“Let’s hope that’s not the case this time around,” Nicolina offered. “I was told they can’t compete with the internet and free news.”
“I wish I had lived back then.” Anina rested her face in her hands as she studied the photograph of her great-grandmother and grandmother. “You look just like your mother,” Anina observed.
“She was talented. She made my clothes. Mama said that hand-stitching my hems helped her skills as a nurse. My grandmother Netta made my hats. They were artistic.”
“What year was this taken?” Olimpio asked.
“Nineteen fifty.” Anina showed her grandfather the inscription on the back of the frame. “Right across the boulevard on Viareggio Beach.”
“I was nine years old,” Matelda confirmed.
“I thought your parents married in 1947. The priest showed us the great book with their names in it. Paolo and I will sign the same book on our wedding day.”
“You are correct. My parents were married in 1947.”
“You were born before they got married?” Anina looked at her grandmother. “You were born out of wedlock?”
“No!” Matelda and Nicolina said in unison.
“Nonno?”
“Don’t look at me. I don’t prune the family tree; I only married into this tribe. I didn’t set any dates other than my wedding to your grandmother.”
“My mother was married twice. Her first husband was my father.”
“Did you know this?” Anina asked Nicolina.
“I did. But there wasn’t a lot of information about him.”
“Most families in Toscana have a story like this, or a version of it. War displaces people and things happen,” Olimpio reasoned.
“What was his name?” Anina wanted to know.
“John Lawrie McVicars.”
“An American?”
“He was a Scot.”
“We’re Scottish? This would have been nice to know. Do you have a picture of him?” Anina asked.
Matelda shook her head no.
“All your grandmother has of him is the watch he gave your great-grandmother Domenica. That’s why she couldn’t give it to you,” Olimpio explained.
“Papa, what watch are you talking about?” Nicolina asked.
“The green one,” Anina said impatiently. “The upside-down watch.”
“Have I seen this watch?” Nicolina asked her mother.
“It’s in the case. I thought I kept it at the bank, but I was mistaken.”
“You asked me to get the watch for you, honey. About a year ago. You wanted it close. Remember?” Olimpio said gently.
“Bisnonna Domenica was a nurse,” Anina said to her mother. “You didn’t tell me that either.”
“She wasn’t a nurse when I knew her,” Nicolina said defensively. “She was a grandmother with white hair. Like Nonna here.”
“Hey.”
“You’re in better shape, Mama. When Nonna Domenica was your age, she had a hard time walking.”
“Either your body or your mind goes when you get to my stage of life, and you are not offered a choice,” Matelda said.
“That’s why we need to know about our ancestors. We can prepare for the bad stuff if we know it’s coming,” Anina insisted. “I should’ve been told the story of Bisnonna Domenica before now.”
“What difference would it have made?” Nicolina wondered.
“Maybe I would’ve thought about becoming a nurse,” Anina said.
Her grandparents and mother laughed.
“Okay, maybe not. I can’t stand anything messy or anything sad. But it doesn’t matter. There might be something else in her story that would inform my life now. One person in a family impacts the whole group. Dad went to have his family roots traced at the Università di Milano. I found out the Tizzi family was partly French.”
“I looked John McVicars up and couldn’t find him,” Matelda admitted. “He was on a list of the merchant navy, but that was it.”
Nicolina was surprised. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Now you know how I feel.” Anina sat back. “Pull up a chair in the dark.”
“Maybe I didn’t look hard enough. My mother had died, and when I mourned her, I found myself mourning the loss of my father, John McVicars.”
“Are there any other family secrets I should know?”
“Well, there was that great-great-grandfather of mine who spent a summer in Romania with an opera singer. I should follow up on that one,” Olimpio teased Anina.