Page 130 of The Unraveling of Julia

Aw.“That’s how I feel,” Julia said, relaxing a little. “When you spokeat the gallery, I was wondering if you were speaking to me. Were you?”

“Oh my goodness.” Fiamma sipped her wine, thoughtfully. “I have to say, I had the strangest feeling all day. I knew something wonderful was going to happen tonight, something really wonderful.”

Whoa.Julia wondered if Fiamma had the gift but didn’t interrupt her.

“I assumed the feeling was about the show, so I thought it meant I would sell some pieces. I didn’t intend to talk about the orphanage but when I saw you, I realizedyouwere what was wonderful, not the show.” Fiamma averted her eyes, as if she were thinking aloud. “I kept saying to myself, who is that girl, she looks like me, I wonder how old she is, I wonder if it’sher, mybaby girl.”

Julia’s throat thickened, but she stayed silent.

“I have to say, I think of you all the time.” Fiamma met her eye, sadly. “On your birthday, on holidays. You were always with me.”

“Thank you,” Julia said, feeling Fiamma’s words resonating in her chest.

“So at the gallery tonight, I found myself saying what I did, knowing how those mothers must’ve felt so long ago because it was how I felt when I relinquished you, which is what they say instead of abandoned.” Fiamma’s eyes filmed. “But Ididabandon you. I felt I had to, and it was the hardest decision I ever made. I’ve never made peace with it, and then there you were tonight. Before I gave you up, I memorized your face, every detail. Iknewexactly who you were, somehow.” Fiamma wiped away a tear. “I thought I was doing the right thing, for you. I knew I couldn’t support you, I was so confused then, at that point in my life.”

“Is that… what happened?” Julia felt tears in her eyes but held them off, and Fiamma’s anguished gaze traveled around the kitchen.

“I guess we should begin way back. I was so unhappy here, so miserable, with my mother. I tried to run away again and again when I wasyoung, as young as thirteen, but she’d drive around until she found me, obsessively looking. She wasobsessive. Anyway I got away from her for good when I was seventeen. I started drinking and partying, I made it to London, then back to Bologna and Padua.” Fiamma’s lower lip puckered. “I became pregnant with my boyfriend, your father. You were born in Padua. He taught mathematics at the University.”

My God.Julia couldn’t believe she was finally hearing her own life story. She tried to stay in emotional control. “What was his name?”

“Roberto Colapinto. He was from Siena.”

“That’s not far, right? I think I’ve seen signs.”

“It’s in Tuscany.”

So, Tuscan blood. Julia tried to process Roberto Colapinto. “What did he look like?”

“Tall, thin, good-looking. We were so in love.” Fiamma smiled. “I think your nose is like his, I can show you pictures another time.”

“Great,” Julia said, trying to keep up. “What was he like?”

“A kind man, a brilliant man, but too serious-minded.”

“I’m serious-minded,” Julia blurted out. “Is that bad?”

“No, but that wasn’t why we didn’t marry. I didn’t feel that I was ready to become a mother, given the way I was raised. I just didn’t know if I could be a good mother to you. I just didn’t know what a good mother was like, and he was too insecure to raise you on his own. We both decided that you would be better off with a solid family, one more established.” Her smile faded. “I’m sorry, I am. I placed you with a very good international adoption agency and I trusted them. Were they good people, who adopted you?”

“Yes, a couple with no other children. My mother was wonderful, but I always wondered where you were.” Julia hesitated. “And when I got a letter about an inheritance from an Emilia Rossi, I didn’t know who she was, so I came to find out. Did you know about that?”

“The inheritance? No.”

Julia felt awkward. “I don’t know why she left it to me and not you. Of course I’d split it with you, or you can have it. You lived with her, you deserve it more.”

“I don’t want her money, not any.” Fiamma frowned. “No, thank you.”

“But the inheritance alone is around three million euros, and the land is worth much, much more. That’s what tonight was about, people are trying to get it and resell it for a hospitality complex that will be seven hundred million—”

“You keep the money, all of it,” Fiamma said, more gently. “I want you to have it, it’s your legacy. You’re her granddaughter, and it doesn’t surprise me that she left it to you.”

“How did she? I don’t even know how she knew about me, or where I lived, or anything.”

“That’s because you didn’t know my mother.” Fiamma’s eyes narrowed, and hostility edged her tone. “She claimed she was a Sforza, which was a wealthy royal family from the Renaissance.”

“I know, I heard, and there’s the bedroom fresco.” Julia wasn’t about to tell her that Caterina saved her in the Boboli and showed her the underground cell. Not yet, anyway.

“Oh, right, I forgot, that monstrosity of a family tree. My mother was obsessed with her own heritage, especially with Caterina.”

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