Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Along its outskirts is a five-star luxury hotel my father had his eye on. He hadn’t gotten around to buying it yet, though. Dotted throughout are private, remote villas with some of the most beautiful views in the world. It’s a place where deep purple bougainvillea grow like weeds, climbing along pillars and snaking around marble balconies and balustrades to provide shade for the patios below and splashes of rich magenta against the lush green and blue landscape.
The house we pull up to is no exception. Tall iron gates open as we enter, then slowly close behind us. When the house comes fully into view, it steals my breath away. It’s a villa actually, not a house. It’s set at the highest point of the property, centuries old white stone crafted into a majestic mansion. Two stone pillars bookend the large, ornate double front doors of Medieval style heavy wood with ironwork that I wonder the age of. Upstairs along the balcony’s perimeter is more of the same stone carved into an elaborate cylindrical design, and from what I can see, it wraps all the way around to the other side.
Once the SUV comes to a stop, the men climb out. I follow, not wanting to be manhandled again. The driver carries my small purse in his giant hand, and I walk between the two tasked with guarding me as the doors open, and an older woman stands wiping her hands on a towel. She’s heavy-set and maybe in her early sixties with wiry gray hair pulled into a bun and a bright yellow apron tied around her waist. She watches me approach, and when I get to about two feet from her, another woman just a few years younger than this one comes running out.
“Nora, you gave me a scare,” she says. “I leave you alone for five minutes and what do you do but go wandering off.” I notice she says all of this in English.
The woman turns to her and smiles. “I heard the cars and saw the pretty girl.” She turns back to me. “The one with the dandelions.”
I stop dead in my tracks. Dandelions. Again.
But before I can think about it, Nora’s face falls. “Where is Roland?” she asks the other woman who gives me an unkind look before turning her away and walking her back inside.
“Come on, Nora. Let’s go take a nap. The boys will be back before you know it.”
The boys. Those men are no boys. Are they her sons? They could well be brothers.
“Move,” someone says to me, giving me a shove that sends me tripping into the house. I barely have time to look around the grand room with its marble floors and twelve-foot ceilings before I am told to proceed up the stairs and to one of what must be a dozen rooms up here. A soldier opens a door and gestures for me to enter.
“I want to call my sister,” I try once in Italian then again in English. I’m fluent in Italian. My brother was never interested in studying the language and his mother, who is French, made clear she wouldn’t force him to once the trouble between her and my father began. It was in case we ever came home, according to my father. Whenever he said that, Grandfather rolled his eyes. I wonder sometimes if dad was afraid of him. I know Grandfather found him weak at times. I hated that for him.
The soldier’s response is another shove. The door is closed and locked behind me and I find myself standing in the middle of a large bedroom. There’s a king-size bed in the center with a sheet over the mattress, a single flat pillow, a thin, worn blanket on top. The dresser is empty, as are the nightstand drawers. No lamps even, only the overhead. On the bureau beneath the window is a small vase with a bunch of wilted dandelions inside it.
My stomach turns.
Looking away from it, I walk to the bathroom and close the door behind me grateful for the small push-button lock. It’s beautiful, all white, gold-veined marble with a claw-footed tub against the far wall and a walk-in shower big enough for two. The house is old, but the bathroom has been refurbished, the fittings modern although designed to look like they’re original. The cabinets here are bare too. Only a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. A used bar of soap in the dish.
I wash my hands with that soap then cup them to drink some water. I pick up a towel and straighten to take in my reflection in the ornate, antique mirror. My hair is half in, half out of its chignon with strands sticking out where he pulled my hat off. It had been pinned into place. A streak of mascara smears my cheek, and my lipstick has worn clean off. On the side of my chin is a splatter of dark red which I wet the corner of the towel to wipe off.