enough, but she thinks no one ever eats enough.”
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. "And you — I see you are not all right."
"I'm fine," she said, but the word cracked. He didn't step inside, only held 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 sat on the bed and let the tears come while he pulled a chair close and said nothing at all. When at last her storm eased, he pressed her hand.
"Mama will be angry if you don't eat at least one."
A thin laugh escaped her. She plucked a slice and bit into it.
"There," Luca said, leaning back, satisfaction tugging at his mouth. "Now you look more Sicilian."
Later, long after he'd gone, Anna lay with the journal beside her. Two children. One hidden. One unborn. She breathed the words and knew she meant it when she whispered into the dark, "I will find you."
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